20th Century Studios is reportedly revisiting a thriller from Fox’s own history. Daniel Richtman reports that the studio has allegedly […]
20th Century Studios is reportedly revisiting a thriller from Fox’s own history.
Daniel Richtman reports that the studio has allegedly acquired the rights to Francis Cockrell’sInferno screenplay, the basis for Fox’s 1953 3D thriller.
The original follows a wealthy man who breaks his leg in the desert and finds himself abandoned by his wife and her lover. They’re supposedly going to get help. In reality, they’re counting on the wilderness to finish him off, leaving him to fight his way out of a situation they don’t expect him to survive.
Roy Ward Baker (Quatermass and the Pit, Asylum) directed the original, which starred Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch), Rhonda Fleming (Spellbound), and William Lundigan (Riders to the Stars).
As TCM’s history of the production explains, Baker shot the film in the Mojave Desert using a cumbersome dual-camera 3D system. The format helped emphasize both the vast landscape and the dangers facing a man stranded within it.
It’s a nasty, straightforward setup for a survival thriller: your leg is broken, you’re stranded in the desert, and the people who should be saving you want you dead. We’ll have to wait to see what shape this reported new project takes.
