Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This is part of the 20th Century Fox's Tyron Power swashbuckler boxed set. There was not a lot of swashbuckling in this movie, but the story and its stars still make it a fairly entertaining experience. The movie is based on Edison Marshall's novel about a young boy, Ben, who was the rightful heir of a large estate in Bristol England. However, he has to earn his way to what rightfully belongs to him. In the movie, Roddy McDowell plays Ben as a boy while Tyron Power plays him after he grows into manhood. As the movie opens, Ben is living and working with his grandfather, Amos Kidder (Harry Davenport). However, when Sir Arthur Blake (George Sanders), discovers that Ben is his dead brother's son, he gets a legal writ making him Ben's guardian so that he can keep a close eye on him. Arthur then makes Ben his indentured stable boy. As Ben grows up, he and Arthur's daughter, Isabel (Frances Farmer) fall in love but can do nothing about it because of their stations in life. Even Arthur's wife, Helena (Kay Johnson)--who had once been in love with Ben's father-- quietly takes Ben's side, hoping that he can someday prove his legitimate claim to the estate. After Ben assaults his master and runs away from the estate to earn money for his cause, Ben's grandfather is jailed. But, Ben and his grandfather are able to communicate to each other through a prostitute, Bristol Isabel (Elsa Lanchester), who knows how to get in and out of jail without drawing undue suspicion. Ben's grandfather relates (through Bristol Isabel) that he should make his fortune in the Indies and THEN try to make his case for the estate, with money in his pocket. Ben stows away on a ship headed for the Indies. Aboard this cruelly run ship, he meets another stowaway, Caleb Green (John Carradine). Green's crime is that he is a debtor. They both plan and execute an escape from the ship to a South Pacific island. Caleb had heard, from a 'Spanisher,' that the island atoll is loaded with valuable oyster pearls. His information proves to be correct, and they soon harvest a fortune in pearls to free themselves from their past stations.However, while on the island, Ben meets and falls in love with one of the island natives, whom he calls 'Eve' (Gene Tierney). He also becomes a great hero to the natives by teaching them how to make crud tools and improve their lives. Even though Eve loves Ben, she knows that he is waiting for some European ship to someday come along and take him back to England for revenge and to makes his rightful claim. She helps him watch for such a ship. When a Dutch ship eventually DOES land near the island, Ben departs on the ship, but Caleb decides to stay on the island for life. When Ben returns to England with his fortune in oyster pearls, he is capable of buying himself into respectability through an agent there, Bartholomew Pratt (Dudley Digges). Pratt takes some of his pearls and promises to use his influence to research and uncover the truth about Ben's parents. However, when Ben is put on trial for his past crimes, Pratt doesn't meet his promise and it looks as though Ben may face the ultimate penalty... As the movie draws towards its ending, it fills in the lack of swashbuckling with some dramatic moments and surprises. There are some interesting variations to the actors' usual character types. For example, Tyron Power is never very physical and when he physically fights someone, he always loses. It is not his physical gymnastics that wins the day here. It is, instead, his steadfastness about revenge and his rights. Furthermore, this is not the George Sanders that we are used to either: While we are used to seeing him as a powerfully-connected courtier, a dandy, a fop, or a cleverly smug Addison DeWitt-type character, here he is a physically brutal pugilist who would rather live by his fists and his whip than his wit, wordplay and cryptic charm.

SON OF FURY is one of the most fondly remembered adventure films from Hollywood's Golden Age. Produced by William Perlberg for 20th Century Fox in 1942 it was directed with a positive flair by John Cromwell. Based on the classic novel by Edison Marshall it had a cracking screenplay by Philip Dunne and the perfect leading man in handsome Tyrone Power who was still enjoying the great success of his popular pirate swashbuckler "The Black Swan" released just prior to this. SON OF FURY is also notable for an excellent performance from the ill-fated Francis Farmer who plays the spoilt and priggish daughter of slimy villain George Saunders. Farmer looks quite lovely in the picture and is probably her best remembered role.Ty Power is in his element as the young Benjamin Blake in the early part of the nineteenth century seeking restitution after being cheated out of his proper inheritance by his roguish uncle (Saunders). As a boy he becomes his bond servant and grows into manhood in a cruelly treated existence. But after a fierce beating and many other indignities under the uncle's tutelage he flees home. He joins a ship sailing for the South Seas and with a colleague (John Carradine) jumps ship and comes ashore on an exotic Polynesian island. After some time he meets and falls in love with a beautiful Polynesian girl (Gene Tierney). Some years pass and after amassing a fortune in pearls he returns to England. He hires a lawyer (Dudley Diggs) who clears his name (in an excellent courtroom scene) and restores his rightful inheritance much to the chagrin of his uncle resulting in a well staged fist fight between Power and Saunders (an interesting analogy - some 15 years later in a fight scene with the same two actors while filming "Solomon & Sheba" (1959)- Tyrone Power would die on set from a massive heart attack. He was only 44 years old!) SON OF FURY ends with him returning to the island and taking up where he left off with the native girl.This is my only complaint about the movie - the casting of Gene Tierney as a Polynesian native girl! She doesn't look Polynesian nor native! She looks just like Laura in a grass skirt on holiday on a South Sea island!Gloriously photographed in black & white by the great Arthur Miller the picture is also buoyed by a terrific score by Alfred Newman featuring a great swashbuckling main theme and an arresting love motif for the picture's softer moments. Newman's score can be enjoyed for its own merits isolated on the DVD's audio track. Also on the disc is a featurette about Power with a nice contribution from the director's son - modern character actor James Cromwell.In 1953 Fox remade the picture - this time in Technicolor - and called it "Treasure Of The Golden Condor" starring Cornel Wilde and Constance Smith but it had only minor success. Unlike the splendid SON OF FURY it is now virtually forgotten!

Why is Frances Farmer referred to as "the late. Are the other cast members all still living? What is the difference between heal and heel?On another subject, does anybody know who is the man coming out of the screen door of Selznick Interntional movie studio? You just catch a glimpse of him during the introduction before the picture fades out. Maybe it is Mr. Selznick himself?In the cast is says that Dennis Hooey was in it, but could not find him? He played Inspector LeStrade in the Sherlock Holmes movies. Any help on this also appreciated.One day would like to make a visit to the former Selznick Studio. Actually, this movie was made by the Fox Co., wasn't it? Sorry about that. I once spoke with a top public information officer of 20th Century Fox sorry again, and when I asked her why FOX was all big letters in the e-mail I had received, she said she didn't know. I asked "Isn't that a person's name?" and she replied, "I don't know, is it?" I found that an interesting comment on the current education system in the United States.

There are some films that can be described very well using words. This one cannot. It must be seen and even more than that, experienced. It offers a bit of Dickens, a bit of Dumas and certainly is built upon one old fashioned cliché after another but all that truly doesn't matter one whit. This film, all in all, taken as a whole, is like a wonderful painting or even more enjoyable dream. It is touched with sadness because, apart from the plot, we know that there is sadness ahead for all of the principal actors but even so, what a pleasure in seeing those faces and hearing those voices is gained with every viewing. One final thing, thank you Mr. Pratt for redeeming the reputation of lawyers everywhere.