Cottonwood, Arizona: Desert Fury (1947) Locations

During our recent road trip to Arizona, Utah, and Nevada we made a stop in Cottonwood, Arizona, which is just a few minutes down the road from where we were staying in Sedona.

We enjoyed breakfast at Cottonwood's Black Bear Diner and then explored locations for DESERT FURY (1947), a colorful melodrama available on Blu-ray which was reviewed here a couple years ago.

The town's Cottonwood Hotel which has a wonderful page on DESERT FURY locations (thanks to John Aldrich for the link) which was a big help in our location hunting.  Most of the film's locations are in what's now called Old Town.

Above is the rear of the Cottonwood Hotel, seen below in a shot with John Hodiak, Wendell Corey, and Burt Lancaster.  It looks as though it may be a process shot, rather than the actors actually being at the location, but either way, that's the hotel in the background.

Lizabeth Scott is also seen sitting in her car at the exact same location.

It was a bit tricky finding the old jail but we finally tracked it down!

This plaque is on the front of the building.

In the movie Burt Lancaster is seeing driving up to the building in his police car.

This building at N. Main Street and Pinal is the drugstore in the movie. Lancaster and Scott are seen in front of it.

The current location of Nic's was the Purple Sage:

Kactus Kate's was Zeb's Cafe in the movie. Nic's (the Purple Sage) can be seen further up the street.

Another angle of these neighboring locations, seen from across the street:

This was a motor court across the street from the drugstore which is seen in the background in the movie.

Today the motor court has been converted to law offices.

The former motel rooms are now law office suites.

We tried to track down the bridge location seen in the film but didn't have any luck.  We hope to visit the area again in the future, so perhaps we'll find it on a return visit!

Here's a great shot of Burt Lancaster on location in Cottonwood:

And here are Hodiak and Scott with what looks to be a back projection of Sedona behind them.

We find visiting film locations so enjoyable, as it really adds a completely new dimension to movie viewing when you visit where movies were made and learn about local history.  I'll definitely be watching movies with a new perspective thanks to visiting Sedona and Cottonwood.

More Arizona and Utah locations coming in future trip posts!

Tweet