Welcome once again to the Paul Newman Retrospective. Sweet Bird of Youth is an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play, just like Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, only not as good. That being said, you can guess that there were some changes from Broadway to Hollywood, so let's just get that out there. The play ends with Chance Wayne's character being castrated and Heavenly Finley gets a venereal disease. Question, how does a character get castrated onstage? These things will not be happening in Hollywood in 1962. What I do love about Tennessee Williams is the hint of truth of the south in them. Take this story for instance, the corrupt southern governor who attempts to converge politics and morality. Yeah. Also, take the names Chance and Heavenly. What more white trash names could we have come up with? If anybody was going to get mixed up in the plot of this film, it would be two characters named Chance and Heavenly. I think this trailer makes note of the fact.
You know, I think it probably means something when we have Paul Newman with his shirt off in the trailer. They had to get the audience in somehow.
So, let's get to the story. Paul Newman plays Chance Wayne a gigolo/actor/ne'er do well. He is driving around his latest client/patroness Alexandra del Lago played by Geraldine Page, a movie star and drinker/pot smoker. Chance is driving her and they stop in his hometown of St. Cloud where he hopes to regain what he lost along with his youth, his sweetheart, Heavenly Finley.
Heavenly's father is Boss Finley, played by Ed Begley in an Academy Award winning performance. He deserves it, he's a pretty good jackass. Interestingly, a lot of the cast of this film stayed in tact from its run on Broadway. Paul Newman originated the role of Chance Wayne alongside Geraldine Page. Madeleine Sherwood, Sister Woman from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, plays Miss Lucy. Rip Torn is Finley Jr. The two notable deviations are Mildred Dunnock plays Aunt Nonnie and Shirley Knight who plays Heavenly Finley. I can't find anything to really like about Shirley Knight's performance even though she got an Oscar nomination. She just seems not there and maybe she's supposed to be not there, but it really hampers the ending.
Okay, I find myself extremely mixed up about this film. When I first saw it, I really liked it. I liked and still like the interplay between past and present, the way that the past is such a huge part of these characters, it haunts them. I like the way it seems to say that what you love the most can in fact be what tortures you the most. I haven't seen this as a play, although apparently Nicole Kidman and James Franco are going to do a revival of this on Broadway. Yet when I read about the play, it seems as if this thing got gutted. They couldn't have venereal disease or castration- not that I really want to see Paul Newman get castrated- so they did the abortion plot and beat Paul Newman up some and then out of nowhere, Heavenly suddenly has the guts to stand up to her father and we have a happy ending. I just don't find her transformation very believable and I think I let it slide past me the first time because I was like, "Of course she should run off with Paul Newman. She should have done that two hours ago. What the hell took so long?"
Geraldine Page is fantastic in this part, though. She plays a fading actress who feels like her time in the spotlight has run out. She has this great scene where she's on the phone with Walter Winchell where she discovers she's not through, and she goes from has been to somebody in record time. Her changes in mood and disposition are believable, she does the crazy actress thing quite well. Also, Madeleine Sherwood is such a joy to watch in this movie. Her Miss Lucy is flawless and I love her as the governor's mistress with a heart of gold. She really pulls off southerner not just in accent, but in affect and it couldn't have been easy because she was actually Canadian. Also, you would probably never realize she was Sister Woman in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof if you weren't looking at the credits. She is just so transformed.
So, what does this play bring from Broadway? The stars. Something about youth and beauty, but instead of saying you can't recapture it, this movie somehow says you can. Anyway, my new handbook, Shaun Levy's Paul Newman: A Life says that the actors were forbidden from talking about this movie to the press. There's a hint. So, I think I've somehow talked myself out of liking this movie. I guess it's okay as a melodrama, something Douglas Sirk might have directed, but otherwise it kind of seems to suck. There are good moments to distract you, but the overall effect just feels lacking.
Okay, so what did you think? Am I too hard on the adaptation? Would you have wanted to see Paul Newman castrated? Do you think this story takes place in Florida or does the combination of corruption and oil spell Louisiana to you? Anyway, let me know all in the comments section.
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