The sufferings and occasional joys of this family plays out against the background of the Red Scare and the arms race, the Korean war, and regular air raid drills at school where the kids are taught to “duck and cover.” The increasingly paranoid Jack, drinking vodka and listening to his short wave radio, thinks that something big is up, and he turns out to be right: the government announces plans to conduct nuclear tests in the desert, about sixty miles from Las Vegas.
He’s also a braggart and an alcoholic, who vents his rage on his wife, played by Jobeth Williams, and his stepdaughters, especially Rose, whom he mistreats despite her many attempts to get him to love and approve of her. He’s a World War II vet, with a bad leg, who suffers traumatic flashbacks from his combat experiences.
Her stepfather, Jack, played by Jon Voight, runs a little gas station on the outskirts of town. 13-year-old Rose Chismore, played by Annabeth Gish, lives in a bungalow with her mother and two younger sisters. It’s about a family living in Las Vegas in 1951, before the boom that turned the city into a gambling Mecca. An independent film funded by the Sundance Institute and directed by Eugene Corr, Desert Bloom didn’t make a big splash at the box office, but it’s a very rewarding experience.
#BLOOM TUCSON MOVIE#
The movie I have in mind is called Desert Bloom, and it was shot here in Tucson about thirty years ago, during the winter of 1984-85, and released in ’86.
On some rare occasions, I experience a double enjoyment from a movie, if, number one, it’s a good film, and, number two, if it was made in my home town.
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