The best thing about the movie is its glorious color images. What iconography! The hulking presence of the sun-darkened Jeff Chandler, the prismatic vibrancy of Jane Russell's wardrobe, the stunning majesty of her pale bosom, that candy-apple red 1954 Ford convertible, the canary yellow Jeep.The rest of the movie is a snore. Jane Russel, with a snooty Eastern mother, meets and immediately marries the shy, reticent half-Apache Chandler. Since boyhood he has learned never to cry out for help. But Russell is compelled to nurturance. How could she not be, with that equipment? So it devolves into a good-natured soap opera in which a husband hides secret from his wife and she snoops into his affairs, makes a nuisance of herself, and almost runs off with the dipso doctor before the inevitable mine explosion brings them together for good.Nobody really seems to have cared much about the quality of the film, which is just as well. It's probably Jane Russell's most loose-limbed and appealing performance. She was never much of an actress but seems to have been a nice, unpretentious lady. Chandler warbles the title song over the credits. He does not sing in the rest of the movie, nor does he do much of anything else. Celia Lovsky is the most hilarious Indian mother you can imagine.

I expect Russell was the Technicolor draw for this rather tame installment of passion in the desert. Her box-office was peaking as thousands of men fantasized over certain Amazonian endowments. Still, she's quite good as the conflicted-wife, breathing life into a sometimes slumping narrative. Will she and Chandler stay together once they decide to get hitched. That's basically the plot-line, so get interested if you can. Trouble is he's also married to his job at the gold mine; plus, being the swarthy Chandler from a hundred previous Westerns, he's also half- Apache. But more difficult for them, she's a rich girl from the East with a snooty mother, so you get the culture clash idea.Duryea as the dipso doctor looks like he's having fun. But you do have to believe that somehow he handles the booze bottle with one hand and his patients with the other. Seems like a real stretch to me. Then too, there's the shapely Corday in a tacked-on role. Somehow she manages a fashion wardrobe on a nurse's salary. Oh well, she does have to carve out a glamour spot from the formidable Russell. Not much really happens in the 90-minutes. But there is a lot of eye candy, especially the bright colors that show up like neons against the desert backdrop. Otherwise, except for the attractive stars, this desert soap opera is pretty much forgettable.

1955's "Foxfire" has several things going for it -- mainly the star power of Jane Russell and Jeff Chandler. They are very sexy together and their chemistry permeates this film. Their performances are subtle yet resonate with honest emotion. Both actors have a natural style of acting which allows the viewer to swallow the script's melodramatic clichés without rejecting the whole scenario of a New York socialite impulsively marrying an Arizona miner. Here Russell once again shows that she was in the ranks of Mitchum & Gable -- two of her screen co-stars -- and that she knew how to make her acting look effortless and completely natural. However, given all the salacious publicity she received, rarely was her talent or her charismatic screen presence truly appreciated during her heyday. Here her usual tough and hard-boiled persona is toned downed and she gives a performance showing sensitivity and vulnerability. She is completely believable in a role that was originally intended for June Allyson! Chandler too is quite good: silent yet complex and he shows these characteristics without the histrionics typically used by actors in similar roles (i.e. Robert Stack). The gorgeous Technicolor enhances the Arizona scenery and the great Dan Duryea offers fine support as an alcoholic doctor in love with Russell. Mara Corday also shines in the small role of Duryea's nurse. "Foxfire" is not as stylistic or as over-the-top fun as Douglas Sirks' classic Universal sudsers, but very good in it's own right. The opening credits with Chandler singing the theme song (co-written by Chandler and Henry Mancini) sets the tone for a very good romantic drama starring two of the 1950s most underrated and sexiest stars. This film needs to be released on DVD!!

I think it's the sensational color and the locations that lure me to this film. The time period fits well into it also. The deeply saturated blue sky and the arid desert draw me in like a magnet. In 1955 I was ten years old, and numerous rail trips through the west, with stops in Tucumcari, New Mexico, are brought to mind with films like this one. I recently visited Oatman, Arizona, where much if not all of this film was shot, only because of the film. Of course as would be expected, I found nothing in Oatman identifiable with the film after all these years, except the deep blue sky and the arid desert. Jeff Chandler was always a favorite, and his role as a strong silent mining engineer of American Indian heritage, plays well with Jane Russell's role as a rich bored adventurous young woman, almost a forerunner of "Green Acres" without the laughs. All of these sensory elements entice my 10 year old's psyche to the surface. The film offers great release for me. In 1955 one of the railroads used a young Indian boy's image as a logo, and General Motors Pontiac division used a similar theme. I was fascinated by Indian lore at the time, and the mystery and remembrance of it all comes into relative focus with this film. Not a film for everyone, but as far as I am concerned, they made this one for me.