Desire in the Dust ** (1960, Raymond Burr, Martha Hyer, Joan Bennett, Ken Scott, Brett Halsey) – Classic Movie Review 7146

Raymond Burr stars in director William F Claxton’s 1960 Deep South film noir crime melodrama as wealthy Southerner, Colonel Ben Marquand, who greets ex-convict Lonnie Wilson (Ken Scott) after he has served six years in prison for the accidental car-crash death of a family son.

But now that sharecropper’s son Lonnie is free, it turns out that he did not do it. Lonnie was enjoying a fling with Burr’s daughter Melinda (Martha Hyer), who accidentally killed her brother, and Burr persuaded Scott into being the fall guy. Meanwhile, Colonel Ben’s wife Mrs Marquand (Joan Bennett) has gone round the bend and Hyer has wed the family doctor Ned Thomas (Brett Halsey).

The reliably entertaining Burr, Bennett and Hyer head a fragrant cast, even if the trashily steamy yarn is foolishly overwrought and not always very convincing.

The acting and Lucien Ballard’s widescreen black and white cinematography and the acting save the day, though the irresistibly pulpy story, based on a novel by Harry Whittington, does have a fascination of its own. Brett Halsey won the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Male. The screenplay is by Charles Lang.

Also in the cast are Anne Helm, Edward Binns, Jack Ging, Douglas Fowley, Kelly Thordsen, Rex Ingram, Irene Ryan, Paul Baxley, Robert Earle, Patricia Snow, Elmore Morgan, Audrey Moore, Joseph Sidney Felps, Joe Paul Steiner and Margaret Field (the mother of Sally Field).

Raymond Burr (1917–1993). Joan Bennett (1910–1990). Martha Hyer (1924–2014). Burr is seven years younger than Bennett and only seven years older than Hyer, playing his daughter.

Desire in the Dust is directed by William F Claxton, runs 102 minutes, is produced by Lippert and Associated Producers Inc, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Charles Lang, based on a novel by Harry Whittington, is shot in widescreen and black and white by Lucien Ballard, is produced by Robert L Lippert and William F Claxton, is scored by Paul Dunlap and is designed by Ernst Fegté.

It was shot in July 1960 in Baton Rogue, Louisiana.

Producer Lippert wanted Dana Andrews, Patricia Owens and Tuesday Weld to star, but Burr stepped when Andrews left, as his Perry Mason TV show was on a production break because of a writers’ strike.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7146

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