The Fugitive Kind

I will make this short and sweet. I watched this for the first time on "This" TV.

I've liked some Tennessee Williams stories, from Rose Tattoo to the more obvious Cat on A Hot Tin Roof and Streetcar, saw the TV version of Bird of Youth, think there was another one of his I saw and liked.But this was terrible!

There's something basically elemental about a character who wants to improve his life and who gets knocked down at every turn. This is the stuff of all the great stories of success in the modern world and The Fugitive Kind, with its religious and sexual imagery rides this theme to a glorified dramatic climax.

While The Fugitive Kind suffers from inconsistent pacing and some over-blown dialog, it is worth watching for the peerless performances delivered by Anna Magnani and Victor Jory. Magnani's desperate vulnerability and passionate need for love and vindication are so powerfully and truthfully portrayed that even the great Brando seems pale and insubstantial beside her.

I suspect that Tennessee Williams probably agreed to change the title of his classically sounding play Orpheus Descending to The Fugitive Kind in order to insure box office. Possibly some of Marlon Brando's fans garnered from The Wild One might pay their admissions thinking they were seeing something like that.

I Love Tennessee Williams. Glass Menagerie, Streetcar Named Desire,Night of the Iguana; they are works of art full of poetic language and fascinating, complex characters.

When I first saw this film during it's initial release in 1959, I was magnetized by the odd chemistry between the moody, semi-articulate Marlon Brando in his snake-skin jacket and the searching intensity of Anna Magnani, playing the frustrated wife of sweaty Victor Jory, a grinning, sweating mask of Death, incapacitated upstairs. There was nothing quite like the mixture of poetic symbolism, the fevered acting styles from the cast, and the evocation of a dusty little Southern town.

There were quite a few reasons for wanting to see 'The Fugitive Kind'. Have much appreciation and even love for Tennessee Williams, one of the great playwrights of the twentieth century, and there are some good and more film adaptations of his work (do think it lends itself better to stage or made for television).

"Orpheus Descending" may be one of Tennessee Williams' lesser plays but this screen version, under the more commercial title "The Fugitive Kind", is a fairly juicy entertainment. thanks for the most part to the playing of Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward.