Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “ A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, let’s revisit Desert Fury, a melodrama from 1947 with a subtextual same-sex relationship so obvious it’s basically text!
A recurring theme—one could even call it a core element!—of this column is the ways in which homosexual characters and queer relationships had to be coded, disguised, or repressed in mainstream Hollywood films during the first half of the 20th century, most notably in the Hays Code era. We’ve had to read into minor mannerisms, glances, innuendos, and turns of phrase in order to find our stories on screen back in the day. And in the rare cases that homosexuality was acknowledged, it was a punishment or a mockery.
How about we take this to the next level?
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So it’s rather discombobulating to come across a film from the ’40s that goes beyond the limits of “subtextual insinuations” and instead depicts a same-sex relationship so openly and broadly that it almost feels out of time! This week, we’ll take a look at a melodrama that has earned a reputation as the “gayest movie ever made in Hollywood’s Golden Era” with very, very good reason.
The Set-Up
Desert Fury is a 1947 melodrama directed by Lewis Allen, and starring Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak, Mary Astor, Wendell Corey, and Burt Lancaster in just his second screen appearance ever. The film is set in the small town of Chuckawalla in Nevada, and follows young, rebellious heiress Paula (Scott), the daughter of the tough, feared matriarchal owner of the local casino, Fritzi Haller (Astor). Paula is an untamable young woman who keeps dropping out of school, and desperately wants to get out from under the thumb and watchful eye of her mother.
At the same time, a disgraced mobster named Eddie (Hodiak) rolls into town with his loyal henchman Johnny (Corey), and seeks refuge in an old ranch as he recovers from the unexpected death of his wife, which many locals—including Fritzi—suspect he caused himself. As things go in a good melodrama, Paula ends up falling desperately in love with Eddie and moving in with him at the ranch, much to the dismay of her mother, who tries to marry off Paula with local cop Tom Handson (Lancaster) in a last attempt to keep her under her roof.
But more strikingly, the arrival of Paula puts a wedge between Eddie and his longtime companion slash bodyguard slash close personal friend Johnny, who believes she is there to ruin Eddie’s reputation and future. Johnny begins using manipulation tactics to drive the new couple apart, and cling on to the life he has built together with him.
The film is a beautifully expansive Western melodrama that uses the vast landscapes of the American West and its tropes to create a quite poignant dissection of masculinity, family values, and gender roles at the turn of the century. It effectively mixes the large scope of the Western and heightened filmmaking techniques like Technicolor with the intimate emotional scale of the family melodrama, where family secrets, betrayal, and hidden desires feel as big as the desert that surrounds them.
And They Were “Roommates”
The film excels on a technical, performance, and narrative level (although the plot does stretch its limits at points), but what is undoubtedly its standout point, and the reason it has withstood more strongly than other similar movies of the time, is the relationship between Eddie and Johnny.
Eddie and Johnny are a pair of crooks that met when they were young (many years before Eddie even met his deceased wife), and rose together through the ranks of criminal life. They are each other’s best friends and defenders. And the film is refreshingly frank with the way it portrays their relationship. It’s openly stated that they have lived together for years, that they care deeply for each other, and that what affects one of them, affects them both. For all intents and purposes, they are in a functional long-term relationship.
Desert Fury is a movie partly about the breaking of their marriage. Their remote ranch operates in the same way as a white picket fence suburban home does in other great Hollywood domestic melodramas. It’s filled with secrets, resentment, and passion. The audience mostly follows Paula as the protagonist, so it’s up to us to fill in the blanks as to what happens when she’s not there.
But Eddie and Johnny suntan together, express overt jealousy, and eventually, are willing to die for the secrets they shared with each other. The film at no point tries to disguise this dynamic or make it less obvious or explicit than it is; it feeds on its implications to highlight the themes of gender roles and traditional family values even further.
Star-Crossed Lovers
In a way, Eddie and Johnny are the only functional relationship in the film. Paula’s relationship with her mother is filled with co-dependency and resentment; they see each other as equals (and in turn, as bitter rivals) rather than as mother-daughter. Paula is indifferent at best (and repulsed at worst) by the good intentions of nice cop Tom to keep her in the good side of the tracks, and we even learn that *spoiler alert* Eddie and Fritzi share a much more extensive history, with a passionate affair that ended bitterly.
In this world, Johnny and Eddie are the only stable, successful pairing, up until a third person enters the picture. And because this was still 1940s Hollywood, it’s the one that must be dismantled at each other’s hands.
At a time where queer relationships and characters were being squabbled left and right, and all we had were barely perceivable hints or codes hidden in between lines, it’s jarring to come across a film so explicit about the nature of the relationship between two of its characters. What may have been read as obtuse or vague by some back then out of ignorance feels undeniable with today’s eyes.
In that sense, it’s both invigorating and disappointing to see such a clear example of the deep impact a same-sex relationship story could have in genres and spaces that we historically have been left out of. We could have always elevated the narrative. We could have made them stronger, and more complex, and richer. And now that leaves us to make up for so much lost time.
Desert Fury is currently streaming via The Criterion Channel.
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