Tennessee Williams – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962)

Writer-director Richard Brooks had built a reputation adapting heavyweight literary works – ranging from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1958), Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Sinclair Lewis’s evangelism opus Elmer Gantry (1960) – the last two box office and critical hits – and though he had Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim in his sights he had a hankering after more simple fare. He planned to go out on his own and had paid $30,000 to acquire Arthur Woolson’s Goodbye, My Son focusing on mental health and $70,000 on The Streetwalker, written anonymously by a sex worker, and more nitty-gritty than the current stream of high-end good-time-girl pictures. The Streetwalker would take a semi-documentary approach. Brooks aimed for budgets around the $700,000 mark.

But in the end, he fell for the blandishments of producer Pandro S. Berman, for whom he had made Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, one of MGM’s biggest hits, and Paul Newman, who had played the part of Chance in the original Broadway play. It had run for nearly a year and the cast included Geraldine Page, Rip Torn and Madeleine Sherwood who reprised their roles in the film. Ed Begley had worked with Brooks on Deadline USA (1952).

By this point Newman was rid of the shackles of his Warner Bros contract and spread his wings artistically and commercially, following up Exodus (1960) with Martin Ritt’s Paris Blues and the first of his iconic roles in Robert Rossen’s The Hustler. Newman was paid $350,000, half the total sum allocated to the cast. The play cost a total of $600,000 against a budget of $2.8 million. Even so, Newman’s stock was not as high as later in the decade and even with his name attached a film based on John Hersey’s The Wall about the Warsaw Uprising failed to get backing.

Brooks was reluctant to get back into the ring with Tennessee Williams, still smarting from the “repeated sniping” that followed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Brooks recalled that “during filming I talked with Tennessee on the phone a number of times and all was peachy.” But later the author complained Brooks had “butchered” the play. He was especially incandescent because Williams pocketed $1.4 million while the director made do with just $68,000. Brooks demanded “a signed letter written by Williams and published in Variety to the effect that he (Williams) liked the film version” before he agreed to helm Sweet Bird of Youth.

There’s no sign that Williams acquiesced and Brooks proceeded with his version which turned into flashbacks some of the incidents dealt with on stage through dialog.

“Most people go out to Hollywood with a seven-year contract to work,” noted female lead Geraldine Page, wryly, “It looks like I had a seven-year contract to stay away.” A rising star when selected for the female lead for John Wayne 3D western Hondo (1954), she didn’t make another movie for seven years, largely as the result of not being considered photogenic enough. For Hondo, a scene had been added, “in which she was called upon to acknowledge that she was not beautiful,” and that designation, although intended purely to reflect a self-deprecating character, stuck. Although another explanation for her absence was that she was blacklisted for her association with Uta Hagen, but it’s unlikely that noted right-winger Wayne would have employed her in the first place has that been the case.

Despite an Oscar nomination for Hondo, she made her way on the stage instead, to critical approval, New York Drama Critics Award and Tony nomination for Sweet Bird of Youth. After an Oscar nomination for another Williams adaptation Summer and Smoke (1961), her career was revived, after the industry “found out how to employ one of the top performing talents of the last decade.” No surprise, however, that she wasn’t MGM’s first choice. The studio preferred the likes of Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth, who would be doing little acting to portray themselves as fading stars.

“When I saw how they fixed me up (for Sweet Bird),” said Page, “I said, look at me I’m gorgeous.” Brooks made her get rid of “those fluttering gestures” that he reckoned “subconsciously were efforts to cover her face.”

Shirley Knight didn’t have to audition. She and Brooks met at the Oscar ceremony. All he asked of her was that she lighten and grow her hair.

“He was a man who really knew what he wanted,” recalled Knight, “He wanted you to do a certain thing and was clear about the look of it.” She was so in thrall to the director that she followed his instruction to the steer a boat in one direction even though she knew it would lead her to smash straight into a dock.

Given the controversial nature of the play, there were concerns the entire project would be blocked by the Production Code, the U.S. censorship body. But Berman was quick with the reassurance. He claimed it would be “the cleanest picture ever made…clean as any Disney film.” To achieve that would require considerable trimming as the play involved abortion, hysterectomy and castration. Berman ensured these elements were eliminated. Brooks changed the ending.

Commented Williams, “Richard Brooks did a fabulous screenplay of Sweet Bird of Youth but he did the same f…ing thing (as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.) He had a happy ending. He had Heavenly and Chance go on together which is contradictory to the meaning of the play. It was a brilliant film up to that point.”

Actually, Brooks was undecided about the ending. He wanted to shoot two endings, one as unhappy as the play. “But once the ending was on film – the one the studio wanted – production was shut down.”

Newman was more relaxed about any changes. “You have to make peace with the idea when you make a motion picture version of a play, it’s so difficult and it’s no sense struggling with things that were in the play.” With enough controversy riding on the picture, the studio banned the actors from talking to the media.

Initially, box office expectations were high when the movie hit first run. A $72,000 first week take in New York was considered “boffo.” It scored “a lusty” $28,000 in Chicago, a “bang-up” $15,000 in Buffalo, a “brilliant” $28,000 in Los Angeles, a “lush” $14,000 in Pittsburgh, a “bright” $16,000 in St Louis, and a “wow” $17,000 in Detroit. It generated a “loud” $4,500 in Portland, a “wham” $15,000 in Minneapolis and was “sockeroo” in Washington DC with $21,000.

But once it left the rarified atmosphere of the big cities, it stumbled. There was precent, the touring production of the play had also flopped once it left the environs of Broadway. Variety reckoned the timing was to blame as audiences showed “more aloofness to this type of fare” than they did a couple of years before.

The movie limped to $2.7 million in rentals – and a lowly 30^th spot on the annual rankings – at the U.S. box office though foreign was more promising, ninth overall in France and 10^th in Italy.

SOURCES: Douglass K. Daniel, Tough as Nails, The Life and Films of Richard Brooks (University of Wisconsin Press). pp146-154; Daniel O’Brien, Paul Newman (Faber and Faber, 2005), pp86-7; Shawn Levy, Paul Newman, A Life (Aurum Press, 2009), pp169-171; “Folks Don’t Dig That Freud,” Variety, May 9, 1960, p1; “Metro Hot for Brooks,” Variety, June 15, 1960, p2; “Sweet Bird of Youth Will Be Ok for Kiddies,” Variety, September 13, 1961, p5; “Brooks Prostie and Psycho Indies,” Variety, September 13, 1961, p4; Vincent Canby, “Seven Years After Her Film Discovery, Geraldine Page May Be Accepted,” Variety, November 15, 1961, p2; “Picture Grosses”, March-May 1962, Variety; “Fun-Sex Plays, ‘Sick’ Slowing,” Variety, August 8, 1962, p11; “Big Rental Pictures of 1962,” Variety, Jan 9, 1963, p13; “Yank Films,” January 23, 1963, p18.

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) ***

Tennessee Williams wrote better parts for women than he did for men. You can start with Vivien Leigh, Oscar-winner for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) – Marlon Brando only nominated – and Anna Magnani Oscar-winner for The Rose Tattoo (1955) with Maria Pavan nominated and star Burt Lancaster left out of gong consideration. Carroll Baker and Mildred Dunnock were nominated for Baby Doll (1956) with star Karl Malden ignored. Paul Newman did receive an Oscar nomination for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) as did Elizabeth Taylor.

Montgomery Clift was frozen out of Oscar consideration for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) while both Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn scored nominations. Marlon Brando received no Oscar recognition for The Fugitive Kind (1960). Ditto Laurence Harvey for Summer and Smoke (1961) though Geraldine Page and Una Merkel received nominations. Lotte Lenya was recognised with a nomination for The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961).

So the omens were not particularly good for Paul Newman when he repeated the role he had essayed on Broadway of Chance Wayne in Sweet Bird of Youth. In the stage version, while he received respectable notices, it was Geraldine Page who picked up the glory, winning the New York Drama Critics Award and nominated for a Tony.

So it was going to be a long shot that Newman could outshine her in the film version, even though he received considerably more screen time – Page and Shirley Knight were nominated, Newman was not.

The flaws in the tale are more obvious in the screen version. On stage, sheer force of personality can win over an audience, on screen that’s more difficult. And in truth Chance was another of Williams’ male losers. The main difference between Williams’ male and female characters is that not only are the women more reflective and aware of their shortcomings while the men simply bulldoze ahead but they are more able to express their feelings without dialog.

Chance is a failed actor turned gigolo taking advantage of alcoholic over-the-hill movie actress Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page), running away from what she believes will be her final and calamitous movie, who half the time doesn’t know where she is or who he is. Chance has dreams of using her to hustle his way into the movie business, blackmailing Del Lago over her drugs abuse to front a new picture, and begins knocking on doors, but long-distance, since he’s returned to his home town in the hope of winning back his childhood sweetheart Heavenly Finley (Shirley Knight), planning to set her up as a movie star.

Expectations that there might be a welcome for a young man made good are dashed when everybody continues to treat him as the waitperson he once was or wants to run him out of town. To protect his daughter from such an unworthy suitor, the town’s most prominent citizen and political heavyweight Tom Finley (Ed Begley) had previously managed to pay Chance to leave town. His son Tom Jr (Rip Torn) shares his father’s aspirations.

Despite the odds Chance determines to woo Heavenly but his Hollywood dream is scuppered when Del Lago realizes that her last picture looks like becoming an unexpected success and she can once again write her own ticket rather than rely on a con man like Chance.

It doesn’t end well though, for reasons best known to him, writer-director Richard Brooks tacked on a happy ending – the play had an unhappy ending – that doesn’t ring true.

There’s nothing wrong with Paul Newman’s acting even if it didn’t attract the attention of the Oscar voters, but there’s not enough meat on the character. On the other hand, Geraldine Page and Shirley Knight (The Group, 1966) in part excel because their characters are better written. Rip Torn (Beach Red, 1967) develops his screen menace. Ed Begley’s (Warning Shot, 1966) over-the-top performance snagged him an Oscar.

The story’s just too thin and the hard edges of the play have been trimmed back so it was less appealing to an audience.

Lacks the usual Tennessee Williams bite but the female performances are well worth a watch.

I’m doing a Behind the Scenes article tomorrow so look out for that.

The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961) **

Dreary miscalculation. Ever since Tennessee Williams hit a home run with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), studios, directors and stars had clamored for his works, so much so that Hollywood had greenlit seven adaptations in five years. While box office was one consideration, the playwright was catnip to the Oscar, racking up 17 nominations with a hefty number in the Best Actress category.

However you dressed it up, his work contained a substantial number of portraits of sadness and malevolence and often teetered on the murky, so making them work at all depended not just on the acting and direction, but the initial story. Rather than being based on a play, this was sourced from his first novel, a bestseller.

But the tale never shifts out of first gear and it’s difficult to summon up sympathy never mind interest in any of the characters. The middle-aged romance had proved a cumbersome fix for studios, and since May-December numbers featuring ageing male and younger female had proved popular, Cary Grant set up with an endless supply of woman nearly half his age, it seemed only fair to give middle-aged actresses the opportunity to romance younger men.

Usually, however, this followed a more straightforward path, involving genuine feelings on both sides. But Hollywood was also digging into another cesspit, the female sex worker, somewhat dressed up in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Go Naked in the World (1961), treated more straightforwardly in Never on Sunday (1960) and Girl of the Night. So it only seemed fair to introduce the gigolo.

Stage actress Karen Stone (Vivien Leigh) heads for Rome with her wealthy husband to recover from the failure of her latest play, a Shakespearian outing. When her husband dies on the plane, Karen decides to hang on in the Italian capital, which, after a year, brings her into the orbit of gigolo Paulo (Warren Beatty) and his unscrupulous mentor/manager Contessa Magda (Lotte Lenya). While Karen isn’t entirely a dupe and quickly sees through Paulo, nonetheless a year of loneliness has taken its toll.

Plus she understands the attraction of the older lover, her husband being a good two decades older and willing to subsidize her theatrical and cinematic ambitions. Despite not falling for Paulo’s more obvious con tricks, Karen finds herself enmeshed in a one-sided romance, ignoring the warnings of friend Meg (Coral Brown) on the dangers of becoming the talk of the town with her lover clearly more attracted to rising movie star Barbara (Jill St John). Paulo quickly dumps the Contessa, leaving her free to pour bile into Karen’s ear.

Inevitably, the younger lover tires of the older, but generally such pairings work well enough because initially at least there is attraction on both sides. But when it’s as lop-sided as this no amount of long drawn-out close-ups of the disenchanted provide sufficient compensation for a story that overstays its welcome.

While there are hints of the decadence of La Dolce Vita (1960) that Fellini explored, here it’s more of a surface examination until the surprising ending, where you would think Karen is doing little more than willingly opening the door to a potential serial killer.

The only redeeming element, which might reverberate more easily today, is of the woman demonstrating her independence by being the one to choose, and to some extent discard, the man. While not for most of the movie a sexual predator, she may well have turned into one at the end.

Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh, in her first movie in six years, essays her role well but is compromised by portraying a character that fails to elicit sympathy. Warren Beatty (Promise Her Anything, 1966) avoids the trap of thickening his Italian accent and going wild with the gestures which lends his character more of a thoughtful personality but there’s not much here to write home about. Lotte Lenya (From Russia with Love, 1963) steals the show and was rewarded with an Oscar nomination. Jill St John (Tender Is the Night, 1962) plays the ingénue like an ingénue.

Unless you’re a student of theater I doubt if you’ll have come across Panamian director Jose Quintero. This was his only movie and he was more famous for staging some of Williams’ plays and for resurrecting Eugene O’Neill on Broadway. His inexperience shows in lingering on faces at the expense of creating drama. Gavin Lambert (Inside Daisy Clover, 1965) adapted the novel.

Disappointment.

The Fugitive Kind (1960) ***

Audiences were promised sparks that never appeared. Marlon Brando (The Chase, 1960) remained electric but his charismatic screen presence wasn’t matched by miscast co-stars Anna Magnani (The Secret of Santa Vittoria, 1969) and Joanne Woodward (Paris Blues, 1961). That was three Oscars right there. Throw in a Pulitzer Prize for playwright Tennessee Williams and the project should have been home and dry.

Instead, it struggles to get going as the screenplay flounders under a flotilla of old maids, alcoholics, drug fiends, racists and deadbeats while the central conceit of a May-December romance fails to catch fire. That last element is something of a contemporary trope, and one that even now is exceptionally hard to pull off and it was no easier back in the day.

Itinerant guitarist and sometime criminal Valentine (Marlon Brando), desperate to go straight, ends up in a small Mississippi town when his car breaks down on a stormy night and he finds shelter in the home of Vee Talbot (Maureeen Stapleton), wife of the sheriff. Given his good looks, it’s likely that Valentine would be viewed as a catch, but in this small town he appears to have stumbled upon a nest of sexually frustrated and/or voracious women, way too many dependent on the kindness of a stranger.

First to throw her hat, and virtually everything else, into the ring is the young vivacious unfettered alcoholic Carol (Joanne Woodward), outcast of a wealthy family, barred from shops and bars alike for her uninhibited behavior. But Valentine’s seen too much of her kind. Next up is middle-aged dry goods shop owner Lady Torrance (Anna Magnani) who gives him a job as a counter hand. Bitter and frustrated, she has to run after morphine-addicted husband Jabe (Victor Jory). Vee hovers around trying to pick up the pieces.

Small town, jealousy rife, word bound to get back to duped husbands, tragedy the outcome. By this point the Deep South on screen was pretty much played out as are the various basket cases who inhabit it and there’s not much fresh ground to be ploughed here. Valentine is called upon to do “double duty” as employee and lover, and finally responds to her sense of desperation.

He can’t quite cut his ties to the illicit, stealing from the cash register to fund a gambling stake, and when caught is subtly blackmailed.

The backstory mostly concerns Lady. Her father’s wine plantation was destroyed by vigilantes in revenge for him selling liquor to African Americans. She wants to establish her independence by setting up a confectionary stall. Turns out of course it’s her husband that led the vigilantes. Valentine totes around a guitar that he never plays, as if it’s a reminder of a previous life. He’s running away from a past in New Orleans without any idea of the future to which he aspires. He doesn’t know what he wants but won’t make a move in case it’s the wrong one. He may desire a mother more than a lover.

It’s all set for a violent melodramatic ending, though the climax doesn’t ring true. Mostly, it’s about loneliness, both within and outside marriage. Relationships fester rather than last. The males are brutal or impotent.

While Joanne Woodward is determinedly over-the-top with her good-time-bad-girl routine, way out of control, and using over-acting as a crutch, Brando’s performance is more subtle and Magnani’s heart-wrenching.

But it just doesn’t add up. There’s too much emphasis on seedy background and forced drama. Williams has an alternative of the Raymond Chandler edict of when in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun; with him it’s unwanted pregnancy.

Director Sidney Lumet (The Appointment, 1969), who would later be more sure-footed, seems unsure here, the faux noir adding little, and inclined to indulge over-acting from the bulk of the supporting cast. Meade Roberts (Danger Route, 1967) adapted the Williams’ play.

An excellent Brando can make up for the rest.

Behind the Scenes: “Toys in the Attic” (1963)

Producer Harold Mirisch purchased the rights to the 1960 Broadway hit play by Lilliam Hellman as a way of hooking William Wyler. He had originally signed up the director in the mid-1950s when his Paramount contract came to an end. This was before the Mirisch Brothers was an independent production entity and later responsible for films like The Apartment (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961) and The Great Escape (1963). At that point Mirisch worked for Allied, the upmarket offshoot of B-picture outfit Monogram. Allied backed Wyler’s Oscar-nominated western Friendly Persuasion (1956).

In 1960 Wyler was the most celebrated Hollywood director of the era, not just with three Oscars and ten nominations, but riding as high as anyone ever had after the monumental critical and commercial success of Ben-Hur (1959). He had his pick of the projects and had shown “great eagerness” to do Toys in the Attic. He was friends with the playwright Lillian Hellman and had filmed These Three (1936) from her stage play The Children’s Hour and The Little Foxes (1941) from her original screenplay.

But Wyler decided instead to opt for a remake of The Children’s Hour (1961), assuming that changes in public perceptions would permit him to bring to the fore the lesbian elements kept hidden in his previous adaptation, but, critically, it was a Mirisch production.

In his absence, the Mirisch Bros decided to stick with Toys in the Attic, possibly to bolster their attempt to be seen as a purveyor of serious pictures and hence a contender for Oscars, which would solidify their reputation, as would soon be the case. After consultations with distribution and funding partner, United Artists, “it was decided that…since we had considerable investment in (Toys in the Attic)… we should try and put together a film,” explained Walter Mirisch.

Next in line for directorial consideration was Richard Brooks who had acquired a reputation for adapting literary properties after The Brothers Karamazov (1958), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Elmer Gantry (1960). Initially, Brooks “had been so insistent and enthusiastic” about becoming involved. However, he, too, rejected the opportunity. He, too, after Oscar and commercial success, was riding high. “It was not because he did not wish to work with the Mirisches because he would be delighted to make a picture for them…but he felt it would be wrong for his career to do a film so similar in mood and background as the one he was working on, Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).”

In fact, it was probably more to do with his financial demands. He wanted $400,000 a picture, which was extremely high at the time, plus “a drawing account of $2,000 a week” (i.e. payment in advance of an actual production). While Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Elmer Gantry had been box office hits, they were nothing like Ben-Hur. And Brooks already had other pictures in mind. He had purchased a book called Goodbye My Son – never filmed – and was already revving up for Lord Jim (1965) funded by Columbia.

Walter Mirisch eventually settled on television director George Roy Hill (Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967). This would have been his debut except preparations for the movie dragged on and in between Hill helmed Period of Adjustment (1962), an adaptation of another play, this time by Tennessee Williams. He would later direct Hawaii (1966) for Mirisch.

The play had been a significant hit, running for just over a year on Broadway at the Hudson Theater, and making $129,000 profit on a $125,000 investment, though it incurred a loss of $48,000 on a subsequent tour. Hellman did pretty well out of it too. She received ten per cent of the gross and twenty per cent of the profit – a total of around $36,000 – exceptionally good going for a playwright, especially when other monies would be forthcoming from movie rights and foreign and amateur runs. Director Arthur Penn’s share of gross and profit came to over $10,000 in addition to a $5,000 fee.

Turning a play or musical into a movie came with one inbuilt problem. It was inevitably subject to delay. No movie could go into production until the play had exhausted its theatrical (as in stage-play) possibilities. In this case, that meant 58 weeks in the original run and then another 20 weeks once it hit the road. Any contract with a significant movie player would have to include the possibility that in the meantime star or director would have lined up other projects while awaiting the green light on this one, and that in itself could cause further hold-ups.

Hill was in greater demand than Mirisch anticipated, juggling four separate projects – Period of Adjustment, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for MGM (never made), and the $2.5 million A Bullet for Charlemagne starring Sidney Poitier (not made) as well as Toys in the Attic.

Jason Robards, star of the play, was the obvious contender for the movie role. But he lacked box office cachet, so he was bypassed in favor of Dean Martin, “an attractive motion-picture figure.” However, in the time it took the movie version of the play to reach the public, Robards was potentially a screen star. He had bought himself out his stage contract after 37 weeks – paying $3,950 for the privilege – having been offered second billing on By Love Possessed (1961) opposite Lana Turner, and in Twentieth Century Fox’s ambitious mounting of Tender Is the Night (1962) opposite Jennifer Jones. While Robards would never become as big a star as Dean Martin, he was the superior actor, later adding two Oscars and one nomination to his name.

In addition to being much better known to cinema audiences than Robards, “we felt he (Martin) would bring humor to it” – Martin having originally made a splash as part of the Martin-Lewis comedy team of the 1950s – “as well as an audience that might expand the normal constituency of that type of film.” Trade magazine Box Office agreed with the decision, viewing Martin as a “good choice for the haunted show-off.”

The play’s other stars – Oscar nominee (and later winner) Maureen Stapleton (The Fugitive Kind, 1960) – and Irene Worth (Seven Seas to Calais, 1962) – were ignored in favor of Geraldine Page, who incidentally scored an Oscar nomination in Summer and Smoke, and Wendy Hiller (Sons and Lovers, 1960), who already had an Oscar. Shooting began on September 16, 1962. Hill tried to “inject more suspense, more action, more melodrama into the movie version,” without cheapening the material. He was convinced the hiring of Martin was inspired, and would prove a personal turning point, as he gives “the best dramatic job of his career.”

Titles didn’t matter so much on Broadway, plays sold on the name of the writer or the star. Mirisch feared Toys in the Attic would either mean nothing to a general audience ignorant of the picture’s origins or be considered so obscure as to serve to confuse them. So, they planned to rename it Fever Street or “some sensational substitute.” Hill was furious, pointing out the “violence of his feelings” to this title. He complained that “others will assume that it is an exploitation title…a cheap gimmick to get people into the theater (cinema) … automatically puts the picture in a low budget quickie picture category that might be appropriate for 42^nd St all-night houses or a second feature at Loews 86 St.”

Hill felt changing the title would demonstrate that Mirisch was “ashamed to have bought the play Toys in the Attic, have no faith in the picture, are resorting to panic tactics to get some money out.” And that Fever Street would have the opposite effect, and “keep people away in droves.” His impassioned plea worked, and the original title remained.

While backing down on the title, Mirisch veered towards the exploitative in the main poster which showed Dean Martin slugging Yvette Mimieux.

However, United Artists remained in two minds about the release policy. Despite the prestige of being chosen for the San Sebastian Festival, United Artists opted to open it in New York as part of a “showcase” run. That was a relativelynew distribution notion, a version of regional wide release. It would eventually be refined to allow several weeks in prestigious first run venues first, but inclusion in this release pattern meant first run was simultaneous with an opening in – in this case – another 20 New York neighbourhood cinemas. Had UA had more faith in the project, it might have benefitted from an opening just in first run. The $55,000 first week from two first run houses on Broadway was judged a “wow” result by Variety. First run in other major cities suggested a prestige title – “very stout” $15,000 in Boston, a “sock” $14,000 in Washington D.C., “neat” $14,000 in Buffalo, while it was “bright” in Kansas City ($8,000), Los Angeles ($10,000) and Chicago ($18,000).

Hill’s concerns about United Artists’ ability to sell the picture were mirrored in the result. “It did not turn out well,” concluded Walter Mirich, “It’s a grim story. It was not well reviewed and was not financially successful.” Part of the reason for its failure, he argued, was that it “probably appeared at the end of a cycle” of American Broadway adaptations of heavy Tennessee Williams dramas.

While the movie came in $70,000 below the $2.1 million budget, the savings were put down to the fact that it was filmed in black-and-white rather than color, as had been originally envisioned. The box office followed a common, but disturbing, trajectory, a big hit in the big cities, mostly ignored elsewhere. But it was not as bad as all that. Mirisch tallied the domestic box office as $1.7 million with another $900,000 from the overseas box office. By its estimation, once marketing costs were considered, it was facing a loss of $183,000. But that was before television revenue entered the equation and that should have at the very least, made up the difference. There were various pickings later on, too, picked up by CPI under the “Best of Broadway” label in 1981.

SOURCES: Walter Mirisch, I Thought we Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin press, 2008) p157-159. Leon Goldberg, “Office Rushgram: Final Cost on Toys in the Attic, May 13, 1964, United Artists Files, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research; “Mirisch Pictures Box Office Figures,” UA Files; Letter,” George Roy Hill to Walter Mirisch, March 15, 1963, UA Files; “Lillian Hellman Could Mop Up if Toys Clicks,” Variety, February 4, 1960, p103; “Toys Exit,” Variety, January 18, 1961, p72; “George Roy Hill To Direct Toys for Mirisch Co,” Box Office, January 22, 1962, pE8; “Hollywood Report,” Box Office, February 22, 1962, p16; “George Roy Hill Announces First Film on UA Deal,” Box Office, March 19, 1962, p16; “Bloomgarden Had Varied Fortune,” Variety, August 29, 1962, p49; “Toys in Attic Chosen for San Sebastian Festival,” Box Office, June 10, 1963, pE8; “Premiere Showcase,” Variety, July 31, 1963, p22. Box office figures from Variety issues dated August 7, August 14, August 21, September 4, September 11 and October 23.

Period of Adjustment (1962) ***

You want angst, frustration, tragedy, Tennessee Williams is your man. Comedy? Not so much. He had pretty much supplied Hollywood with an unending stream of hits. From The Glass Menagerie (1950), quadruple Oscar-winner A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), triple Oscar-winner The Rose Tattoo (1955) and four-time Oscar nominee Baby Doll (1956) to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) with six nominations, Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) three nominations, The Fugitive Kind (1960), Summer and Smoke (1961) four nominations, and Oscar-winner Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) his movies attracted the cream of Hollywood. The likes of Marlon Brando (twice), Elizabeth Taylor (twice), Montgomery Clift, Vivien Leigh, Paul Newman (twice) and Katharine Hepburn stood in line for the honor of participating.

Tennessee Williams was, unusually for a writer, a marquee name. He promised sensation, sex, scintillation. Audiences in need of a few laffs didn’t look towards his work.

So what to make of his first comedy? He was the biggest name by far involved. And the marketeers made sure audiences were aware this was a comedy and not a searing drama. But absence of the kind of big-name star generally associated with the playwright’s adaptations might have made them leery. Director George Roy Hill making his debut. Anthony Franciosa in his first top-billed role, fourth movie for Jane Fonda, Jim Hutton downgraded to second male lead from being star of his previous picture, Lois Nettleton in her debut. But who knows? It might make stars of them all.

The story itself is slight. A couple with different expectations of each other coming to terms with marriage. There’s a racy element, too. New husband George (Jim Hutton) is suffering from stage fright, can’t deliver in the bedroom department on their honeymoon. Wife Isabel (Jane Fonda) is a bit too ditzy, far removed from the efficient nurse he fell, too fast, in love with. He’s got some odd ideas of his own, a hearse his notion of acceptable transportation.

Anyway, they end up in the home of his Korean War buddy Ralph (Anthony Franciosa) whose marriage to Dorothea (Lois Nettleton) is in tatters. It’s a soft soap version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf as the newly-weds get a glimpse of what can happen way down the line when marriage is out of control.

Luckily, it’s built as a comedy not as drama, so nothing gets that much out of control and if anything it’s heading in the direction of warm-hearted as the newly-weds find ways to patch up their differences while the warring couple discover exactly what’s gone wrong with their relationship, primarily that good old Ralph married his wife for her money.

But, mostly, instead of trying to fix their own marriages, the couples are more intent on offering advice to the other. The pal’s in-laws take the brunt of the blame. Dysfunctional family and potentially dysfunctioning family have to suck it up and change.

There’s some obvious comedy thrown in to lighten the load, this taking place at Christmas, a bunch of choristers, going door to door, get drunker with every stop-off. But the movie doesn’t quite go in the direction you expect. There’s no easy fix, though there is a fix, but each character goes through a definite change rather than just flipping a switch.

Though Jane Fonda (Barbarella, 1968) is the one who became a star, it took her quite a few acting iterations to achieve it, and this sees her going down the Marilyn Monroe route of blatant sexiness so in a sense hers is the least interesting character because she’s so shallow to begin with. Anthony Franciosa (Fathom, 1967) is the pick, in part because he’s playing a more genuine character rather than the schemer or matinee idol that he essayed in so many later movies. Jim Hutton (The Hellfighters, 1968) is still in lightweight mode.

George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) is occasionally stagey in his direction but manages to pull out the performances required to make this work. Isobel Lennart (Funny Girl, 1968) does the adaptation.

Not just for Tennessee Williams or Jane Fonda completists.

The Night of the Iguana (1964) ****

The eponymous reptile is a rather obvious metaphor for characters trapped by quixotic decisions. Regardless of the Rev Dr. T Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) being a defrocked priest, he was always going to lead a dissolute life, alcohol the least of his temptations. This heady drama begins with comedy about a man with ideas above his station ending up as an incompetent tourist guide.

And if his behaviour is not scandalous enough for current coach party, middle-aged Baptist ladies, he leads them to a hotel in Mexico run by former lover Maxine (Ava Gardner) who has two younger lovers on the go. And as is the way with author Tennessee Williams there’s a posse of fascinating characters, led by spinster Hannah (Deborah Kerr) who ekes out an itinerant living selling paintings while her aged grandfather (Cyril Devalanti) recites poetry. Raising the moral stakes is under-age Charlotte (Sue Lyon) who has taken a fancy to Shannon, partly in rebellion against her frosty chaperone Judith (Grayson Hall).

For a movie with no great narrative drive, there’s no shortage of drama, whether it’s the Reverend under constant attack from his charges, Charlotte making advances, Shannon succumbing or trying to fight his addictions, Maxine succumbing then rejecting his advances, and Hannah on the sidelines trying to work out why her entire life has been lived in the shadows.

A simple dramatic fuse has been lit, disparate group with secrets set to explode, and you just sit back and enjoy the ride. Exceptionally daring, even if in discreet fashion, for the time, not just the Lolita-style Charlotte, but the middle-aged Maxine cavorting with not one but two men young enough to be her sons, so effectively a Cougar (before the term was invented) in a threesome, a woman in full command on her sex life not at the whim of a male. There’s as overt a gay woman as you would find in this era. And that’s before we come to Hannah, one of whose two sexual experiences involved averting her eyes while her male companion masturbated on a piece of her clothing. That was taking it way beyond the limits of acceptable on-screen behaviour of the day.

Characters are either engulfed by their passions or weaknesses or trying to come to terms with them, sometimes both. Over everything hangs poignancy at the self-deception practised, redemption scarcely a possibility, communication a minefield, acceptance the best anyone can hope for. Quality acting prevents this disappearing down a sinkhole of self-pity.

Richard Burton (Becket, 1964) was on a roll, one brilliant performance after another either with or without Elizabeth Taylor, essaying a wide range of characters. This is one of his best. You should despise the sham he has become, relying on charm to dig himself out of a hole, relying far too much on the kindness of strangers whose sympathy is exhausted. Yet the loss of the only position, a clergyman, for which he was possibly suited, thrown out for committing unforgiveable sin while preaching sanctity, makes him a very relatable human being. This isn’t Days of Wine and Roses reborn, but someone trying to win the pinch of oxygen required to keep his soul alive, and stir the energy inside. And he would be furious if you ever made the mistake of feeling sorry for him.

Ava Gardner (Mayerling, 1968) is superb, staring age in the face, unrepentant, sex an acceptable substitute for love, underlying sadness admirably restrained. But Deborah Kerr (The Chalk Garden, 1964), brings a refreshing dash to her introspective character, a woman with practical solutions except to her own emotional emptiness. Sue Lyon (Lolita, 1962) is only briefly scandalous and the movie’s conclusion suggests she is capable of settling down and not giving into the base desires that afflict all the others.

Just as with The Misfits (1961), director John Huston allows his characters to breathe. It would have been very easy to allow Shannon to have a more heroic or stoic stature, instead of someone stumbling around. Tinges of comedy and wit lighten the load. Huston and Anthony Veiller (The List of Adrian Messenger, 1963) wrote the screenplay from the Tennessee Williams play.