Blu-ray, DVD Release: The Furies

Blu-ray Release Date: April 20, 2021
Price: Blu-ray $27.99
Studio: Criterion

Barbara Stanwyck (Forty Guns) and Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) are at their fierce finest in 1950’s The Furies, a crackling western melodrama by master Hollywood craftsman Anthony Mann (Strangers in the Night).

In 1870s New Mexico Territory, megalomaniacal widowed ranch owner T. C. Jeffords (Huston, in his final role) butts heads with his firebrand of a daughter, Vance (Stanwyck), over her dowry, choice of husband, and, finally, ownership of the land itself.

Sophisticated in its view of frontier settlement and ablaze with searing domestic drama, The Furies is an often-overlooked treasure of American filmmaking, boasting Oscar–nominated cinematography and vivid supporting turns from Judith Anderson (Rebecca) and Wendell Corey (The File on Thelma Jordon).

Criterion’s Blu-ray edition of the film—a DVD was issued back in 2008—contains the following features:

• High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary from 2008 featuring film historian Jim Kitses
• New program featuring critic Imogen Sara Smith
• The Movies: “Action Speaks Louder Than Words,” a 1967 television interview with director Anthony Mann
• Rare on-camera interview with actor Walter Huston, made for the movie-theater series Intimate Interviews in 1931
• Interview from 2008 with Nina Mann, the director’s daughter
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• An essay by critic Robin Wood and a 1957 Cahiers du cinéma interview with Mann, as well as a new printing of the 1948 novel by Niven Busch on which the film is based