The Fugitive Kind
Director: Sidney Lumet
Year Released: 1959
Rating: 1.5
The Tennessee template: 'open, free' young man (an outstanding Marlon Brando) comes into a situation with people who are decrepit/impotent (Victor Jory), sexually oppressed (Anna Magnani) or outright hysterical (Joanne Woodward), and his New Spirit threatens their very way of being. As a film it's plodding and predictable, with the back-and-forth bickering between Brando and shop-owner Magnani being the centerpiece: the two stare holes in each other and storm around the set. That it ends in pure Hellfire is no big shock - the picture is one long setup for ruin. I will agree with Williams about this, though: we are all, in one way or another, desperately seeking love and redemption.
