Let's face it: Tennessee Williams was more a very clever and, at his time, fashionable author than a genius. "Descending Orpheus" shows both his cleverness (in creating, for instance, gripping and effective situations) and his inability to reach that "second simplicity" that marks most great pieces of art. Everything is so 'symbolic' here, so predictable even - we don't feel even grief when our 'experimental animals' (Val and the Lady) suddenly die. The badly used music at the end shows us the difference between Lumet's flat pathos and that of, let's say, of Visconti in "Rocco and his brothers", created the same year in Italy. But - and this saves the movie and makes its watching worthwhile despite the story line and presumptious dialogues - we have Magnani here, and we have Brando with very good moments, and we have the astonishing, underrated Joanne Woodward. Watching Magnani and Brando have their duo-scenes together, makes us BELIEVE in passion and torments, and at once, the paper becomes life.
Review of The Fugitive Kind
