Very Cool!!!

Such a frustrating disappointment

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Inferno" is a film with a very simple plot. Despite this, it was given top treatment by improved sound AND 3D! And, as you watch, you can see in quite a few places that 3D gimmicks would abound...but it's still basically a good film.When the film begins, a rich man is injured in the desert and his unfaithful wife and her lover decide to leave him there to die of exposure. The problem is that Donald (Robert Ryan) is a very tough guy and he's determined to not only survive but last long enough to exact revenge. Fortunately, where the movie goes next is a bit unusual and yet satisfying.Much of the film consists of Donald talking to himself by having Ryan do voiceovers. This is risky but the director manages to make it work...and the film manages to take a very simple story yet make it worth your time.

I was born the year this picture was made, 1953. I had no idea who Robert Ryan was until a few months ago. What a tremendous actor he was! and Inferno is one of his best! The man never got the recognition he deserved and today he's an unknown to most.The 3D is exceptional on the DVD even when viewing in 2D which I tried. The Technicolor saturated colors which were a staple of 50's films is amazing. One scene with Ronda Fleming in a purple evening dress with her lover William Lundigan in a deep blue suit just pop out of the screen, they are so vibrant. These 2 characters were despicable adulterers who setup and planned a way to leave Ryan to die in the desert. He survives the hard elements of the desert, meeting many tough events. It moves fast, the cinematography, especially in the desert is outstanding. By all means see it! Highly Recommended!

Pass me a canteen, quick. I'm all dried out after watching this desert pressure cooker. Seems Carson's wife and her lover have left spoiled millionaire Carson alone in the vast desert to die, and with a broken leg, no less. Plus, that Mojave Desert is some kind of long, empty oven. So now the poor guy has to figure out how to survive under next to impossible conditions. Worse, the god-forsaken landscape stretches out to what looks like infinity. I sure hope actor Ryan was well paid because he literally drags his butt across half the rocky landscape. But Carson's one determined guy, and by golly he's going to get even with those two traitors even if it kills him.Only a powerhouse actor like Ryan could make Carson's grit, in the face of impossible odds, at all plausible. The screenplay does a pretty good job of showing how he improvises, still the ordeal itself remains something of a stretch. On the other hand, Lundigan makes a rather colorless "other man", while Fleming as the faithless wife looks unusually glum. I gather from IMDb that she caught a case of pneumonia on arrival at what was then a snowy Mojave location. Apparently, it carried over to her performance, which is without her usual sheen. Nonetheless, the flaming hair really looks good in Technicolor.The movie's a grabber right up to the climax, where the fist-fight is unfortunately overdone, apparently to accommodate the 3-d technology. All in all, the survival plot may have been done a number of times, but none better than here, thanks mainly to that great gritty actor, Robert Ryan.

****SPOILERS**** Left alone in the desert with a broken leg millionaire Donald Carson, Robert Ryan, chances of survival are almost nil with his scheming employee and wife Joseph Duncen & Geraldine, Willian Lundigan & Ronda Fleming, purposely letting him die of exposer. By not reporting his whereabouts to the police and sending them on a wild goose chase some 70 in the other direction from where Carson is.Were not really told if Carson's accident was planned by Duncan & Geraldine or was a golden opportunity that they both took advantage of. Still it gave the two the excuse to have Carson put out of their lives and take over his multi-million dollar investment empire. When he's eventually found dead with them getting off Scot-free by letting the broiling and inhospitable desert do their dirty work.In the desert with little food and water Carson at first about gave up on surviving. Later as he became more and more outraged by what his wife and her lover did to him his anger drove Carson to bring himself back almost from the dead to have his revenge on them.Back home Geraldine and Duncan live it up in Carson's mansion expecting any day now to hear the news that he was found dead in the desert. But the longer they wait the more they become curious and fearful that Carson may have, just may have, survived! That would mean 10 to 15 years behind bars not the life of luxury that they were both looking forward to.Penetrating story about crime and punishment with an amazing twist ending that turns the tables on Carson's would-be murders. With an inferno that's hotter and more deadlier then the worst desert heat wave. Robert Rayn as the millionaire businessman Donald Whitley Carson III who's always used to having things done for him is driven to do things for himself. As he tries to get back to civilization and get even with those who left him for dead in the desert. Getting help from an old desert prospector Sam Elby, Henry Hull,as Carson tracked by both Duncan and Geraline who came back to the scene of the crime to see if Carson was really dead and if not finish the job by making sure that he is. Carson attacked by Duncan in Elby's cabin, after Duncan knocked out the old man, has it out with him as the place goes up in flames from the carnage that resulted. Geraldine who tried to double-cross her lover Duncan by leaving him out in the desert, like she did to her husband Donald Carson, gets side tracked when the car she was to make her getaway hit a sharp bolder ripping up the gas-tank causing it, the liquid, to flood and damage the drive shaft immobilizing it . The movie comes full circle when Geraldine is left alone in the desert and of all people her husband Donald Carson, whom she tried to murder, came driving along the wind swept and deserted desert road, with old man Elby, to give her a lift back home for a long stretch in the State penitentiary.