The Electra complex goes West! Part western and part domestic melodrama, The Furies is a Freudian-addled portrait of a power struggle between an entrenched and foolish ranch baron and his devoted but cunning daughter (the suggestions of incest are so predominate that it’s a wonder the film made it past the PCA). One of the first of Mann’s powerfully subversive 1950s westerns, it makes great use of Barbara Stanwyck’s focused intensity and sexual prowess while also giving her a tender vulnerability, as well as the great Walter Huston’s penchant for mixing blustery patriarchal power with comic relief. Mann’s on-location compositions are stark and beautiful and the story unfolds with brute simplicity, winding its way to a conclusion that is simultaneously inevitable and forced in its redemption for key characters. (DVD)