Still of the day: The Misfits

Sky Movies are running lots of Marilyn movies just now, but never THE MISFITS. I used to be obsessed about this 1961 John Huston film when I was younger, and saw it lots of times in that pre-video world - I had to go to any screening of it. Its one I need to see again now, before too long. Lots on it at MM labels. 

And here's Thelma .....

White Hunter Black Heart, 1990

A thinly fictionalized account of a legendary movie director, whose desire to hunt down an elephant turns into a grim situation with his movie crew in Africa.

The blurb states: "For a film of "excitement, wit and intelligence" (Rex Reed) the hunt ends here. As both star and director of WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, Clint Eastwood plays one of his most colourful roles and crafts one of the most acclaimed movies of his 45-year career.

He plays John Wilson, a brilliant driven film director (loosely based on legendary John Huston) determined to turn his new project in Africa into personal adventure hunting a wild elephant. Jeff Fahey, Marisa Berenson and George Dzundza co-star in this rugged, robust movie from the novel by co-screenwriter Peter Viertel, who accompanied Huston to Africa in 1950 to work on THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Filmed on location in Zimbabwe and London, WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART is a bold trek into the heart of adventure". 

Well they would say that I suppose, but there is no "loosely based" about it. Clint's character is meant to be Huston, and the film they are making is THE AFRICAN QUEEN, with Marisa Berenson a convincing Hepburn character (Bogie and Bacall - also on the location - are not as developed here). 

We were discussing THE AFRICAN QUEEN over at IMDB, which got me interested in this, which I had missed at the time, as indeed I had most of Eastwood's films, I just do not find him or his films interesting (apart from the early stuff like PLAY MISTY FOR ME or DIRTY HARRY). Viertel was a fascinating guy too, writer and Hollywood marverick, who married Deborah Kerr, and knew Huston, Hemingway etc. well, as per his fascinating memoir. (His mother Salka was an intimate of Garbo's). There is a strong British contingent here, with Timothy Spall, Alun Armstrong and Richard Warwick, and Fahey is a pleasing presence. Eastwood gets Huston's speech patterns and mannerisms off pat, so its a fascinating look at movie-making, but really anyone not familar with THE AFRICAN QUEEN or who these people were, would be totally at sea. The climax with the elephants is well handled too. Having seen Berenson recently on the stage, see label, it was interesting to see her again here and she too (like Blanchett) sketches a passable Kate. Hepburn's slim  memoir of making the film is a fascinating read too with great photographs. 
Huston returned to Africa in 1957 for another elephant saga, THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN, about saving elephants, not shooting them. 

Deborah's Sister Clodagh and Sister Angela

Two of our enduring favourites were screened again recently, and despite having them on disk I had to tune in once again. We simply love Deborah Kerr's two nuns:  the superior Sister Clodagh in Michael Powell's masterwork BLACK NARCISSUS from 1947, when Deborah was all of 26 and in charge of those nuns in that convent in the high Himalyas - as per my other posts of it, so I won't repeat myself, see Narcissus label.

A decade later in HEAVEN KNOWS, MR ALLISON in 1957 she is that much simpler Irish nun Sister Angela alone on that pacific island (it was filmed in Tobago).... as this blurb states:  As World War II rages, tough marine Robert Mitchum is stranded on a desert island with nun Deborah Kerr. Cracking romantic chemistry in this ace John Huston adventure. Screenplay by John Lee Mahin the veteran who scripted that chemistry in 1932's RED DUST and and its 50s remake MOGAMBO as well as the fun western NORTH TO ALASKA (his last credit is a Jean Seberg movie I love MOMENT TO MOMENT in 1965. 

We have written about this before, here - see Kerr, Powell labels - it remains a deeply affecting movie, among Huston's best, I certainly prefer it to his similar AFRICAN QUEEN. MR ALLISON actually has a lot of affinities with Mitchum's RIVER OF NO RETURN in 1954 - people in the wilderness having to survive while surrounded by hostile enemies, and there's the similar scene where there Mitch has to warm up numb Marilyn Monroe, and here the wet sister Angela; they catch and cook a moose in RIVER, its that unfortunate basking turtle in MR ALLISON .... 

Deborh's nuns are as iconic as her governesses (THE KING AND I, THE INNOCENTS) and she worked with Huston several times, also in the silly 60s spoof CASINO ROYALE in 1967 and to great effect in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA in 1964. She and Mitchum had great chemistry together, as also in THE GRASS IS GREENER in 1960 and perfectly in Zinnemann's THE SUNDOWNERS which should have bagged her the 1960 Best Actress Oscar, in fact, as I mentioned before, I would have made it a tie with her and her friend Jean Simmons (not even nominated for ELMER GANTRY where her co-stars Burt and Shirley Jones got their awards) - Liz could still have (deservedly) won in 1966.  It would have been culmination of Deborah's and Jean's great decade, the two British roses who went to Hollywood and were very big stars indeed in the 1950s and early '60s. But it was not to be .... Deb's nuns though remain an evergreen treat. She also teamed with Mitchum again later in that 80s telefilm about an army reunion. of course had great chemistry with frequent co-stars Cary, Burt, Niven, Brynner,  More on her at Kerr label. 

"Myra Breckinridge is all woman ... or something!"

Now let us turn to MYRA ... interesting to see that Russ Meyer's 1970 BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is now issued on Bu-ray and dvd and reviewed in magazines like "Sight & Sound" .... it  was always regarded as the ultimate Trash Classic, often twinned with Fox's other 1970 bomb: the film they made of Gore Vidal's hilarious satire MYRA BRECKINRIDGE in all those late-night double features at cult cinemas.  Will MYRA follow suit onto Blu-ray now too ? Do we even want to see it again - there are clips on YouTube including a Mae West cut featuring only Mae's scenes.. (I have MYRA and BEYOND on a twin dvd pack actually, I am sure thats enough for me).

I absolutely loved Gore's book at the time, being in my early twenties, it was a savage satire on Hollywood and those movie buffs. England's one time pop singer (for five minutes) and part-time actor (A PLACE TO GO) Mike Sarne was the surprising choice chosen to direct, as he put veterans John Huston (Buck Loner) and Mae West (the insatiable agent Leticia Van Allen) through their paces, with Raquel Welch gamely playing sex-change Myra, with critic Rex Reed as her alter ego Myron. The critics hated it, the public generally ignored it, but those in the know rushed to see it as did my best friend Stan and myself - I can remember us standing in the queue waiting to get in, to be greeted by the bare bones of the novel and endless 20th Century Fox clips featuring Shirley Temple and the like .... it was really nothing like the book, but how could it? Huston and Mae seemed to be enjoying themselves (Mae arrives at her office, equipped with a bed, where a host of guys - including a young Tom Selleck - are waiting for her ... Mae says she has a full day so "one of those guys will have to go"). Farah Fawcett-Major got her big break here too as the innocent Mary-Anne. 

The climax with Myra donning a strap-on and sodomising that hunk Rusty Godowski (Roger Herren) was certainly eye-popping for the time ...

A sample of some of the dialogue: 

Myra: I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess. The new woman whose astonishing history started with a surgeon's scalpel, and will end... who-knows-where. Just as Eve was born from Adam's rib, so Myron died to give birth to Myra. Did Myron take his own life, you will ask? Yes, and no, is my answer. Beyond that, my lips are sealed. Let it suffice for me to say that Myron is... with me, and that I am the fulfillment of all his dreams. Who is Myra Breckinridge? What is she? Myra Breckinridge is a dish, and don't you ever forget it, you motherfuckers - as the children say nowadays.

Myra:  Gentlemen... I am Myron Breckinridge! Uncle Buck, your fag nephew became your niece two years ago in Copenhagen and is now free as a bird and happy in being the most extraordinary woman in the world!

Leticia: How tall are you when you're off your horse, cowboy?

Young Man at "Interview": Um, six feet, seven inches, ma'am.

Leticia: Well, never mind the six feet, and let's talk about the seven inches.

Myra: Where are my tits? Where are my tits?

MYRA was outrageous in 1970 even in that druggy, crazy counterculture era of MIDNIGHT COWBOY, WOMEN IN LOVE, FELLINI-SATYRICON, Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT, Visconti's THE DAMNED. Transgender is seemingly trendy now - could MYRA's time come again? I am in the mood for VALLEY OF THE DOLLS now ....

Richard, Robert or Leo ?

In the early 1800's, a group of fur trappers and Indian traders are returning with their goods to civilisation and are making a desperate attempt to beat the oncoming winter. When guide Zachary Bass is injured in a bear attack, they decide he's a goner and leave him behind to die. When he recovers instead, he swears revenge on them and tracks them and their paranoiac expedition leader down.

A synopsis for THE REVENANT?  (which since it opened here last weekend has been praised in the highest terms and is expected to sweep all before it at the Academy Awards) .... er, no, its from a 1971 Richard Harris western (shot in Spain) titled MAN IN THE WILDERNESS by Richard C. Sarafian - I remember it but did not want to see it at the time (not being one of Mr Harris's greatest admirers) but it now seems to have been re-discovered, and it also features John Huston in the cast. 
Worth another look perhaps - is THE REVENANT a souped-up new version with all the technical wizardy now available - including that very realistic bear? The names may have been changed for the Harris version, but it seems he is playing Hugh Glass - as DiCaprio does in the Inarritu new classic. 

Then there's Robert Redford as JEREMIAH JOHNSON, another mountain man in the wilderness in Sidney Pollack's 1972 western - not the same story of course, but it shows that sagas of mountain men coping with everything nature (and other humans) can throw at them are nothing new .....those trappers and mountain men also feature of course in films like YELLOWSTONE KELLY and HOW THE WEST WAS WON (both Stewart and Fonda as trappers). Plus of course one of Kevin Costner's biggest hits DANCES WITH WOLVES, in 1990, (which even beat Scorsese's GOODFELLAS as Best Film) where his disillusioned cavalry officer leaves 'civilisation' to live in the wilderness and mix with the Natives ... we loved it at the time, don't know how I would feel about it now. 

Lets see how Leo does this time round - he is already on the Oscar campaign trail here, deigning to appear on heavyweight political shows (just like Cate did when campaigning for that BLUE JASMINE award a few years ago...). 

The Misfits and those Sixties dramas

Nice to see THE MISFITS back in selected cinemas again, with a new poster (well, at the BFI Southbank in a new restoration extended run as part of their Monroe season) with interesting reviews in the papers, it seems Huston's 1961 drama (often seen as too melancholy and downbeat for some - lacking the savage humour of Tennessee's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, another Huston hit - or Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?) so now THE MISFITS has been re-evaluated and appreciated, with its star power as potent as ever and its certainly a key Huston film.

 "Monroe and Clift are both truly remarkable, especially together" says The Daily Telegraph, at:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-misfits/review/

Against the odds a highly erratic Marilyn Monroe gives an extraordinary performance in John Huston's elegaic film  of Arthur Miller's script, conveying her character's great empathy with the cowboys (Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift) out of kilter with a modern, wages-based world, and her identification with the wild mustangs they're plannng to kill for petfood. Gable and Clift are also exceptional (as is Eli Wallach as the resentful car mechanic Guido) in roles that celebrate and subvert their screen images. 

I was obsessed about THE MISFITS for a long time, back in my twenties when back in that pre-video age before we could own copies of favourite films, I could never miss a screening. Apart from the cast, it has maybe the most perfect black and white photography, as lensed by Russell Metty (who did TOUCH OF EVIL among others) . It was a very difficult shoot, with all the world press covering it - including Magnum's Eve Arnold, who knew Monroe and later published her book on the film and its making - Eve Arnold label. I was a kid at the time and remember all the press coverage.  Like EAST OF EDEN, PLEIN SOLEIL or the later BLOW-UP, it was a film that just spoke to me .... particularly as the Monroe mythology took off in the early '60s. 

Gable seems sadly aged here, after his previous one IT STARTED IN NAPLES where he looks fine with Sophia Loren (over 30 years younger than him), Clift is of course marvellous as usual, after his great WILD RIVER with Kazan, and before going back to Huston for the questionable FREUD, Wallach (who lived on to 98, it was fascinating seeing him as a wizened old man) scores as the bitter, resentful Guido using the death of his wife to try to score with Marilyn's Roslyn, while Thelma Ritter is bliss as the Reno landlady used to the ways of those cowboys. As in ALL ABOUT EVE (which of course Marilyn was also in as Miss Caswell) she vanishes from the film too soon.

Thats another fascinating thing about THE MISFITS - its a mere ten years from those bit parts in Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and Mank's ALL ABOUT EVE in 1950 to her final completed role here, filmed in 1960, as Miller's heroine. She has some great moments here, hugging the tree or relating to the dog, and just with Gable and that marvellous ending with them in the car .... its a very affecting moment. (She did though look marvellous in the uncompleted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, back with Fox and Cukor). 
The scenes with the horses too are perfectly done and perfectly Huston. 

It is of course a great early Sixties black and white drama, along with other favourites like ALL FALL DOWN, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Demy's BAY OF ANGELS, Malle's LE FEU FOLLET, Losey's THE SERVANT, Huston's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, Nichols' WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? etc. Sixties dramas, we love them. 
More on THE MISFITS at label.  

NIGHT OF THE IGUANA

Coming up (before my 1,500th post): A STAR IS BORN and those Fifties dramas / REBECCA at 75 / A new MR RIPLEY at 60 / Bette Davis / Flora Robson / Diana Dors / Dorothy McGuire - the perfect mother / British B-movies continued / and back to Marcello, Romy, Catherine, Dirk, Antonioni, Lee Remick  et al ...

All those directors !

Following on from the lists of actors and actresses we like, here is the Directors list .... its bigger than I imagined ! 

Michelangelo Antonioni  (right)

Alfred Hitchcock 

Howard Hawks 

Ingmar Bergman
David Lean
Michael Powell
Martin Scorsese

John Huston 

William Wyler 

Billy Wilder 

Joe Mankiewicz 

George Cukor 

Vincente Minnelli 
Josef Von Sternberg 

Orson Welles 

THE REST OF THE PANTHEON: 

Frank Borzage, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, George Stevens, Fred Zinnemann, Alan J Pakula, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Charles Walters.

OF THEIR TIME ('50s/'60s): 

Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Douglas Sirk, Frank Tashlin, Otto Preminger, Nicholas Ray, Anthony Mann, Robert Rossen, Martin Ritt, Stanley Donen, John Frankenheimer, Richard Brooks, Jean Negulesco, John Sturges, Blake Edwards, Richard Quine, George Roy Hill, Robert Wise, Robert Mulligan, Richard Fleisher. 

CURRENT DIRECTORS: 

Mike Leigh, Francois Ozon, Pedro Almodovar, Nicholas Winding Refn, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Todd Haynes, Bill Condon, Ang Lee, Paul Schrader.

BRITISH: 

John Schlesinger, Joseph Losey*, Richard Lester*, John Boorman, Nicholas Roeg, Ridley Scott, Carol Reed, Clive Donner, Desmond Davis, Tony Richardson, Basil Dearden, J. Lee Thompson, Philip Leacock, Alexander McKendrick, Lewis Gilbert, Ronald Neame [* honorary Brits]  Right: Losey directs MODESTY BLAISE.

EUROPEAN (after Antonioni): 

Federico Fellini, Vittorio de Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville, Mauro Bolognini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Max Ophuls, Luis Bunuel, Wim Wenders, Francois Truffaut, Rene Clement, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Lelouch, Roger Vadim, Claude Sautet, Julian Duviver, Robert Hossein, Henri Verneuil.
Left and right: Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy.

WORLD CINEMA:

Ozu, Mizoguchi, Ray, Kurosawa, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Wong Kar-wai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Hitch & Cary

Huston & Finney's Volcano ...

UNDER THE VOLCANO, 1984, follows the final day in the life of a self-destructive British Consul Geoffrey Firmin (Albert Finney, in an Oscar-nominated tour de force) on the eve of World War II. Firmin stumbles through a small Mexican village during the 'day of the dead' fiesta, as he drinks all he can, and tries to re-connect with his estranged wife (Jacqueline Bisset). John Huston's ambitious tackling of Malcolm Lowry's towering novel was compared with his greatest works and the film also gives Finney one of his best roles.  As the blurb says.

Another interesting late John Huston film then - we like a lot of his 50s/60s output, as per label - and despite some of the rubbish items he directed and acted in, he did turn out the occasional gem like FAT CITY or WISE BLOOD and of course THE DEAD in his later years, then of course there's ANNIE, that football comicstrip, and its fun seeing Huston having fun in DE SADE or MYRA BRECKINGRIDGE. But for me his best glory years were the MOULIN ROUGE, MOBY DICK, HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON, THE UNFORGIVEN, THE MISFITS, NIGHT OF THE IGUANA years. 
It was great seeing him in person at the BFI when FAT CITY came out in '72, this was the man who had made some of my essential films like THE MISFITS! His best acting role is surely in CHINATOWN (where his monstrous Noah Cross is the corrupt heart of the film). Huston had that literaty bent too, often tacking "difficult" novels (like McCullers' REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE) and so it is with Malcolm Lowry's UNDER THE VOLANCO, a novel I don't know but is highly regarded, about that alcoholic British Consul in Mexico and that last fateful day on the Day of the Dead festival. Huston has form with Mexico too with TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and of course NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. The local colour is plentiful here and we get to see veteran Kathy Jurado, and also English character actor James Villiers. 

Albert Finney IS the film and his performance towers over all, making his co-stars seem lightweight by comparison. Jacqueline Bisset looks never better than here and is sheer tailored elegance as his wife who returns; Anthony Andrews is a curious choice as the half-brother but this was a few years after his enormous success in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. It seems an under-written part though, as indeed is Jacqueline's. The hell of alcoholism is vividly depicted but the ending when it comes is sudden and brutal and not just for Albert! and not what one was expecting. Not an unqualified success then, but certainly a curiosity worth seeing now. 

John Huston as Noah ...

THE BIBLE – IN THE BEGINNING. As Russell Crowe’s NOAH is about to descend upon us, a timely look at that forgotten John Huston version from 1966, this version of parts of The Bible, as produced by Dino De Laurentiis looks rather like his production of BARABBAS, and also has a polyglot cast. 

The creation of man section is rather risible as Michael Parks and one Ulla Bergryd essay Adam and Eve discovering shame in their nakedness after that apple; then its on to Richard Harris and Franco Nero as Cain and Abel (before they went off to Hollywood and CAMELOT), Stephen Boyd is an oddly made-up King Nimrod with that tower of babel, Peter O’Toole plays 3 Angels who appear to Abraham – George C Scott going way over the top, with Ava Gardner as his wife Sarah. 

The central section has Huston himself enjoying playing Noah with all those real animals going two by two into the ark. Lets see if Aronofsky can top that! - it seems his animals are digitalised and not really central to the film. Then it is on to the destruction of Sodom as those decadent citizens want to “know” those Angels (didn’t O’Toole suffer enough as T E Lawrence?) . 

Before a nuclear bomb hits the city Lot (Gabriele Ferzetti from L’AVVENTURA) and his wife Eleanora Rossa Drago flee, but she too gets turned into that pillar of salt – that section was better done in Aldrich’s 1962 extravaganza SODOM & GOMORRAH. This is all over-ripe fun now – not quite an epic nor a peplum, but certainly a curiosity in Huston’s resume. 

A '60s classic: Night of the Iguana

Almost 1,100 posts and I have not got around to NIGHT OF THE IGUANA ! - maybe the last great film from a Tennessee Williams play, and one of the great dramas of that classic era for them: the '50s and '60s. Also, a key John Huston film from 1964, with maybe the last great roles for Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr. The roles of Hannah Jelkes (Kerr) and Maxine (Ava) seem equally balanced, hard to decide which is the bigger role, we see more of Maxine initially but then Hannah seems to take over in that late great scene with the defrocked Reverend Shannon - for once, Burton is ideally cast here as he rants and rants. Throw in the LOLITA nymphet Sue Lyon and Grayson Hall as that schoolteacher, and of course the old poet Nonno and you have one of the great Williams plays. Its a film one can watch and enjoy on many levels, no matter how often one has seen it (and its certainly rewatchable!) - a great cast performing one of Williams' best plays with great dialogue to savour, by a great director giving full rein to the play and the players.

John Huston makes a terrific film of it all, and it certainly put Puerto Vallerta in Mexico on the map, black and white actually suits it, it might have looked too lurid in colour, and the play - I enjoyed reading it as a teenager - has been suitably modernised for the cinema, taking out those annoying Germans in the background was a good idea! It starts of course with Maxine idling with her 2 beach boys and that tied up iguana (it tastes like chicken apparantly) scrabbling to get free, as the defrocked priest turns up with his latest tour bus of old ladies, led by the fearsome Miss Fellowes (Hall) and her charge Charlotte (Lyon) who has eyes for the bus driver Skip Ward.

Then we get down on their luck sketch artist Hannah Jelkes and her ancient (94 I think) father, the poet, who also turn up. Maxine wants to get rid of them but Rev Shannon intercedes ... Charlotte causes more trouble for Shannon but the tour bus eventually leaves, after the priest saves Miss Fellowes from discovering her real interest in wilful pretty young Charlotte ....he and Hannah have that long soul-bearing conversation where she discloses her erotic encounters and how she and her father travel paying their way with their sketches and poems. Miss Jelkes is quite a hustler in her own way ...
Kerr is brilliant here and gets every nuance of her character, with her lines like "Nothing human disgusts me, Mr. Shannon, unless it's unkind or violent" and how she gained control over her demons by out-lasting them. Then there is "operating on the fantastic level and the realistic level" and of course the iguana "one of God's creatures at the end of his rope" get cut loose and escapes the cooking pot. Ava too is in her element, pushing around her cart of "complimentary rum-cocoas" ...

I liked this enormously when I was 18, back then while new in London it was a treat to travel into the West End and see a big new movie in a first run cinema on a Sunday night, and The Empire in Leicester Square was certainly the ticket, where I saw THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE and NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, and I also remember the first run of YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW at the Plaza (now a supermarket where I later saw first runs of AMERICAN GIGOLO and BLOODLINE - well it starred Audrey Hepburn with Romy Schneider and that great cast!).

Bette in the original production

NIGHT OF THE IGUANA has proved to be endurable, and gets staged regularly, I have seen Sian Phillips as Hannah, where she was ideal too. That initial production must have been astonishing, in 1962 - Margaret Leighton a perfect Hannah and Bette Davis going over the top as Maxine, she was not happy in the role and left the production and ended up playing to her fans who came to see Bette camp it up. Ava (a much more sensual and earthy Maxine) and Deborah and Burton do some of their best work in the film, it must have been a fascinating set - Elizabeth Taylor was there as well, as well as Kerr's new husband writer Peter Viertel, an old friend of Huston's. They certainly did Tennessee proud. It was Huston's late great period too, from HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON, THE UNFORGIVEN, THE MISFITS - there is a lot of fun in IGUANA by comparison, and then his late classics like FAT CITY (when I saw him being interviewed at London's BFI) and THE DEAD in '87. I have his UNDER THE VOLCANO with Finney lined upo to see soon too.
 

That Tennessee box set was an essential purchase some years ago in the great days of dvd, with that restored STREETCAR, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF,  SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, IGUANA and THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE. Add in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, SUMMER AND SMOKE, BABY DOLL, THE ROSE TATTOO, THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, THE FUGITIVE KIND, Losey's very odd BOOM! ... which may only leave his comedy PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT I have not seen. I also saw his plays like SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS, and of course I love his short stories like "Two On A Party" and "The Malediction". The plays are great to read, and those collected short stories. Claire Bloom was a terrific Blanche too in that 1974 STREETCAR  production, but of course most ladies want to play Blanche - I bet Faye Dunway was a mesmerising one.