The Fugitive Kind

source: The Fugitive Kind

Though it does have its flaws, Williams beautifully directs 'The Fugitive Kind' and he cleverly casts Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani in the lead roles. Williams portrays the small town and tells the violent story of two star-crossed lovers using themes of love, hate, desire, loneliness, revenge, betrayal and belonging very well. He very smartly displays the sexual tension and torment between the characters (the actors deserve credit for this too) and brilliantly brings out Val and Lady Torrence's denied vulnerable side. The scenes are brought out by some fine (and provocative for it's time) dialogue. Marlon Brando as a wandering guitar player fits his part like a glove. He gives a very restrained natural performance. I cannot picture anyone else who would have better suited the part. Magnani's Lady Torrence is quite the opposite of Brando's Val Xavier but it is their loneliness that attracts them towards each other and the actress does an excellent job in delivering an intense multidimensional performance. She expresses the conflicting emotions with complete grace. The scenes with Val and Lady Torrence are clearly the highlight of the movie. The supporting cast, especially Maureen Stapleton, are also good. There are a few loud melodramatic moments which could have been toned down. The story moves on a slow but smooth pace until its explosive ending. Nonetheless, 'The Fugitive Kind' wonderfully tells the delicate, moving, poetic and tragic tale of two very different people who are in love.

Years ago I saw Lumet's 'The Fugitive Kind' and more recently Peter Hall's 1990 film of the play (with its original title 'Orpheus Descending'). After seeing the Hall film, I went to Williams' text, then re-visited 'The Fugitive Kind', which I remembered as having brilliant moments but as finally somewhat confused. Lumet's film differs significantly from the play: incidents mentioned in a line or less of dialogue, get acted out with (too) much variety of settings in the film; apart from the inevitable cuts, lines are transposed in different sequence in the film script and the play's pinpoint progression of human relations is blurred in the film. The film credits are impressive: Williams helped prepare the screen adaptation. The two films that came after this one in Sidney Lumet's filmography were also adaptations of stage plays and both have terrific impact: 'Long Day's Journey into Night' and 'A View From the Bridge'. Brando and Magnini were great screen presences. I don't know what went on in behind the scenes, but to my mind more turns out to be less in this celluloid adaptation. Williams felt this play to be 'special' among his works. Some critics thought his perfecting it over very many years was an obsession that got him nowhere. The 1990 Peter Hall film can help us re-appraise William's work. The two main characters have a vulnerability (not in the Brando/Magnani version) which opens our receptiveness to the play. The bit of ballad Brando sings to no one is banal, for example, while Kevin Anderson/Valentine's songs send a haunting beauty to us the viewers and to characters in the drama: he is Orpheus descending--to the Hell of our world!

This picture takes Tenneesse Williams play Orpheus Descending about Val Xavier(Marlon Brando),a drifter man who plays a guitar(He is the rebel type of character who have in all of the Williams plays). Anna Magnani is great too but Marlon steals the show.Recommended Brando's character is like The Wild One without a motorcycle and a kind of Stan Kowalski that don't beat girls, he starts an affair with an older lady(Magnani),an romance that can be end in a tragedy. This is based in a Williams less know play, not good as Streetcar or Suddenly Last Summer, but is a great piece of cinema. i would give **** of *****

The best movie I have ever seen, with the possible exception of On The Waterfront. It is pure lyrical poetry, that reaches straight for the heart, without ignoring the mind. The best movie I have ever seen, with the possible exception of On The Waterfront. It is pure lyrical poetry, that reaches straight for the heart, without ignoring the mind. The best movie I have ever seen, with the possible exception of On The Waterfront. It is pure lyrical poetry, that reaches straight for the heart, without ignoring the mind. The best movie I have ever seen, with the possible exception of On The Waterfront. It is pure lyrical poetry, that reaches straight for the heart, without ignoring the mind.

The Fugitive Kind (1960) This is one of those great movies that slips its way into that big gap between the great Hollywood Golden Age to the great New Hollywood of the late 1960s. An awful lot of films from the period between (1955-65) are weak or even downright bad, big budgets and all. The Hollywood gems in that time are usually a little gut wrenching, and many are based on plays, or push political issues (I'm thinking of "The Apartment" and "The Manchurian Candidate"). The famous directors coming to their own during time include Elia Kazan and Robert Wise, and of course Sidney Lumet, who directed this one. This is all working class, plainspeaking, emotive material. Right from the get-go with leading man Marlon Brando doing a long take as he stands before a judge, we are filled with heart-wrenching stuff, people who want to be something and don't know how, or people with big hearts that are broken or dirty. The cast, beyond Brando, is terrific: Joanne Woodward as a young floozy with a sharp sense of independence, Maureen Stapleton as a simple and faith filled wife of the sheriff, and Anna Magnani, intense and troubled but superior in her own out of place way. There are powerful displays of white narrow-mindedness (call it bigotry, but it is largely aimed at just anyone they don't like) that don't quite fall into clichés, there is love that shouldn't be and that never is, there is old world morality and inbred local gossipy immorality. Things are bound for collision even by twenty minutes in, and there are innuendoes and hidden histories waiting to blossom. Lumet has a knack for the serious, with his 1957 breakthrough film "12 Angry Men" a template for his career. As lively and even crazy as this movie is, it's also probing deeply into human woe and maladjustment (often deliberate). The core of the writing belongs to Tennessee Williams, who of course is all about inner troubles and outward misunderstood or mistaken actions. There is nothing superficial here, not in the acting, the filming, or the scenes (set in the South but filmed near Saratoga Springs, New York). And if the wet, dark nights scenes and interiors with people quarreling and fighting aren't enough to suck you in, the story, about wanting to live, nothing more, is beautiful and important. All four of the main characters are deeply good people, and all flawed in small but debilitating ways. Which should sound familiar. As over the top as it sometimes seems, you'll identify with the position some of the people end up in. Brando is temperamental but patient and with a profound sense of justice. Woodward is a free spirit misunderstood (and punished) by the uptight and hypocritical society around her. The themes are frank for 1960, including an implication of a male so manly and irresistible the women want him (and get him) even when it's completely wrong. And when it's right. The sexuality, partly pumped up by the writing of the openly gay playwright (Williams), is all over Brando's face and in his scenes. And this is his movie. High high drama, but from within. And explosive. Don't miss it.

particularly JoAnn Woodward. Magnani was way too old for the part...(just don't buy she was pregnant.) She may have been a fascinating actress to watch (say 15 years earlier)...but she just did not fit the parameters. The script, purposefully gritty, was almost "grab and bash" in it's concepts. Ugliness was thrown in stark shadows and light, with little redeeming action. There needed to be a balance...and it was all dull. The best writing is done subtly (like "Street Car named Desire") rather than slamming with black and white film noir, to get certain points across. Marlon could sense it wasn't working....he did his best but just could find no reason for it to have any meaning. When his character died, nothing was felt by the audience. It was just one more loss, of characters no one felt any apathy for. They were all selfish, grubby, static, useless human beings that no one really cared a thing about at the finish. Even Maureen Stapleton couldn't save it...her character (supposedly the heart of the piece) just didn't appeal, even on a pitiful level. It was a wasted effort....something Tennessee Williams threw together to make money on his earlier successes.

This is not a well-written film, but the acting is phenomenal. Brando and Magnani have really great chemistry and that's what carries the film. It is the acting of these two that make me want to watch this film time and time again. I didn't necessarily like Joanne Woodward in her role, it just didn't seem to fit her. It seemed like she was trying too hard or something, so I just tuned her out. But I was always tuned into Brando--its just something about him that just pulls you in--wondering what he'll do next in the scene. Anyway, The cinematography is great and adds to the moodiness of the film. Overall, the movie isn't necessarily Brando's greatest film, but it's by no means one of his worst. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to work with as far as the script, so the acting had to carry the film.

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! Like some odd retelling of Sweet Bird that needn't have been done. And the performances certainly didn't manage to save it. Brando and Magnani couldn't bring any believability to each other if they tried. It was like they phoned them in. Absolutely terrible! If you like Williams, watch this one with some skepticism. It was just incredibly dull. And the ending was a total letdown. The wonderful jilted husband was the only one who showed any worth. You cheat on your husband with his window just right overhead like that, what do you expect? Terrible film.

i cannot believe that i had never heard of this movie. the only possible explanation is that it was spun out of a play that bombed. that said, Sidney lumet does an amazing Job of lithely sprinkling the classical over northern Mississippi (without screaming 'look were being classical now') from a historical perspective the themes dealt with here are amazing both for their envelope pushing and their subtle overlay. the acting is the best I've seen. Brando is third best, Anna M. is next. both are outdone by Woodward. The character actors Jorie and Stapleton are better than all of them.