Lists: those American dramas ...

Final List of the season - we are all listed out! After covering British, French and Italian favourites its now a return look at those great American dramas from the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s - the heyday of Kazan and Kramer,  Wyler and Wilder, Huston, Mankiewicz, Cukor, Minnelli, Nick Ray, Preminger, Brooks, Ritt, etc. and when American drama was ruled by the likes of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, William Faulkner, William Inge etc. We have covered them in detail here before, so this is a quick roundup. Lots more at labels - particularly Tennessee Williams ,,, (below: NIGHT OF THE IGUANA)

We have to begin of course with those early Kazans; 

• A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
• ON THE WATERFRONT
  
• EAST OF EDEN
• A FACE IN THE CROWD
• Nicholas Ray's THE LUSTY MEN in 1952, a strong rodeo drama bringing out the best in Mitchum and Susan Hayward.(right) 
• More baroque Ray with his 1954 JOHNNY GUITAR - the first film I saw, aged 8. 
• Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE of course, and Stevens' GIANT to complete the Dean hat-trick. 
• Cukor's 1954 A STAR IS BORN, the best musical drama ever
• THE BIG COUNTRY in 1958 is really a William Wyler drama which just happens to be set in the west. 
• CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
• SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
• BONJOUR TRISTESSE
• SEPARATE TABLES
• THE NUN'S STORY
• ON THE BEACH.

Those 20th Century Fox literarary adaptations came thick and fast:

• THE LONG HOT SUMMER - Faulkner, 1958
• THE SOUND AND THE FURY in 1959 - Faulkner, Good cast: Brynner, Woodward, Leighton
• THE WAYWARD BUS - a long unseen Steinbeck from 1957, Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins! Its a fascinating mess or Trash Classic
• SONS AND LOVERS - D H Lawrence gets the Fox treatment in 1960 ...
• SANCTUARY - another Faulkner misfire, from Tony Richardson in 1961 - Lee Remick and Yves Montand make the oddest team, but Lee shines ...
• HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN - 1962, as per recent review. 

The 1960s upped the ranks with those new directors like John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Robert Mulligan, while John Huston went on and on ....

• THE MISFITS
• ONE EYED JACKS - Brando's brooding western, 1961
• ALL FALL DOWN - a perennial favourite
• THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
• SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS
• THE MIRACLE WORKER
• TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
• DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
• LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
• THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS
  
• TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN 
• THE STRIPPER
• NIGHT OF THE IGUANA 
• WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
• REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE
• SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH
• SUMMER AND SMOKE
• THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED
• INSIDE DAISY CLOVER
• THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE 
• MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
  

Girls night out again + their GBF.

I am indebted to that wonderful site http://doloresdelargotowers.blogspot.co.uk/, for this different shot of one of our favourite photographs here (see sidebar, right).

Thats Vivien Leigh, Kay Kendall, and their gay best friend Noel Coward welcoming Lauren Bacall to London, in January 1959. (As mentioned here before, Kay was gone by September that year, but Bacall soldiered on for 50+ years, until 2014. A night out drinking cocktails could hardly get more glamorous. 

Theatre still of the day: Vivien Leigh ....

... as Tatiana in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM in 1937, photograph by J B Debenham, (the image is advertising a current theatre exhibition at The British Library). This is one we would have liked to have seen, but before our time of course. I think Robert Helpmann played Oberon to her queen of the fairies. 

Vivien's THAT HAMILTON WOMAN (with Olivier) from 1941 and the 1945 CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA are both coming up this coming week on a cable channel here; not seen those, so will be factoring them in. The CLEOPATRA has a whole raft of British supporting players like Flora Robson and Stewart Granger, and one may spot newcomers like Kay Kendall and Roger Moore among the extras ...  More on Leigh at label. 

Vivien

The first paragraph of Alexander Walker’s 1987 biography of Vivien Leigh captures the gilded high-life of the then theatre’s golden couple The Oliviers perfectly:

The Caprice had sent the usual tray over to Vivien’s dressing room at the St James’s Theatre. There were little triangular-shaped sandwiches, enough for the dozen or so people who usually came round after the curtain: smoked salmon, prosciutto and, her own favourites, brown bread filled with thick honeycomb (“Not runny honey” she’d remind Mario, the Caprice’s maitre d’hotel). There were also four bottle of good Chablis  - not for Vivien though. She served her guests wine but preferred a large gin and tonic to be waiting for her when she came off the stage at the end of the play.

That Saturday night at the end of August 1951 the play was CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA …. The Oliviers had been married for eleven years. They would celebrate their anniversary at the end of the month at Notley Abbey, the country house in Buckinghamshire which Vivien and Olivier had created out of the stoney bones of the thirteenth century Augustinian monestary and hospice founded by Henry II. It wad for Notley they were bound tonight, with weekend guests whom Vivien was expecting any minute in her dressing-room as the crowd of backstage visitors dwindled. There would be Orson Welles, the writer and journalist Godfrey Winn, plus Rex Harrison and his wife Lilli Palmer. In addition a number of other people from the world of theatre and films would be coming over for Sunday lunch and staying on to play tennis or croquet. After dinner there would be charades or other party games. Perhaps they would roll back the carpet and have a dance …

The Oliviers were at the height of their power and celebrity in the early 1950s. He was the greatest actor of his generation. They were the most popular couple on the English-speaking stage. He had been knighted in 1947. They had been treated like surrogate royalty when they led the Old Vic on an Australian tour the following year. They were screen stars too. Even in the few places where Vivien’s name may not be known the name and image of Scarlett O’Hara was part of cinema mythology. Olivier’s HENRY V had been a wartime battle-cry and the most successful Shakespeare film ever - and then of course his acclaimed Oscar-winning HAMLET. Only the year before in 1950 she had filmed A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with Marlon Brando in Hollywood – another iconic role for her. At 37 and 44 respectively, Vivien’s clear-cut, delicate Dresden shepherdress beauty and Olivier’s strong, dark good looks – she vivid and outgoing, he more withdrawn and self-absorbed - were hardly beginning to show any signs of the passing years.

Alexander Walker ( 1930-2003), the well-known influential film critic of London’s “Evening Standard” (we read his reviews eagerly each week) and an acclaimed biographer (of, among others, Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, Dietrich, Crawford, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and tomes on the British Cinema in the 1960s); he knew Leigh and Olivier and their milieu and captures it perfectly here. I used to see him around town quite a bit, no doubt on is way to or from press shows. In the Leigh biography he dissects the Oliviers’ union (from 1940 to 1960 when they divorced and he set on that new marriage to Joan Plowright and that new career after THE ENTERTAINER and launching the new National Theatre).

But back in 1951: “The name ‘The Oliviers’ meant something more than the mere aura of showbiz fame of a couple uniquely favoured in love, talent and fame. It signified, style, commitment, audacity and a sense of showmanship that was wonderfully refreshing to experience in the England of those post-war years when the memory of grim austerity had not yet faded. In the public’s perception of them the Oliviers were a couple who were still deeply in love with each other, fused together in their lives and careers, by the irresistible attraction which had compelled them both to break up their marriages to others in the 1930s and recklessly join their fortunes ….

The throng of friends and hangers-on in Vivien’s dressing room began to leave or pass next door to Olivier’s. Godfrey Winn arrived and Vivien kissed him and waved him towards the remnants o the sandwich tray, Rex and Lilli were next door with Larry and they were waiting for Orson to arrive before setting off through the autograph hunters waiting outside, for the hour or so drive to Notley … the weekend was beginning.

It is a fascinating read, capturing it all perfectly, including the fascinating story of Vivien’s rise to fame, her determination to play Scarlett O’Hara, and her subsequent breakdowns and manic depression. I like her also in THE ROMAN SRING OF MRS STONE (see review at Leigh label) from 1960, covered in fascinating detail here, as is her life after Olivier, until her death in 1967. “A lass unparalled’d” indeed …

Mrs Stone, on her Roman balcony, 1960

We have written about Mrs Stone here before - that beauty on a Roman balcony in 1960. That Tennessee Williams boxset some years back (in the great era of dvds when we had to collect everything) was an ideal compendium of his greatest hits, with A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (with new added material like Brando's screen tests etc), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, BABY DOLL, NIGHT OF THE IGUANA and the 1960 film of his story THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE. (I suppose it couldn't fit in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, SUMMER AND SMOKE, THE FUGITIVE KIND, THE ROSE RATTOO, BOOM! or THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED (I always forget THE GLASS MENAGERIE, as have never seen any version of it, though I have read the text). ... more on all these at Tennessee label).

Right: Rich, lonely and vulnerable, Mrs Stone is easy prey for heartless gigolo Paolo (Warren Beatty) and his malevolent female pimp The Contessa (Lotte Lenya).

THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE is always a pleasure to see again, maybe not a great movie, but a splendidly enjoyable melodrama where Vivien Leigh is again ideal - this time as Karen Stone, an ageing famous actress fleeing from her public and taking up residence in Rome where she "drifts" after her husband inconsiderately dies next to her on the plane. She avoids concerned friends like Coral Browne, but soon falls prey to predatory creatures like the Contessa and her stable of young beauties for every taste (viz the old gent meeting his trick in the opening credits). No-one suggests decadence like Lotte Lenya and she certainly scores here, as Mrs Stone is soon bedazzled by Paolo (Warren Beatty in his debut) who treats her mean and takes her money, but as Mrs Stone becomes addicted to sex she throws caution to the winds after coolly resisting Paolo's casual blandishments at the start.

Soon though he is mocking her and arranging other dates with that young actress new in Rome (Jill St John), while the homeless young man stalking Mrs Stone (Jeremy Spenser, below) becomes more bold ... finally the abandoned Mrs Stone throws down her keys to the vagrant and thinks that five years more is all she wants ... one almost laughs out loud at Beatty's youthful beauty and petulence as Vivien again sketches her desperation (this of course captures her after the Olivier years) - 
if the film had been better (it was directed by theatre director Jose Quintero) it could have been one of her great roles equalling Scarlett O'Hara or Blanche DuBois, or THE DEEP BLUE SEA or her last appearance in SHIP OF FOOLS and she looks great in those Balmain outfits. 
(Pauline Kael in "I Lost It At The Movies" says: "The Tennessee Williams novella is about a proud, cold-hearted bitch without cares or responsibilities who learns that sex is all that holds her to life, it is the only sensation that momentarily saves her from the meaningless drift of her existance" and who used her youth and beauty to get ahead and now finds she is reduced to purchasing both. Vivian has some delicious scenes with Lotte, who is as perfect as her Rosa Klebb here.   

Penny Stalling in the very entertaining Flesh and Fantasy (1978) says: 
“Tennessee Williams wanted the lead in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone to go to Katherine Hepburn, after seeing her performance as the scheming mother in Suddenly Last Summer. But Hepburn, who resented the way her advancing years had been treated in that film, had no intention of inviting comparison between herself and the lonely middle-aged actress who buys the attentions of a male hustler. Although the public was intrigued by rumors of an off-screen liaison between the film’s subsequent stars, Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty, Spring was a disappointment at the box office. It seems that audiences were uncomfortable with the film’s depressing theme, and with the painful similarities between the lives of Vivien Leigh and Karen Stone.”
(Hepburn, of course, had already done the love-starved woman in Italy falling for a handsome man, in Lean's SUMMERTIME in 1955, so would hardly have repeated herself). 

(There was, incidentally, a 2003 remake of MRS STONE with Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez (right) - they may have shown more flesh and Helen did her usual thing, but (like THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY where they also trowel on period detail) it just couldn't catch that 1960 original, and Anne Bancroft in one of her final roles as the Contessa was somehow all wrong, her decadence amounting to stealing the chocolate biscuits...). 
Contrast with Tom Hiddleston in HIGH RISE: 

Showpeople: stars go to the theatre too

When filming THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in London in 1956, Marilyn gamely trouped around the theatres with husband Arthur Miller, and Olivier and Vivien Leigh, to attend a production of Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.  
Kay Kendall and Lauren Bacall do not seem terribly happy though at the Royal Court in 1959 - I wonder what they were seeing?

RIP, Renee Asherson

Renee Asherson (1915-2014), the actress, who has died at the grand age of  99, was - according to "The Daily Telegraph" "a delicately feminine exponent of the classics, both ancient and modern; yet she never reached the dramatic heights implied by several early triumphs. With her twinkling eyes, husky voice and petite figure, Renée Asherson brought distinction and charm, if not much steel, to scores of plays and many films and television dramas."

Leigh & Asherson in STREETCAR

She worked in the theatre during the '30s and '40s (starting in Gielgud's legendary ROMEO AND JULIET in 1935 where he and Olivier alternated the roles of Romeo and Mercutio. She is marvellous in Asquith's THE WAY TO THE STARS (Rattigan label) in 1945 where she and Rosamund John are perfect English gentlewomen (a la Celia Johnson).. She played the French princess in Olivier's HENRY V, and he also directed her as Stella in that first British production of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE in 1949 (right) where Vivien Leigh was Blanche to Bonar Colleano's Stanley. 

A long career in theatre and television followed, plus roles in POOL OF LONDON, THE MAGIC BOX (with her husband Robert Donat), and Vincent Price's THEATRE OF BLOOD in 1972. Television work included the obligatory MISS MARPLE series, MIDSOMER MURDERS, COUNTRY MATTERS, TENKO and that all-star BBC MEMENTO MORI with Maggie Smith in 1992. Her final film role was in THE OTHERS in 2001. 

Another great beauty on a Roman balcony, in 1960 ...

Two beauties actually: Vivien and Warren. I have already featured that fascinating 1960 film of Tennessee Williams' story THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE here but finding some new stills makes it seem like a apt choice after THE GREAT BEAUTY and that 1960 Bolognini film reviewed here recently, FROM A ROMAN BALCONY ..... More on Mrs Stone at the Tennessee/Vivian/Warren labels. 

Lost and found: The Deep Blue Sea, 1955

Hardly a "forgotten film", more like an unavailable one the 1955 THE DEEP BLUE SEA has not been properly available for decades, I was given a so-so copy a year or two ago but had not really bothered with it. Now though it is back, and being shown by the BFI in their November tribute to Vivien Leigh. It seems they have made a digital copy of a surviving 35mm print with variable quality, which they will be screening twice, so a new dvd may follow in due course. 

Stealing a march on the BFI, time to dig out my copy then - and the print is reasonably ok, not fuzzy but maybe a bit bleached out. It is of course one of Terence Rattigan's most famous plays and a key Vivien Leigh film. Leigh only made 8 films after GONE WITH THE WIND (WATERLOO BRIDGE, THAT HAMILTON WOMAN, CAESAR & CLEOPATRA, ANNA KARENINA in 1947, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, THE DEEP BLUE SEA in 1955, THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE in 1960 and SHIP OF FOOLS in 1965 - see Leigh label for reviews on these later ones. She also began that routine programmer ELEPHANT WALK in 1953 (an odd choice for her but it seems she wanted to work with Peter Finch, whom she was involved with) - but her illness forced her to leave the production, though it seems she is still seen in long shots, as she was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor.  So, finally to THE DEEP BLUE SEA:

I looked at my serviceable copy of it yesterday and its a fascinating mid-50s movie, it must have been novel at the time for the audience to see Lady Olivier putting a shilling in the gas meter to gas herself ... but her Hester seems to be on a similar arc as her Mrs Stone and Mrs Treadwell (SHIP OF FOOLS) - a glacial (some may say icy) beauty with deep needs which are not being fulfilled - by either her baffled lover Freddy (who flees to Canada to test planes) or her staid husband. Poor old Kenny More comes on as though he is still playing the silly ass from GENEVIEVE. The play has been opened up with flashbacks to how they met, at an aerodrome, the golf course, a society ball, and ski-ing as Klosters. They are referred to at the apartments as Mr and Mrs Page, but surely they are not married? Maybe they could not be seen living in sin then ...

Hester has attempted suicide in Freddy's absence but is rescued in time. Freddy is furious when he finds out (and gives her another shilling for the meter in case he is late for dinner!). Her husband (Emlyn Williams), a judge, is still in love with her, but seems not to provide the passion she seeks. The doctor (Eric Portman) who saved her life proffers some advice, but can Hester take control of her own destiny and live for herself? She could return to the judge and continue that high class existance .... 

It is a nice view of mid-'50s London, at that apartment house on the riverbank, and there are some familiar faces: Dandy Nichols, Moira Lister, Miriam Karlin, even Sid James as "man in street".  Ultimately it is Leigh's film, and as one of her classic roles it should be made available again. Terence Davies of course re-made it in 2011, rewriting the Rattigan original considerably to suit his own milieu, to the annoyance of the Rattigan purists. The 1955 film is pure Rattigan of course, like his play SEPARATE TABLES (Rattigan label). I saw him once giving a lecture at the National Film Theatre, sometime in the early '70s, a very dapper man; his house on Brighton seafront (which I used to live near) has a blue plaque in his honour.  

Leigh died in 1967, but was always a great beauty and a true star - I don't care for GWTW that much, but her Blanche DuBois in STREETCAR remains one of the great female performances in cinema, I particularly like THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE. Alexander Walker's biography captures her best, particularly that great era when she and Laurence Olivier were the reigning couple in British theatre. Above: SHIP OF FOOLS.

Simone Signoret: Ship of Fools / The Deadly Affair

Based on the novel by Katharine Anne Porter, 1965's SHIP OF FOOLS is set on board a liner sailing from Mexico to Bremerhaven in Germany in 1933 - a significant date. Among the many passengers (who represent society at large then) are divorcee Mary Treadwell (Vivien Leigh in her final role) and La Condesa (Simone Signoret) a drug-addicted Spanish noblewoman being deported as a political prisoner. Leigh and Signoret are both marvellous here - Signoret in particular having a doomed romance with ship's doctor Oscar Werner (who has a heart condition...) - these two are tremendous together. Leigh (who died in 1967) has some stunning moments too, an older Blanche Du Bois or Mrs Stone, surveying her ageing appearance in the mirror, suddenly bursting into a frantic charleston as she walks along the corridor, she is desperate for love and affection and certainly knows how to work a feather boa, she also attacks Lee Marvin who stumbles into her cabin thinking it is that of one of the women selling their favours in Jose Greco's flamenco troupe. 

Marvin is an ageing alcoholic athlete here - also on board are artists George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley (looking like a very 60s modern miss) who have a love-hate relationship, Michael Dunn as a dwarf who addresses us the audience, Jose Ferrer as an obnoxious German spouting his anti-Jewish verbiage without thinking and is a budding Nazi in the making, well-meaning captain Charles Korvin, and a cross section of Germans including Lilia Skala and her dog, Heinz Reuhmann who cannot believe bad of his fellow Germans, teenager Gila Golan and her parents, and the lower decks are full of refugees and extras. We follow their interweaving stories as this particular ship of fools head towards Germany and their destiny ... which foreshadows the holocaust to come, showing a microscosm of a world on the verge of war and worse, as we glimpse a swastika on arrival in Germany ...

Social Significance and Big Issues were always Stanley Kramer's forte and his big ponderous pictures were popular then, whether dealing with racial intolerance (THE DEFIANT ONES), the end of the world (ON THE BEACH), the war trials (JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBURG), teaching (INHERIT THE WIND) etc. SHIP OF FOOLS, scripted by Abby Mann, is more of the same (the naive German Jew returning to Germany says: "there are one million Jews in Germany alone. What are they going to do -- kill all of us?") but it is quite entertaining as well, particuarly when the leads are on view - much more satisfying than the 1976 all-star plodder VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED which was too stuffed with names to involve one ("look, there's Julie Harris with Wendy Hiller..." etc), Oscar Werner was in that too, married to Faye Dunaway in her jackboots).

SHIP OF FOOLS was one of  the year's big ones - but the look of the film is all over the place, only the two leads make any attempt at a period look, the others - particularly Segal and Ashley - look as it they walked in off the street in 1965; it is though interesting to see again as I had not seen it since 1965 when I was 19, at one of my favourite cinemas, the Notting Hill Coronet, which thankfully is still there, though it comprises smaller cinemas now. (Segal of course was heading into his busy years then, with THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM, KING RAT (review below) and so many others). 

Signoret and Leigh must surely have had some interesting conversation about Marilyn Monroe, who of course worked with both their husbands Olivier and Montand, Signoret also starred with Olivier in TERM OF TRIAL....

THE DEADLY AFFAIR: Sidney Lumet's 1966 downbeat thriller has another fascinating role for a rather deglamorised Signoret, and has the perfect casting of James Mason, Harry Andrews, Maximilian Schell, Harriet Andersson and Lynn Redgrave, with lots of familiar faces: Roy Kinnear, Robert Flemyng and others.

Based on a John Le Carre novel THE DEADLY AFFAIR is a cold war thriller centred in the world of espionage. When Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan and his wife (Signoret) are anonymously accused of Communist affiliations, their world is turned upside down. Fennan is subsequently found dead from an apparant suicide, although Secret Service agent Charles Dobbs (Mason), suspects otherwise. When Dobbs' suspicions hit a dead end with his superior officer, the veteran agent decides to resign his government post and join forces with retired CID inspector Mendel (Andrews). As the two men continue their pursuit of the truth, their investigation unearths a spy ring and much more than they ever expected along the way.

This is a satisfying convoluted thriller, rather like that other Le Carre, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (Mason is George Smiley in all but name), with offbeat London locations - the cast excel, good to see Ingmar Bergman actress Harriet Andersson here, Signoret is suitably enigmatic, and there is a murder in a London theatre (the Aldwych actually where David Warner is playing EDWARD II on stage..., and Lynn is a dippy stagehand). It combines elements of film noir, magnificent cast, understatement, gritty realism, even a touch of humor now and then among the glum events. Signoret in just 4 scenes (2 of them silent) excels, the intrusive score by Quincy Jones seems out of place though.

Mason, Signoret and Warner joined forces again for Lumet's impossible to see now THE SEAGULL in '68. We do though have another Signoret to watch: THE WIDOW COUDERC from 1971 with Alain Delon, plus Ophuls' 1950 LA RONDE to re-visit. She is also terrific and glamorous in 1967's GAMES, that quirky thriller by Curtis Harrington, see review at Signoret label.

More Kramer soon - his 1969 'comedy' THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIO one of several Qunns to see (THE LOST COMMAND, THE GREEK TYCOON), also Lumet's last film BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD; more Lee Marvins too: THE KILLERS, POINT BLANK, HELL IN THE PACIFIC, PRIME CUT.

Tennessee and Mrs Stone and those others ...

Time for some lurid melodramas? That Tennessee Williams boxset some years back was an ideal compendium of his greatest hits, with A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (with new added material like Brando's screen tests etc), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, BABY DOLL, NIGHT OF THE IGUANA and the 1960 film of his story THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE.

Not included but we had it anyway was SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER from 1959 and it is even more lurid now, particularly when Taylor dons that white bathing suit and finally shrieks out what happened to Sebastian last summer: "they DEVOURED him" ..., Monty though goes through it like a zombie and Hepburn, while apparantly not liking the material, made a meal of her spectacular entrance and exit in Oliver Messel's splendid set, and that speech of hers above seeing God as the baby turtles try to get to the sea as the birds descended ... Mankiewicz filmed it all in the UK!

STREETCAR, CAT and SWEET BIRD may have been diluted for the cinema of the '50s and early '60s, but their power is still there with great performances and staging. Newman and Taylor are so perfect together in their young prime, Gooper and Sisterwoman and Big Daddy and Big Mamma are also just right and that language endures. IGUANA is just perfect as directed by John Huston and thankfully updates the play and removes those Germans in the background. Again, Kerr and Gardner do some of their best screen work.  (Claire Bloom was a wonderful Blanche in that 1974 STREETCAR production, left - theatre label).

What interests me now though is THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE, where Vivien Leigh is again ideal as the ageing actress fleeing from her public and taking up residence in Rome where she "drifts" after her husband inconsiderately dies next to her on the plane. She avoids concerned friends like Coral Browne, but soon falls prey to predatory creatures like the Contessa and her stable of young beauties for every taste (viz the old gent meeting his trick in the opening credits). No-one suggests decadence like Lotte Lenya and she certainly scores here, as Mrs Stone is soon bedazzled by Paolo (Warren Beatty in his debut) who treats her mean and takes her money, but as Mrs Stone becomes addicted to sex she throws caution to the winds after coolly resisting Paolo's casual blandishments at the start. Soon though he is mocking her and arranging other dates with that young actress new in Rome (Jill St John), while the homeless young man stalking Mrs Stone (Jeremy Spenser) becomes more bold ... finally the abandoned Mrs Stone throws down her keys to the vagrant and thinks that five years more is all she wants ... one almost laughs out loud at Beatty's youthful beauty and petulence as Vivien again sketches her desperation (this of course captures her after the Olivier years) - if the film had been better (it was directed by theatre director Jose Quintero) it could have been one of her great roles equalling Scarlett O'Hara or Blanche DuBois, or THE DEEP BLUE SEA or her last appearance in SHIP OF FOOLS. (On re-reading Pauline Kael's I LOST IT AT THE MOVIES she says: "The Tennessee Williams novella is about a proud, cold-hearted bitch without cares or responsibilities who learns that sex is all that holds her to life, it is the only sensation that momentarily saves her from the meaningless drift of her existance" and who used her youth and beauty to get ahead and now finds she is reduced to purchasing both. 

(What incidentally happened to Jeremy Spenser ? - one of those actors who just disappeared after being a child actor and in several '50s films: a scene with Katharine Hepburn in SUMMERTIME; as the young prince sharing scenes with Monroe and Olivier in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, with Vivien here, and in other films like FERRY TO HONG KONG and WONDERFUL THINGS .... then, zilch ...his last credit was 1967). 

(There was, incidentally, a 2003 remake of MRS STONE with Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez - they may have shown more flesh and Helen did her usual thing, but (like THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY where they also trowel on period detail) it just couldn't catch that 1960 oringial, and Anne Bancroft in one of her final roles as the Contessa was somehow all wrong, her decadence amounted to stealing the chocolate biscuits...). 

Then there is 1961's SUMMER AND SMOKE, Peter Glenville's under-rated film with another defining role by Geraldine Page as Alma, the small town spinster in love with local rake Laurence Harvey, with Una Merkel as her dotty mother, Rita Moreno as the local spitfire and Pamela Tiffin as the nice girl she loses Laurence to ... we feel and share Alma's gentility and pain and her refusal to give in to her baser instincts, as she loses the man she loves ... as IMDB succinctly puts it: "Plain, repressed spinster falls for a dashing young medical student, but he prefers the wilder life, until it's too late"

THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED is another interesting one from 1966, with Natalie Wood (see INSIDE DAISY CLOVER post below..) ideal and certainly looking her best as the girl who falls for railroad guy Robert Redford in this appealing tale of the small town beauty used by her mother to lure men to her establishment, as the story is told by Mary Badham.  This one plays very nicely now and captures that mid 60s moment perfectly, as the movies were changing, just before BONNIE AND CLYDE etc came in. Scripted by DAISY's Gavin Lambert and directed by Sydney Pollack.

The blurb says: A railroad official, Owen Legate comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down much of the town's railway (town's main income). Owen unexpectedly finds love with Dodson's flirt and main attraction, Alva Starr. Alva and Owen then try to escape Alva's mother's (Hazel) clutches and the town's revenge. After INSIDE DAISY CLOVER recently, this is one I am going to re-watch very soon.

A canter through Tennessee's greatest hits then? One I have not seen is the 1962 film of Tennessee's comedy PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT about newly marrieds with Jane Fonda headlining. Other Tennessee's of course include THE GLASS MENAGERIE, THE ROSE TATTOO (which I did not care for overmuch when I finally saw it a few years ago, Magnani seemed totally over the top and highly resistable, whereas I thought she was perfect and liked her a lot in Cukor's WILD IS THE WIND in 1957...) and there is Lumet's oddity THE FUGITIVE KIND in 1960 which should have been stupendous but somehow wasn't with that dream team of Brando (wearing that snakeskin jacket), Magnani and Woodward.

and of course BOOM!, Joseph Losey's Burton and Taylor extravaganza in 1968, with that great set in Sardinia - he of course was too old and she too young for those parts, but its oddly compelling, Losey gives it his baroque gloss and of course there is Noel Coward as the Witch of Capri. Would that stage version with Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter have been as much fun? - we would have ran to see that... as we would to that first production of NIGHT OF THE IGUANA with Margaret Leighton (as Hannah) and Bette Davis (Maxine) who was playing to the gallery ...

More on these later then.... and those other torrid dramas of the time like SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, Joanne Woodward as THE STRIPPER  - both from William Inge dramas, as was THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (1960) - and TOYS IN THE ATTIC, that long-unseen 1963 Lillian Hellman drama with another great cast in Geraldine Page, Wendy Hiller, Gene Tierney, Dean Martin and Yvette Mimieux.
Beatty went on to be terrific in ALL FALL DOWN (1962 label), the troubled LILITH shoot and Penn's MICKEY ONE -which are included in the BFI's season on Beatty next month, they are not though showing KALEIDASCOPE or his so-called comedy with Leslie Caron PROMISE HER ANYTHING ("but don't take her to this" as critic Judith Crist advised in '65). One could create a new label for some of these: Classy Trash!