''Inferno'' is a 1953 American drama/thriller starring

Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor and activist. Known for his portrayals of hardened cops and ruthless villains, Ryan performed for over three decades. He was nominated for the Academy Award for B ...

William Lundigan William Paul Lundigan (June 12, 1914 – December 20, 1975) was an American film actor. His more than 125 films include '' Dodge City'' (1939), ''The Fighting 69th'' (1940), ''The Sea Hawk'' (1940), ''Santa Fe Trail'' (1940), '' Dishonored Lady ...

and

Rhonda Fleming Rhonda Fleming (born Marilyn Louis; August 10, 1923 – October 14, 2020) was an American film and television actress and singer. She acted in more than 40 films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most glamoro ...

, directed by

Roy Ward Baker Roy Ward Baker (born Roy Horace Baker; 19 December 1916 – 5 October 2010) was an English film director. His best known film is ''A Night to Remember (1958 film), A Night to Remember'' (1958) which won a Golden Globe for Golden Globe Award for ...

. It was shot in

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

and shown in 3-D, with stereophonic sound.

Plot

When millionaire industrialist Donald Carson III breaks his leg during a trip through the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily ...

, his wife Gerry and her lover mining engineer Joe Duncan tell him they will seek medical aid. They deliberately don't return however, hoping Carson will perish while he is stranded alone in the desert. He vows to survive in order to exact revenge on his adulterous wife and her accomplice, who have flown to Carson's mansion in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

, while waiting for him to succumb to either desert heat or suicide. Instead he fashions a splint for his leg, enabling him to limp down the rocks where he was left and head through the desert. He successfully digs a well and shoots a deer, making strips of dried meat that will last for days. Law enforcement officers had hoped to find the missing Carson; but after several unsuccessful attempts, it is decided to call off further search efforts. Joe is getting nervous though and to make sure Carson is dead he flies a small plane over the region and spots the remnants of a fire. Suspecting now that Carson is still alive, Joe and Gerry drive back into the desert to look for him and finish him off if necessary. Joe discovers Carson still limping through the desert and is about to shoot him, when an old prospector called Elby, driving a

jalopy A decrepit car is a car that is often old and damaged and is in a barely functional state. There are many slang terms used to describe such cars, the more popular including junk car, beater, clunker, hooptie, jalopy, shitbox, junker, and banger ...

, encounters Carson and gives him a ride back to his shack. On returning to his own car, Joe finds that in her haste to leave him Gerry has driven his car over a large rock by accident, which has ruptured the vehicle's oil pan. The damage now makes it impossible for them to drive out of the desert. Joe then sees a pair of binoculars on the car seat and he suddenly realizes that her real intention when she moved the car, was to abandon him as well as her husband. Joe angrily walks away, leaving Gerry to fend for herself alone in the Mojave. That evening at Elby's shack, the prospector prepares supper for Carson, who confesses to his rescuer that although revenge is what sustained him while lost in the desert, the treachery of his wife and her lover no longer seem important. As Elby goes outside to his well for water, he is knocked out by Joe, who spotted the light coming from his shack. Joe then shoots at Carson but misses. The two men engage in a desperate, brutal fistfight inside the shack. A toppled stove causes the shack to catch fire and with both men barely conscious, Elby comes to just in time to drag Carson to safety while Joe perishes in the blaze. The next day, as Elby drives Carson to the nearest town, they spy Gerry walking alone on a long, remote stretch of desert road. Elby stops his car beside her and Carson calmly tells her that she can either wait for the authorities to find her or ride into town with them. She reluctantly climbs onto the back of the car and the film ends with the car continuing on its way.

Cast

as Donald Whitley Carson III *

as Geraldine Carson *

as Joseph Duncan *

Larry Keating Lawrence Keating (June 13, 1899 – August 26, 1963) was an American actor best known for his roles as Harry Morton on ''The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show'', which he played from 1953 to 1958, and next-door neighbor Roger Addison on '' Mist ...

as Dave Emory *

Henry Hull Henry Watterson Hull (October 3, 1890 – March 8, 1977) was an American character actor perhaps best known for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's '' Werewolf of London'' (1935). For most of his career, he was a lead actor on stage and a c ...

as Sam Elby *

Carl Betz Carl Lawrence Betz (March 9, 1921 – January 18, 1978) was an American stage, film, and television actor. He appeared in a variety of television series, including the CBS soap opera '' Love of Life''; he is best remembered for playing Don ...

as Lt. Mike Platt * Robert Burton as Sheriff * Robert Adler as Ken, Ranch Hand * Harry Carter as Deputy Fred Parks * Everett Glass as Mason, Carson's Butler * Adrienne Marden as Emory's Secretary *

Barbara Pepper Barbara Pepper (born Marion Pepper; May 31, 1915 – July 18, 1969) was an American stage, television, radio, and film actress. She is best known as the first Doris Ziffel on the sitcom '' Green Acres''. Early life and career Marion Pepper ...

as Waitress * Charles Tannen as voice of police radio broadcaster * Dan White as Lee, Ranch Hand

Production

''Inferno'' is 20th Century Fox's first

3-D film 3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. They have existed in some form since 1915, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion pic ...

Release

The 2-D version of the film was released on October 8, 1953.

Critical response

When the film was released, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' gave the film a positive review and lauded the direction of the picture and the acting, writing,

fragmentary realism the picture rings true and persuasive. Mr. Ryan's portrayal of the gritty, determined protagonist is, of course, a natural. Miss Fleming, one of Hollywood's coolest, prettiest villainesses, knows how to handle literate dialogue, which, in this case, she shares.

In a positive review, '' Time Out Film Guide'' called the film, "A tight and involving essay in suspense which works on the ingenious idea of leaving the audience alone in the desert with an unsympathetic and selfish character," and noted the finer aspects of the 3-D film, writing,

''Inferno'' was one of the best and last movies to be made in 3-D during the boom in the early '50s. Certainly its use of space emphasized the dramatic possibilities of 3-D and reveals, as more than one person has observed, that the device had largely been squandered in other films made at the time.

Film critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and wrote,

Inferno loses something when not seen in 3-D as intended when released, nevertheless it remains as a taut survival thriller. It makes good use of 3-D, in fact it does it better than most other such gimmicky films ... The desert photography by Lucien Ballard is stunning.

Revival screenings

On February 1, 2013, ''Inferno'' was shown in digital 3-D in a double feature with '' Man in the Dark'' (1953) in the Noir City Film Festival at the

Castro Theater The Castro Theatre is a historic movie palace in San Francisco that became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street in the Castro District, it was built in 1922 with a California Churrigueresque faça ...

in San Francisco.

Home media

''Inferno'' has been made available on Hulu in

anaglyph 3D Anaglyph 3D is the stereoscopic 3D effect achieved by means of encoding each eye's image using filters of different (usually chromatically opposite) colors, typically red and cyan. Anaglyph 3D images contain two differently filtered colored ...

(not its native format). ''Inferno'' was released as a 3D Blu-ray disc, from an excellent print, first from Panamint in Scotland and later by Twilight Time in the United States.

Remake

''Inferno'' was remade for television in

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: ...

as ''Ordeal,'' with Arthur Hill in the Robert Ryan part and

Diana Muldaur Diana Muldaur (born August 19, 1938) is an American film and television actress. Muldaur's television roles include Rosalind Shays on '' L.A. Law'' and Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. She als ...

and

James Stacy Maurice William Elias (December 23, 1936September 9, 2016), known professionally as James Stacy, was an American film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for starring in the late 1960s TV western ''Lancer''. In 1973, Stacy was hit by ...

as his would-be murderers..

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Inferno (1953 Film) 1950s American films 1950s English-language films 1950s thriller drama films 1953 films 1953 drama films 1953 3D films 20th Century Fox films Adultery in films American 3D films American survival films American thriller drama films Color film noir Film noir Films directed by Roy Ward Baker Films scored by Paul Sawtell Films set in California Films set in deserts