To me, this movie is perfection.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Lonnie (Ken Scott) just got out of prison for vehicular homicide. The problem is that through the course of the movie you realize that he didn't do it but took the rap for his girlfriend, Melinda (Martha Hyer). But when Lonnie gets into town, he learns that Melinda is married and she didn't wait for him! Nice girl, huh? Well, through the course of the film you come to realize that she's actually much, much worse!This film definitely pushed the envelope back in 1960...deliberately so. The fim begins with a scene where you THINK you see someone skinny dipping and the story is filled with sleazy elements and some cursing as well as the word 'rape'....somewhat tame by modern standards but certainly not for 1960!So is it worth seeing? Well, the acting quality is very good and it's a well made film. Whether or not you will like it will depend a lot on whether or not you like sleazy soap operas. I enjoyed it. By the way, this film has some very strange billing. Although Kent Scott clearly plays the leading character in the film, he gets fourth billing. And, although Joan Bennett received third billing, she's barely in the film.

There should be a special genre name for dramas focusing on the so-called sweet southern life. Outside of the mint juleps, magnolia blossoms and happy servants being paid for serving their overly charming employers, there's the memory of slavery, the desire for power and the selfish Belle's that would gladly kill to get the man they want and the disillusioned or insane family matriarch hanging into a dream that never came true. The stories are sprawling and the characters colorful, but unfortunately, this black and white wide screen film is as dusty and depressing as the characters involved in the clichéd story.Sharecropper's son Ken Scott has been released from a chain gang for an accidental death that he was not responsible for. Returning home, he finds out that the rich girl he loves (Martha Hyer) is engaged to marry doctor Brett Halsey. Her powerful father (Raymond Burr) has a hankering to be governor of Louisiana and wants no scandal shaking things up, so Scott's presence is quite unwelcome. Then, there's Joan Bennett as his seemingly mentally unhinged wife, clinging onto the belief that a dead son is alive. Knowledge of past scandals involving Burr's family has given Scott's father (Douglas Fowley in a part that Walter Brennan would have played 20 years before) an upper hand on retaining his land, so there's plenty of intrigue to be dealt with during the film's 100 minutes.For the first 20 minutes of the film ("the grabber"), pretty much nothing of interest happens other than a generic introduction to the younger characters. It's obvious that Hyer is a spoiled, selfish modern belle, and that doesn't make her at all a leading character to sympathize with. Burr is the typical powerful blowhard, and while he has the charm that hides a nasty streak, he lacks the commanding southern presence that actors like Burl Ives and Ed Begley had. The wasted Joan Bennett is simply there for the big reveal and while still very attractive, lacks the moments in the script to really build to the big ball drop. Scott is definite eye candy but lacks the charisma of other young rebels with causes. This is one of those letdowns that seemed to have promise, but is basically a large steak where the juicy bits seem surrounded by fat. Trim that fat, and you end up with dog scraps.

***SPOILERS*** It's when Lonnnie Wilson, Ken Scott, shows up that things start getting really interesting and dangerous in the quite little town of Clinton Louisiana. Lonnie had spent the last six years on a Louisiana chain gang for running down and killing little 10 year old Davie Marquard in a drunk driving accident. As we soon find out it wasn't Lonnie who was behind the wheel of the car that ran Davie down but his girlfriend Melinda Marquard, Martha Hyer, Davie's big sister! So why did the totally innocent Lonnie Wilson take the rap for a crime that he didn't commit?The truth surrounding the circumstances of Davie's tragic death slowly comes out in bits and pieces and it boils down to this. To prevent Melinda from being charged in her kid brother's death Lonnie was encouraged by her pop big shot in town Col.Ben Marquard,Raymond Burr, to take the rap for her! Now with the Colonel planning to run for governor of the great state of Louisiana the last thing he wants is for Lonnie to hurt his chances of becoming the chief executive of the state. And it's his daughter Melinda, whom Lonnie was in love with and took to rap for, by her marrying Dr. Ned Thomas, Brett Halsey, that may well be the reason for Col. Ben's campaign for governor to go down in flames before it even begins!Raymond Burr who took time off from his popular Perry Mason TV show to be in the film plays such a sleazy corrupt and unethical person in Col. Ben that even Perry Mason couldn't keep him from getting convicted. It's Col.Ben's rotten to the core daughter who proves the phrase "That the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" to be true in taking after her pop in how she treats her former lover Lonnie Wilson as well as her now husband Dr. Ned Thomas. Both men are manipulated by Melinda to the point where they, by the time the film is even over, almost end up murdering each other!As for Col. Ben's mentally destroyed wife Mrs. Marquard, Joan Bennett, she still believes that little Davie is alive despite witnessing him being killed and is encouraged into believing that by her husband Col. Ben. That instead of getting the poor woman help in being treated for her severe mental depression! It's Lonnie as usual who gets the short end of the stick in the movie by being dumped by Milanda and at the same time set him up, after she gets caught making out with him, in getting Lonnie murdered by her outraged husband Dr. Thomas.***SPOILERS*** It's the crusading newspaper owner of the towns Clinton Press Luke Connett, Edward Binns, who comes to Lonnie's rescue before he ended up shot by a posse lead Sheriff Wheaton, Kelly Thordsen, one of Col. Ben's paid off stooges. That's in Luke in getting Lonnie off-while he's on the lamb form the law-on a phony attempted rape charge by you guessed it Milinda Marquard. This has Lonnie, who also ended up getting shot by Milinda, to open up and spill the beans on Col. Ben's covering up his daughter's involvement in Davie's death. By the Colonel having Lonnie unwittingly, by being promised that Milinda would be waiting for him after he finishes his sentence, tricked into taking the rap for it!In the end Col.Ben's plans to become governor of Louisiana fall by the wayside and worst of all his wimpy son Peter, Jack Ging, whom the Colonel treats with absolute contempt finally lets him have it by telling him what a low down and dirty rat he really is! Peter ends up walking out on his tyrannical pop in order to marry Lonnie's kid sister Cass, Anne Helms, whom the by now completely discredited Colonel was dead set against him doing!

Released in 1960, Desire in the Dust looks to have been a B movie, featuring a lot of TV actors and future TV actors: Raymond Burr, Anne Helm, Jack Ging, Edward Binns, Martha Hyer, and Brett Halsey. The film also looks to be attempting to cash in on the success of those southern Big Daddy dramas like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Long Hot Summer.The Big Daddy in this one is Raymond Burr, who tightly controls a family that includes his off-her-rocker wife, played by Joan Bennett, stunningly beautiful daughter Hyer, her wimpy doctor husband, Brett Halsey, and son, Jack Ging. Bennnett never recovered from the death of a young son who was hit by a car six years earlier; Ging is love with the white trash daughter of the man who supposedly ran him over.Of course, there's a lot more to the story than that and in 102 minutes, this film stuffs it all in, including more cigarettes and alcohol than one would see in ten films put together. There are also a lot of bullets, dust, and histrionics.All in all, it's a slow go, with a couple of interesting segments and decent acting.