Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942)

Drama Tuesday

Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942) (or That Movie in Which Roddy McDowall Turns Into Tyrone Power and Becomes an Irredeemable Cad)

Hear me out. This is a film  about a man regaining the honor, dignity and inheritance that was mercilessly stripped away from him in his childhood. The guy has suffered a lot. However, (and this is something that the movie doesn't seem to address and why I have my own case of fury) blinded with rage, he often doesn't stop to think about anyone else once he becomes an adult.

Fury is based on the Edison Marshall novel about Benjamin Blake (Power) whose uncle, Sir Arthur Blake (George Sanders), has usurped his nephew's place as lord of Breetham, and, according to The Siren, dominates his nephew in more ways than are expressly articulated. It's Ben's quest to have his rightful place.

  Young Ben (McDowall) yoked to drudgery

Ben also wants to marry Isabel (Frances Farmer), his uncle's fiercely mercenary daughter (what does he see in her?), whom he has admired from the stables for awhile. They even become secretly engaged, sort of. Lady has preconditions. The wind from the horse's quarters disturbs her delicate nose, so Isabel won't marry him at all unless he becomes master of the estate, and move from being her stable boy flunky to being her husband flunky. Thinking this is the deal of the century, Ben agrees. 

 Isabel: "You're only as tasty as the lettuce in your wallet."

Ben: "I can live with that."

To bankroll his plan for revenge (and love), the young man goes off to sea to harvest precious pearls. There he promptly forgets about the woman he's engaged to and can't resist Gene Tierney's overbite. He marries an island lady named Eve and becomes a sort of councilman/mayor/handyman of the island in his spare time. Apparently Eve is just a convenient something to have around, like cough drops, because when a ship comes along, he eagerly hops aboard without her.

Eve: "We're having so much fun, nothing can destroy our relationship."

Ben: "I hear the ships coming, honey. Gotta go."

Eve:"But you haven't finished your jelly fish."

Ben: " Keep it to remember me."

It's understood that he will not return, because, you know, he has way too much stuff to do back home - a villain to beat up, an estate to regain, another lady to marry - all of which is more important than the woman who has been "servicing" him during his years on the island.

"I wonder if he'll write."

Ben goes back home, and he does regain his estate and give the bad guy what for . However, he overhears Isabel gloating about her control over him and instantly breaks ties. (Whew! That was close. Missed being a bigamist by that much.)

Our "hero" returns to the island where he knows that Eve, the enabling type, will be waiting in the same spot where he left her.

Eve: "I have you on the rebound. We're such a  functioning couple."

Because the movie does not allow Ben to acknowledge that playing this marital revolving door game is at best, not nice, the power of Power doesn't move me this time around. And it's a shame because I like the film, in general.