The Furies

“I don’t think I like being in love. It puts a bit in my mouth.” Vance Jeffords is used to taking the reins, but love is letting go. Vance’s rich father T.C. has always spoiled her, but he was never able to bribe her rebellious character into submission. Cattle rancher T.C. Jeffords single-handedly built his own ranch, The Furies, years ago, in New Mexico territory. During those years, he made enemies, among whom Rip Darrow, the man who stole Vance’s heart. T.C. pays Rip to stay away from Vance. And as if that betrayal wasn’t enough, T.C. comes home with a new woman and the news that he won’t leave The Furies to her, but to an outsider. Driven by hatred, Vance plots her father’s downfall.

Western director Anthony Mann cast Walter Huston – father of the Huston dynasty with John and Angelica being the most famous offspring – in his final role as the money-grabbing patriarch T.C. Jeffords. Huston died before the film was released. THE FURIES is an eccentric hybrid western in Mann’s oeuvre. Part western, part melodrama, part Freudian analysis of the complex father-daughter bond. As a ‘man’s director’, with films where men mostly play the key roles, Anthony Mann still approaches his female characters and actresses with a remarkable sensitivity. The roles for women in westerns were limited: heiress, prostitute or schoolteacher, but usually not the catalyst of the story. Mann’s women are strong, assertive and active, despite their place by the fire. Barbara Stanwyck , however, was a completely different story. In 1950 she was already an established actress, always game to tackle new challenges. Westerns were her favourite genre, fuelled by her love for horses and doing her own stunts. In THE FURIES she portrays one of the toughest women, with a daddy complex, in western history. A dominant anti-heroine whose revenge is equal to total destruction.