Tonight's Movie: The Secret of Convict Lake (1951)

THE SECRET OF CONVICT LAKE was of strong interest to me due to its setting, as most summers we drive past the title lake, which is in the Sierra Nevadas near Mammoth Lakes, California. The film tells a fictional story explaining how Convict Lake received its name.

It's 1871, and six prisoners who have escaped from jail in Carson City, Nevada, flee across the snowy Sierras into California. The freezing cold claims one of the men, but the five survivors straggle into a small lakeside settlement, which curiously only seems to be inhabited by women.

The women feel they have no choice but to allow the convicts to stay in a cabin until the current snowstorm lifts. By the time the storm abates and a posse arrives, the women, along with their newly returned menfolk, have dealt with the criminals in their own way.

The movie reminded me quite a bit of an earlier Western from the same studio, 20th Century-Fox -- I thought it was sort of a snowbound YELLOW SKY (1948), with the criminals fleeing over snowy peaks instead of the desert, then arriving at a semi-deserted town. As in YELLOW SKY, which had Gregory Peck opposing fellow outlaw Richard Widmark, one of the CONVICT LAKE criminals, Jim (Glenn Ford), stands up against the others and proves himself to be a hero.

Ford and Gene Tierney have excellent chemistry as the leads. Tierney's Marcia is a girl who had fallen on hard times and feels obligated to marry her fiance Rudy (Harry Carter) for security. As it turns out, Jim is looking for Rudy, who isn't as nice as Marcia thought.

The film has a stellar supporting cast, starting with Ethel Barrymore as the community matriarch and Ann Dvorak as Marcia's future sister-in-law, whose head is turned by the attentions of calculating criminal Johnny (Zachary Scott). Interesting actresses such as Ruth Donnelly, Barbara Bates, and Helen Westcott are some of the other women in the settlement. The criminals include Cyril Cusack. The film's narrator is Dale Robertson.

Although the film incorporates some effective location photography, the settlement itself appears to have been constructed on a soundstage. Nonetheless, the movie has great atmosphere, and it looks so cold that it can easily give viewers the shivers.

THE SECRET OF CONVICT LAKE was directed by Michael Gordon. It was shot in black and white by Leo Tover. The film runs 83 minutes.

The film has not had a video or DVD release, but it can be seen occasionally on Fox Movie Channel.

This was a very good, different kind of movie which I thoroughly enjoyed watching. Recommended.

August 2017 Update: Here is a pretty photo of the real Convict Lake (scroll to bottom of the post).