Tennessee Williams Movies

Streetcar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Baby Doll- though abridged- were excellent.

I hate " Suddenly, Last Summer" - hate Hepburn, Liz's big tits, Clift and his painful looking face. Talk about a self-hating movie.

Geraldine Page gave the best performance in a Williams film- "Sweet Bird of Youth"

And " Night of the Iguana" is a small masterpiece.

The PBS version of SUDDENLY is light-years ahead of the Hepburn version.

I have a soft spot for THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE, or as someone here called it, THE ROMAN SPRING OF PATSY STONE.

NOTI is a pygmy masterpiece!

I love the first half of CAT, but then it goes massively off the rails for me. Especially if you know and love the play. Even taken on its own merits, the ending doesn't come organically.

The Rose Tattoo is one I really like. I would love it if it wasn't for Burt Lancaster's really ridiculous performance.

I love Suddenly Last Summer in the same way I appreciate The Boys in the Band or Tea and Sympathy.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - I've never really 'got it' - as a play or a film. I consider it to be a step down from The Glass Menagerie and Streetcar.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond actually wasn't too bad. But there was probably a reason why the screenplay was never filmed in Williams' lifetime. There's very little conflict and it reads like an amalgamation of ideas for several other works.

Let's not forget Summer and Smoke with the ever-brilliant Geraldine Paige.

I agree completely R4. Although Paul Newman is so beautiful in that movie that I sit through the whole thing every time.

[quote]Paul Newman is so beautiful in that movie that I sit through the whole thing every time.

Agreed! Was he ever more beautiful than he was in that movie? Liz Taylor, too. Blazing, the both of 'em.

Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog

I didn't like The Rose Tattoo

I never thought Paul Newman was attractive until he got older.

Anyone ever seen Period of Adjustment? I tried to watch once but didn't get through it. Worth another shot?

"This Property is Condemned" with Natalie Wood and Robert Redford may not be on the level of Streetcar and Cat, but it's surprisingly good, and BOOM! is a filmed version of "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," (with Liz and Richard Burton post- "Who's Afraid of VW?") which is in a category all its own, well worth a look, even if you end up hating it. It's pretty wild for fans of Liz, TW, Richard Burton, etc.

I like the one with the pathetic woman and her overbearing female relative who is visited by a man in constant angst.

R12, Period of Adjustment gets better after the first half hour. It's worth watching to the end.

Shit on your mother, OP!

I noticed, you noticed.

"Orpheus Descending" with Vanessa Redgrave.

It is a remake of "The Fugitive Kind"

I remember a character that Mike Nichols performed du ring his days with Elaine May. The character was a parody of Tennessee Williams.

He was called Mississippi Jones. He spoke in a voice very similar to Tennessee Williams'.

He was writing a play about a southern man who had committed suicide after being falsely accused of NOT being a homosexual!

[quote] I love the first half of CAT, but then it goes massively off the rails for me. Especially if you know and love the play. Even taken on its own merits, the ending doesn't come organically.

Are you kidding me?

The play is better - I think.

But they are two different stories.

I think it is part of Williams' brilliance that the tension between Maggie and Brick can be resolved either either way.

R4 - is it possible you are taking Williams, the movie and the plya out of context?

'Summer and Smoke' with Geraldine Page, Laurence Harvey, Rita Moreno and Una Merkel.

I think Summer and Smoke is overrated

"Streetcar" was good for its excellent performances. But it was watered down so as not to offend. Blanche's husband was a closet homosexual, but the movie makes him out to be just a sensitive soul who writes poetry. At the end of the film Stella vows never to go back to Stanley, which is so fucking stupid. Stella would NEVER leave Stanley; she made that plain to Blanche after the poker night ruckus.

Same with "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." The performances were outstanding but the dialogue was sanitized and the ending was changed to make it more "happy." In the play Maggie locks up Brick's booze and tells him she'll unlock it after he makes love to her and makes her pregnant. In the movie Brick goes up to the bedroom with her and willingly succumbs to her charms. Another fucked up ending.

I always liked "This Property Is Condemned" which had a great cast: Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Kate Reid, Mary Badham, Charles Bronson, Robert Blake. It was directed by Sydney Pollack, produced by John Houseman and Ray Stark and had a screenplay co-written by Frances Ford Coppola. It had a lot going for it, but it was disliked by critics for critics for some reason. Most of the criticism seemed to stem from a dislike of movies based on Tennessee Williams plays in general. But I thought the movie did a fine job of fleshing out the story in TPIS, which was a one-act play.

"The PBS version of SUDDENLY is light-years ahead of the Hepburn version."

Are you kidding? Maggie Smith with that awful attempt at a Southern accent? Rob Lowe??? The 1958 film is no masterwork, but the piece itself is pretty much camp anyway. Whatever you think of Hepburn, she conveyed her character's malice better than Smith did.

SUMMER AND SMOKE is indeed overrated. Page's mannerisms are on display here (and Laurence Harvey doesn't help) - she's good, but she's much better in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH.

The remake of BIRD with Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon is a near-disaster.

One of my favorites is a video version of ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE (an earlier version of SUMMER AND SMOKE), with the marvelous Blythe Danner as Alma (I'll take her interpretation over Page's any day) and Frank Langella at his most handsome.

The Ann-Margret version of STREETCAR is worth seeing for her. She's different than Leigh but acquits herself very well IMHO.

Has anyone seen the version of Cat with Jessica Lange?

R22, I never thought that Stella would actually leave Stanley in the movie. I thought she would try to escape and then come running back to Stanley.

I really loved Natalie Wood in "This Property Is Condemned".

Apparently, Williams was very upset with that screen adaptation of his one-act play.

It really didn't make sense that Mary Badham's character, a teenager, was left abandoned, though.

I love Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. I did an analysis of it for a film class years ago. It's a smart movie with a great script and awesome acting from everyone. I haven't seen or read the play but I knew the film was watered down. I don't care. It was made at a time when it would've been impossible to have Brick be gay. You can still read between the lines. Actually I think you have to presume Brick's friend really was his lover to make the film pop.

It's a tragic film with real pain inside. It being made in the late 50s just makes it more perfect.

"Apparently, Williams was very upset with that screen adaptation of his one-act play.

It really didn't make sense that Mary Badham's character, a teenager, was left abandoned, though."

From what I've heard Tennessee Williams didn't much care for any of the screen adaptations of his plays.

I thought it made sense that poor little Willie was abandoned. Her father ran out on the family. Her mother was truly vile, pimping out her daughter Alva to the railroad men and hoping to het her married to a repulsive, rich old man. Alva eventually dies of pneumonia. The mother doesn't give a damn about Willie (Willie is quite homely; there's no hope that SHE will ever attract a rich man), so she goes off with a man, leaving Willie to her own devices in the abandoned, dilapidated former boarding house. It's a very sad tale and I always thought it was very plausible and heartbreaking.

Night of the Iguana (poetic, funny) Summer and Smoke (for Page) Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (despite terrible casting of Beatty; loved Lottte Lenya) Streetcar Named Desire (if only to look at young Brando)

Sorry, but Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is so implausible. We're supposed to believe a football player would be secretly gay and trapped in a sham relationship to a woman? Sorry, that would never happen in real life!

Tennessee Williams' life could actually be broken up into several different bio-pics, or a miniseries. You could fill a big-screen movie with rehearsals and opening nights of major works alone!

Young Sam Waterston and Michael Moriarty were excellent in the Hepburn television version of The Glass Menagerie.

Hepburn, not so good.

I hate how they changed the gay aspect in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF!

In the play, Maggie is jealous of Brick and Skipper's bromance and accuses Skipper of being in love with her husband. Skipper tries to prove her wrong by sleeping with her but can't get it up and in his self-loathing commits suicide. That's why Brick turns to alcohol (he's lost his lover) and why he hates Maggie and won't touch her.

The film totally did away with that by making Brick disgusted with Maggie because she slept with his best friend, who then killed himself out of guilt for having cheated with his bud's wife. So stupid.

[quote]At the end of the film Stella vows never to go back to Stanley, which is so fucking stupid. Stella would NEVER leave Stanley; she made that plain to Blanche after the poker night ruckus.

Not to mention, she had a newborn baby. Women in those days almost never their husbands, especially if they had kids. Plus, Stella was too reliant on Stanley. He was the breadwinner and had a hold over her.

I hate waterd-down film adaptations, which is why I'm not a fan of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF or A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

There was some early movie version of "The Glass Menagerie" that was so awful. I can't remember who was in it, but they gave the damn thing a happy ending, which of course ruined it. At the end Laura miraculously gets another gentleman caller, after Jim departs. Of course, the whole point of the play was that Laura's encounter with Jim was her only chance to enter the real world, and when that dream is crushed she retreats into her world of old phonograph records and little glass animals forever.

I also recall an early movie version of "Our Town" that was similarly fucked up. At the end of the movie, Emily LIVES! I nearly puked at that one.

R18 on THE NANNY they had an aging playwright named Kentucky Williams, whom Mr. Sheffield was trying to get to write one last great play.

R35 that was the original film version of THE GLASS MENAGERIE (1950) with Gertrude Lawrence as "Amanda," Jane Wyman as "Laura," Arthur Kennedy as "Tom," and Kirk Douglas as "Jim."

Yeah, they totally fucked up the ending. What's especially comical about that 1950 adaptation is that the movie posters blatantly predicted that all four would be nominated for Oscars. Turns out, the film didn't get one single nod.

My all time favorite, Baby Doll.

You have to approach it knowing it is way over the top.

Incredible scenes, the use of real locals as actors, the sexuality, the dark humor. The death throes of the old peckerwood south.

My favorite scene is the sexually awakened Baby Doll, dipping bread into the pot liquor of collard greens, Eli Wallach leering right under the cuckolded husband's nose. And later, the husband wailing for Baaaaby Dooolll, while they hide out in a tree.

Baby Doll original trailer

[quote]The film totally did away with that

[quote]I hate waterd-down film adaptations, which is why I'm not a fan of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF or A STREETCAR NAMED DESIR

Actually. It's easy to watch the films and overlay Tennessee's real story over what you're watching. IN some cases, the plot points you're talking about occupy about 30 seconds of the film. Do yourself a favor: Just do some mental 'editing' while you watch and enjoy.

[quote]Has anyone seen the version of Cat with Jessica Lange?

I did; Lange is one of my favorite actresses, but I didn't like her as Maggie. I thought she was hammy.

By the way, the full PBS "Cat" is on Youtube:

[quote]Has anyone seen the version of Cat with Jessica Lange?

yes r24.

It is interesting. Not a very lively adaption but still worth seeing. It is kind of odd by today's standards since it is one of those videotaped things PBS would do where it is "sort of a filmed play/sort of a TV movie" type thing.

Lange is interesting, maybe a little more sedate than you'd expect. Tommy Lee Jones doesn't help too much with his stoic Brick.

It is actually the supporting cast who steal it. Kim Stanley and Penny Fuller as Sister Woman are outstanding and Rip Torn and David Dukes are also pretty great.

Worth a look, overall.

I thought Lange did STREETCAR? I watched that TV movie back in 1995. It also starred Alec Baldwin as Stan, Diane Lane as Stella, and John Goodman as Mitch.

She did r43. She did it on Bway in 1992 with Baldwin.

(and maybe in London too? I forget.)

Then there's the BBC CAT, done in the mid 1970s with Natalie Wood as Maggie (OK), Robert Wagner as Brick (too old and out of his depth), Maureen Stapleton as Big Mama (best of the lot, but even then too overwrought) and Sir Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy (the less said, the better). It's an odd production, but truer to the stage script than the Liz and Paul movie. Directed by out gay Robert Moore.

Then there's the Ann Margaret/Treat Williams Streetcar from 1984. How can you not love the brilliant Beverly D'Angelo as Stella?

The Paul Newman version 9f Cat isn't explicit about homosexuality but there was some hint. Big Daddy tells Brick,"You started drinking when your friend Skipper died."

Brick flipped out and starting yelling, asking what his father was implying, etc.

One of my old friends used to do a phenomenal parody of Geraldine Page talking to Walter Winchell in "Sweet Bird of Youth."

He's dead now, but the insane high camp lives on.

A lady just doesn't say or do those things on the screen.

"From what I've heard Tennessee Williams didn't much care for any of the screen adaptations of his plays."

There are reports that he did like BOOM! (adapted from THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE), but it's hard to imagine why. The play is a POS to begin with, and both leads are completely miscast. Taylor has no idea what she's doing really - just seems to be making it up as she goes along, though she does seem to enjoy her scene with Noel Coward. Burton phones it in mostly. The production design is dazzling, though.

My suspicion is that Williams was so drunk/drugged out most of the time by the late 60's that he was likely to say most anything.

Generally, I love the titles for Williams' plays (A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, THE GLASS MENAGERIES, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH). They sound so intriguing and piques your interest about the movie. But THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE is such a horrid title. Reminds me of ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. BOOM sounds worse, though.

For a while there when he was hot, they were filming everything TW wrote except his grocery list. Suddenly Last Summer is a one act play, for pete's sake. And Gore Vidal just boueffed it up into 90 min.

I'm glad though, delicious fun: "Cut that lie out of her throat!"

From many accounts, Williams saw his plays very differently than most. Supposedly he would howl with laughter in the theatre at things that nobody else regarded as funny.

The Kim Catrall Sweet Bird should have been filmed. Brilliant production.

I quite liked the Ann Margret Streetcar. She was pretty sensational. I think it's my favorite adaptation of that show. The Jessica Lange TV version was dreadful and I say that as a Lange fan. I couldn't even get through it.

[quote]Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy (the less said, the better).

Ha! Can't even picture that, what great casting!

I'm a big fan of the Helen Mirren remake of THE ROMAN SPRING... Mirren is great as always, Anne Bancroft is a hoot as the Countess, and Olivier Martinez was never hotter as the gigolo.

I liked the Lange version of "Cat." I found her far less hammy than Taylor. I never bought Taylor as an actress; she was always breathless and mannered. Her shrill liittle-girl voice was annoying.

The BBC version of Suddenly is better than the Liz Taylor version because it's an actual one-act play, not the yeasty, bloated feature length movie.

It's tighter and more suspenseful.

Milk Train/Boom needs to be honed a bit. It's really a fantastic idea. I saw Milk Train a few years ago, with Olympia Dukakis, (the night of the 12inch blizzard) and found it lacking, but captivating. Like the movie, it had so much going for it, yet the direction doesn't fire on all cylinders. I've started editing it, working on ramping it up and bringing some depth to it. Someday we will get it right.

That 1970's TV version of Cat with Olivier, which he directed, is just bizarre. Such a totally non-knowing European take on the material. Wood and Wagner, who are not miscast, do as well they can under the circumstances and Stapleton is almost successful, considering. The house interiors look Twelve Oaks and Olivier makes his entrance as Big Daddy descending the stairs dressed as Colonel Sanders. (The family is nouveau riche white-trash, not old Southern aristocracy.) Williams himself said that Olivier totally misunderstood that the family was up from the bootstraps working class, not old plantation wealth.

No mention of the seven descents of myrtle..aka..the last of the mobile hotshots?

[quote]"Orpheus Descending" with Vanessa Redgrave. It is a remake of "The Fugitive Kind"

Uhm, no dear.

Tennessee Williams wrote the PLAY "Orpheus Descending", which was later made into a FILM which was titled "The Fugitive Kind". I'd say the film is a very big improvement over the play. The Vanessa Redgrave Broadway version was miscast (Redgrave, for starters), and is less focused than the film.

R55 Olivier was equally bad as Doc Delaney in the TV version of "Come Back, Little Sheba" with a wan, predictable Joanne Woodward as Lola. I like Woodward generally, but you need someone with the poignant trying-too-hard peppiness of Shirley Booth to make it work. S. Epatha Merkerson did a nice job in the Broadway revival, but she didn't erase Booth. It may be one of those roles that should only be played by that one actress, captured on film, and not revived.

OTOH, I have grown to admire Taylor's Cathy in Suddenly Last Summer. When I was in middle school and saw it on the ABC Movie, Hepburn was the allure, though now I find her arch (and unconvincing as Southern--maybe South Bryn Mawr) and I also find her Amanda too lacking in the southern belle desperation of that woman in the St. Louis apartment.

Maybe Lypsinka (who has announced her retirement) should do an evening of Tennessee Williams.

I've always found it interesting that Kazan was initially interested in either Mary Martin or Lillian Gish as Blanche. I can see that Martin's over-aged hoydenish qualities might have translated in interesting ways to Blanche's self-delusion (and I'm a big fan of Martin) and it would have been interesting to see a director reign in her (albeit delightful) tricks of likeability (or, as Janet might have said, lickability). Gish, fine actress though she was, just never exuded any sexual heat for me--even in her silent films, like her Hester Prynne or her Boheme: I thought her Rachel in The Night of the Hunter was matchless, though.

I've always read that Paramount was interested in Bette Davis for Come Back, Little Sheba, btw, which she supposedly turned down, not because she didn't admire the play, but because she thought Booth was the only one who should do it for the film. I think Davis was right about not doing it--she could not have played the weakness turned into strength and made the audience love her as they cringed at the same time. She would have slapped Doc into sobriety. Her two attempts at this kind of women, Mr. Skeffington and Phone Call from a Stranger (in the flashbacks), strain her gifts.

R63, you are very knowledgeable and know what you are writing about. Thank you.

Olivier as Coloner Sanders:

I saw the 1974 Cat, on Broadway starring Elizabeth Ashley and Keir Dulles, several times. I thought it was pretty perfect. Fred Gwynne was big Daddy. Too bad it wasn't filmed.

That sounds incredible, r66. I wish I had seen it.

"Night of the Iguana," which I think is seriously underrated even by the author's fans. It lacks an over-the-top moment like a character being eaten or a crazy sister-in-law asking to get raped, but more than makes up for it in other ways.

It has endlessly quotable Williams dialogue, for one: "Nothing human disgusts me," "Did you know that if it wasn't for the dikes, the plains of Texas would be engulfed by the gulf?" "I just cut loose one of God's creatures at the end of his rope."

It is very much an ensemble piece, instead of a showcase for just one or two hyperventilating actors. Gardner, Kerr and Burton were never better - or sexier. Sue Lyon and Greyson Hall, both much better known for other roles, fit into Williams' world very naturally.

It also all ends happily, which is very different for the author. While the characters tear each other up and toss barbs as well as any of his others, in the end each of them finds their own peace and is able to move on from what has been holding them back. It's good to rewatch every once in a while when life isn't working out like you think it should.

Jessica Lange seems a more than a little hammy at times in the tv Cat on a hot tin roof

No mention of the seven descents of myrtle..aka..the last of the mobile hotshots?"

That film came and went in a flash - got terrible reviews as I recall. It also got an "X" rating when it was first released, but in those days, it didn't take that much to get an "X".

MYRTLE on DVD - who knew?

"Night of the Iguana" on TCM today at 2:45pm PDT.

Yesterday, i saw 'The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond'. Have you seen it?

Personally, i liked it. However, i think that Chris Evans was miscast. They should have given his role to another actor. He was so out of his depth(if he has any, anyway...) Bryce Dallas Howard was good as the leading character and lady, but i felt that the best performance of the movie was given by Ellen Burstyn. Very touching.

Ellen was great

R66, I wish I had seen that production. Elizabeth Ashley was supposedly the quintessential Maggie.

He is R4. He's so beautiful that he's hard to look at, but then, you can't take your eyes off of him.

Everyone says the movie of Cat is watered down. But IMHO the play is still fully there on screen and so beautifully played, much more so than in so many ostensibly "less mendacious" but much weaker stage productions of the play's original text. The guts of the story, the sexual conflicts, the despair and the delusions necessary to alleviate it are all explored at full throttle, and even the ending seems far truer to Williams than the movie of Streetcar. Newman, Taylor and especially Ives are all extraordinary.

R27 I would love to read your analysis of Cat

R25 that's also what I thought

R74, i'm glad someone commented on that! Yes, Ellen was incredible in that movie, for once more. She is so moving as an actress and very natural. Love her.

The Teardrop Diamond was an EFFING MESS! the director totally screwed it up, trying too hard at imitating Fellini, and less time at interpreting Williams.

It had great possibilities, yet it was ruined by terrible direction and shitty cinematography.

Lol, ok R81, it was certainly not a masterpiece, it had its flaws, but it also had its moments, and it had ELLEN BURSTYN.

This was the best Streetcar

Any movie that featured Geraldine Paige.

Remember when Lucy Ball wrote a book under the pseudonym Rhode Island Red.

BUMP!

“Sweet Bird of Youth” with Newman and Page was played on TCM over the weekend; did anyone on DL watch?

(And if so, what did you think of it? I thought it was a seriously mixed bag...)

Also: I *know* Newman already did the Broadway version of “Sweet Bird of Youth” and played the gigolo character that he does in the film, but— to me—he felt miscast in the film role for some reason.

Totally believable as hot and desirable (not bad physical casting), but I didn’t believe for a second that he was “desperate” or the type to be so pathetic or down on his luck/depressed.

Newman went through the motions (and I like him) but I felt like his performance was lackluster here.

I felt like Newman gave off a “fuck you all!” vibe—like he would have blown out of town never to be seen again rather than be submissive, trampled, or desperate with the Hollywood actress, the town mayor, or any of the other nasty locals.

I’ve tried to think who could have been similarly hot to Newman but still given off the insecure, naive, “desperate” vibe needed to properly portray Chance Wayne in 1962 (when the film came out)...

Ethan Hawke is directing a film version of Camino Real with Juliet Binoche. A very strange play.

Surely Desire under the Elms has been filmed. Too lazy to google.

Desire Under the Elms is by Eugene O’Neill. And it was filmed in 1958, with Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, and Burl Ives.

Oopsie thanks r91

So the first "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" I saw was the one with Natalie Wood. I loved her performance. I then read the play and loved it. I always think of Wood as Maggie, but Taylor gives a far more graceful, and sexy performance. Maggie should be a meaner bitch- she has married money but married a fag, she is fighting with a family that see her as beneath them, and she isn't as charming as she is sexy. I think the main problem with the movie is that Skipper's ghost is clearly gay, as is Brick, and the real tragedy is that they speak about everything else but that fact. And the scene between Newman and Ives in the basement is horrible and boring, and makes no sense at all. Nor does the ending.

My favorite is " Night Of The Iguana". It is a masterpiece. It has three great performances and is a very witty, interesting play. Huston doesn't let Williams' piece go off the rails. I find Leigh's performance in " Streetcar" so tragic that I only watch it every few years. But it is master class. As is Ann-Margret's. I have never understood " Baby Doll" or what the hell Carroll Baker is doing.