Tennessee Williams play had plenty of familiar characters - the male drifter failed actor (a type that was in Picnic), the ageing film star - but was very well done with solid drama, such as the drifter Chance giving his ex the clap, and her foul family castrasting Chance at the end.
MGM cleaned it up. The piece is robbed of its doom and tragedy. It retains much that is very effective - Paul Newman is terrific (as you'd hope so considering he played it on Broadway), ditto Geraldine Page. It think Richard Brooks, with his yelly style, suited Tennessee Williams. He makes sure there's a sexual charge.
This lost money though. Maybe the Williams tide was running out. Maybe it would've been a bigger hit with say Ava Gardner in the lead - but their scenes wouldn't have had the same charge.
Shirley Knight isn't bad but doesn't have the heavy aura of tragedy that role really should have. She doesn't seem like someone who's lost a child. Rip Torn and Ed Begley are electric. Knight was always pretty and fine but her performances seemed to lack an extra gear - just imagine what, say, Joanne Woodward or Gena Rowlands could have done with it.
The ending is dumb. So dumb. That awful pompous bland newspaper editor. Them beating up Chance. But then Chance/Newman and Heavenly/Knight going off together. It's really abrupt too like Brooks was embarassed.
I think the film needed a tragic ending for it to have power. He didn't need to be castrated but he needed to die - he could've come back and heroically died trying to protect Heavely, gets shot by Rip Torn, dies in her arms... that would've worked Because as it is too much of the play is kept for that ending to work. Newman begs Page for a scren test only a few minutes before the final scene. So there's no redemption. No heroism. He's taking what he can.
