The Furies(1950)

Storyline

• In the 1870s New Mexico territory, T.C. Jeffords (Walter Huston) is a cattle baron who built his ranch, The Furies, from scratch. He borrows from banks, pays hired hands with his own scrip ("T.C.s"), and carries on low-level warfare with the Mexicans who settled the land but are now considered squatters. He has enemies, including Rip Darrow (Wendell Corey), a saloon owner from whose father T.C. took land. His headstrong daughter Vance (Barbara Stanwyck) has a lifelong friend in one of the Mexicans, her heart set on Rip, and dad's promise that she will run The Furies someday. Her hopes are smashed by Rip's revenge, a gold-digger who turns T.C.'s head, and T.C.'s own murderous imperialism. Is Vance to be cursed by fury and hatred? — Vance Jeffords (Barbara Stanwyck) is a firebrand, and that's the way her equally iron-willed father, T.C. Jeffords (Walter Huston), likes her. Certainly the tyrannical cattle rancher cares more for his daughter than his seemingly weak-willed son, whose wedding is only the ostensible reason for him to end his San Francisco trip earlier than expected and return to The Furies. T.C. needs money, and being something like a feudal lord of the 1870s, all he has to do is print some up: his own money, paper bills called "T.C.s". He also has enough power to drive off the Mexican squatters from his land, but Vance insists that he leave the Herrera family alone. She is close friends with the family's eldest son Juan (Gilbert Roland), who is in love with her. Vance is in love with nobody until she meets Rip Darrow (Wendell Corey), a flinty gambler who wants back the piece of land he believes rightfully belongs to him. Predictably, father and daughter clash over Rip, but their lively relationship doesn't turn ugly until T.C., who hasn't been serious about a woman since his wife had the effrontery to die, meets an attractive widow who schemes to take control of The Furies herself. — J. Spurlin