I am not the man to give a long analysis of Tennesee Williams's career, or assess his stature in the American theatre. All I can do is give an account of what I felt watching this movie. Time weighed heavily on me through most of the running time. I could not care very much about Val and Lady, their travails with the corrupt social system of the south. Jabe Torrance is a monster, that much I was able to understand, but he seems more a Victorian villain than a store owner of the 1950's. Brando's heartfelt musings, aided by Boris Kaufman's sensitive cinematography, left me feeling hungry for more satire and sleaze.
Fortunately (or I would have abandoned watching the DVD), satire and sleaze are amply supplied by Victor Jory as the rascally Torrance, R. G. Armstrong as the jovial and vicious sheriff, and the magnificent Joanne Woodward as Carol Cutrere, a "church-bitten reformer" who has been forbidden to drive her sports car in the county, and hankers after Val. Her unbridled sexuality and destructive whimsy make the movie take off; pity she has only a few scenes. The juking monologue is a classic. What's juking? "Well, that's when you get in a car, preferably open in any kind of weather. And then you drink a little and you drive a little..." For a moment I was thrust forward to the Warhol world of the Sixties, with the likes of Edie Sedgwick, Ultraviolet and Viva!
Fortunately (or I would have abandoned watching the DVD), satire and sleaze are amply supplied by Victor Jory as the rascally Torrance, R. G. Armstrong as the jovial and vicious sheriff, and the magnificent Joanne Woodward as Carol Cutrere, a "church-bitten reformer" who has been forbidden to drive her sports car in the county, and hankers after Val. Her unbridled sexuality and destructive whimsy make the movie take off; pity she has only a few scenes. The juking monologue is a classic. What's juking? "Well, that's when you get in a car, preferably open in any kind of weather. And then you drink a little and you drive a little..." For a moment I was thrust forward to the Warhol world of the Sixties, with the likes of Edie Sedgwick, Ultraviolet and Viva!