This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is "Adaptations", which is a broad one, since there are so many movies that have been adapted from books, plays, and short stories. So I decided to think about doing a theme within a theme, and unsurprisingly, that turned out to be fairly easy too:
Baby Doll (1956). Mississippi cotton mill owner Karl Malden is set to marry his naïve, barely legal bride Carroll Baker, when into town comes rival mill owner Eli Wallach. Malden has his henchmen burn Wallach's mill, and when Wallach visits the house to get a statement from Baker, the two get rather racy, which really ticks off Malden. It's adapted from a play by Tennessee Williams, who was known for his overheated Southern Gothic plays.
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). Katharine Hepburn plays a matriarch who wants to donate to a clinic run by Montgomery Clift. But there's a catch: the donation is contingent upon his performing a lobotomy on her niece Elizabeth Taylor. It seems that Taylor was on vacation with Hepburn's son when the son died a rather shocking death, and Hepburn thinks this his wrecked Taylor's mind. The truth, however, might not be quite what it seems at first glance. This was adapted from a play by Tennessee Williams.
Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). Paul Newman plays a gigolo escorting Geraldine Page back to his hometown in Florida. Town political fixer Ed Begley (who won an Oscar) doesn't want Newman around, because Newman used to be the boyfriend of Begley's daughter. Meanwhile, Begley has a hotheaded son who has no qualms being too violent toward Newman, and a mistress who is threatening to spill the beans and destroy the political machine. If this all sounds over-the-top melodramatic to you, it's because this too was adapted from a Tennessee Williams play.
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3 comments:
All good adaptations though I can distinctly rate them in order of preference.
Suddenly, Last Summer is my favorite of the three. A wild ride of repressed rage and general nuttiness with Liz going through the tortures of the damned but Kate really walking away with the film with her fascinating portrait of controlled cruelty.
Sweet Bird of Youth is next. Paul Newman, Ed Begley & Shirley Knight are all fantastic but Geraldine Page owns this one.
Baby Doll is a wild ride but for me it seemed to be trying too hard to be wild. The situations were just so extreme. It's not a bad film but of the three it's the only one I watched only the once.
I also did a mini theme within the theme to help narrow down, going with John Steinbeck adaptations for my three.
The Moon is Down (1943)-During WWII a Norwegian mining town falls under Nazi domination because of its strategic location. The commandant attempts to bring the townspeople to his mindset through gentle persuasion, instead the citizenry form a clandestine underground to combat the enemy.
Of Mice and Men (1939)-Two migrant workers, the clever George (Burgess Meredith) and the strong but feeble minded Lenny (an exceptional Lon Chaney, Jr.) drift through Depression era California relying on each other’s friendship to get them by until a turn of events leads to tragedy.
The Wayward Bus (1957)-In a remote California backwater a collection of downtrodden people-chief among them hard luck bubble dancer Camille (Jayne Mansfield), traveling salesman Ernest (Dan Dailey), bus driver Johnny Chicoy (Rick Jason) and his insecure alcoholic wife Alice (Joan Collins) embark what starts as a routine bus trip but ends up being a journey of discovery both good and bad.
I had Suddenly, Last Summer on my Blind Spot list last year then I wasn't able to get my hands on a copy of it to watch. I was so disappointed. Some day I hope to.
I agree with you, Joel, about the relative merits of the three movies. I really liked Suddenly, Last Summer, was a bit meh about Sweet Bird of Youth, and thought Baby Doll was way overdone.
And Steinbeck does the intros for the various stories adapted as "O Henry's Full House".
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