Movie review - "This Property is Condemned" (1966) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 A tour de force for Natalie Wood who is gorgeous and very good as a wildcat living in a small town panted over by a lot of men, including Charles Bronson (a rail worker) and some old dude John Harding. Then Robert Redford comes into town and he pants over her too.

Redford is handsome and gives what David Shipman once described as his "usual hesitant, nice performance". Director Sydney Pollack once said they never cracked the love story - I think the issue is more Redford struggles to portray lust for Wood. He's always been better as a lust object  - Wood's keen for him but you don't get the sense that she's keen for her. Also the reason he dumps her is so stupid - because his mother says she's a liar. He just believes the mother, walks out on Natalie Wood, who is naked in the shower. I'm sorry he doesn't care about her - why should we care about them?

The film feels vey studio bound although there was some New Orleans filming. Some weird decisions - Wood runs off after Redford discovers she's married and stole money off Bronson (so?).. she dies off screen... we don't know what happened to Redford.

Why not have Bronson appear and kill Redford? Or why not make Redford a complete cad? Why cheat Wood of a death scene? It's so stupid. Wood's excellent performance deserved better. Bronson is good too. The mother is fine. Redford isn't up to it.

Mary Badham is Wood's younger sister. Mary Reid is a stock monstrous Williams mother, and Robert Blake is in it too.

Movie review - "Night of the Iguana" (1964) ****

 Tennessee Williams' last hit on Broadway was also his last hit in the cinemas. He's helped by gorgeous casting: Richard Burton as a defrocked priest (apparently the original choice was James Garner who wouldn't have been anywhere near as perfect), Ava Gardner as a lusty woman running a hotel in Mexco, Deborah Kerr as the seemingly prim woman with fire underneath.

I love its naughtiness - Sue Lyons is so keen to bonk Burton who's fighting her off, and Burton is this boozy loser who is still charismatic, and Gardner has these beach boys with maracas. A big role goes to Grayson Hall who is the antagonist, crucial to the story. John Huston clearly adores his characters and he's obviously loving working in Mexico.

This is a funny, fun joyous film. The constrant references to Burton sleeping with young girls is maybe a little dubious if you think about it too much. And like a lot of these William adaptations it's half an hour too long. But one of the best adaptations of the work - if you get the cating right there's a lot of fun to be had.

Movie review - "Summer and Smoke" (1962) **1/2

 Geraldine Page is a very fine actress just not a movie star. Laurence Harvey isn't bad as the hedonistic doctor but the two of them don't have chemistry. I didn't really get the sense he was that into her or she wanted to be pummelled by him. Others may disagree.

(You know who would've been interesting and who was contracted to Hal Wallis? Elvis Presley. He was Southern and hunky and charismatic and played well with older actors.)

But my core issue of this is it didn't get the transformation of Page's character. She's meant to go from airy fairy to hedonism and that's not really well done. It's a sexless version. I can see why it wasn't that popular.

Pamela Tiffin is pretty as the young horny girl who Harvey winds up marrying. She's a little amateurish but it suits the part.

Movie review - "Period of Adjustment" (1962) **1/2

 Little remembered though it was a hit at the time - well, profitable for MGM at a time when everything from that studio was constantly flopping. Also it was from Tennessee Williams, an early role from Jane Fonda and the first feature from George Roy Hill.

It's a more comic take from Williams - no one's life is destroyed or goes mad, although as in many plays it has men reluctant to have sex with women. Jim Hutton and Jane Fonda get married  but squabble and she winds up at the house of Anthony Franciosa, Hutton's old army buddy who's just had a fight with his wife, Lois Nettleton.

Williams' film adaptations had a good chance it it was about a hot, beautiful female star who was horny - here they were lucky enough to get Jane Fonda. Hutton was a dab hand at comedy, which helps. She and Jim Hutton are sweet. Their plot is Huddon is scared to have sex - he didn't even do it with the gals during the Korean War.

I don't really like Franciosa, he gives off too much of a wife beating vibe (I'm not saying he did it, just that's the sense he gives) even if he's a good actor. I didn't care that much for Lois Nettleton or that plot - she's "homey", he married her for dad's money. It feels 50s TV. Maybe if Nettleton had been more heartbreaking or Franciosa more empathetic. Or more Southern. (John McGiver as her dad isn't very southern). I'm being mean, maybe I just didn't really care about either compared to the others. It's also long.

But it's fine.

Movie review - "Last of the Mobile Hot Shots" (1970) **

 Having missed with an earlier Tennessee Williams film, Lumet strikes out again. An even more imperfect source - The Seven Descents of Myrtle - an even more distinguished screenwriter (Gore Vidal), an impressive cast (James Coburn, Lynn Redgrave, Robert Hooks), James Wong How as cinematographer, Quincy Jones did the score.

I know it's Tennessee Williams but this is a lot of hammy yapping in rooms mostly. Coburn marries Redgrave on a game show then they go to an old house and meet Coburn's brother, Hooks. None of the casting feels right. Coburn starts off bad, I got used to him, he grew into the role more, but he feels wrong. I liked Redgrave at first but then she got on my nerves more and more and was eventually too hard. I wanted to like Hooks, it was great to see a black man in a Williams production but he doesn't feel right. Too lightweight or something.

I didn't get it. I'm not sure Lumet did. On a basic level, the themes of sexual attraction and the menace of the incoming flood are not felt at all.

This film and Boom! killed Williams' appeal as someone whose work Hollywood wanted to adapt (though he came back on TV in the 1980s).

I've got to say though - it's oddness has an appeal.

Winona Ryder Top Ten

 1) Heathers (1989)

2) Beetlejuice (1988)

3) Edward Scissorhands (1990)

4) Reality Bites (1994)

5) Dracula (1992)

6) Age of Innocence (1993)

7) Little Women (1994)

8) Stranger Things 

9) Black Swan (2010)

10) Star Trek (2009(

Movie review - "The Man They Could Not Hang" (1921) **

 Australian film which was a remake of a 1912 film. Both were blockbusters. Weirdly. It's based on a true story - a man they tried to hang three times and failed. This adds a love story, villain all that stuff. Audiences lapped it up. Presumably because the war made them hungry for stories were someone escapes death.

This is shot by Tasman Higgins so looks good.