The Paul Newman Retrospective: Sweet Bird of Youth, 1962

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.

The Paul Newman Retrospective: Another Brick In The Wall: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, 1958

You have no idea how I have been dying to use that title! See it's a pun, right? And yet it actually kind of fits. Because this film is all about deciding if you should conform to what people expect from you. I'm not sure what Pink Floyd: The Wall is about.



Welcome to the fifth edition of the Paul Newman Retrospective. Today we'll be dealing with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the first film for which Paul Newman received an Academy Award Nomination and his first appearance in the world of Tennessee Williams with whom he was also friends. That does not mean Tennessee liked this film at all, in fact he told people not to see it. The obvious reason is that since his play dealt with homosexuality, most of that had to be done away with because of the Production Code and you've seen Mad Men, right? I think maybe he was too dismissive, though. Even though they had to take the homosexual storyline out (not like it's totally out, though, it does seem weird for a while that Brick is so hung up about this) they did leave us with a protagonist struggling to find any meaning in life that to him seems to be too often lived dishonestly.



The great dilemma in this film is that the part of Maggie The Cat is played by Elizabeth Taylor, who makes me want to spit blood. It's not even her fault, I think, I just usually don't like her, but I do like her in this performance. It's rendered all the more impressive by the fact that Elizabeth Taylor's husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane accident during filming. Her performance in this is so flawless in spite of that. Now, for you Hollywood history buffs, that was the catalyst of the Taylor-Fisher-Reynolds Affair, soon to be followed by the Taylor-Burton-Fisher Affair. I was watching Oprah with Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher recently and it occurred to me that if I was Elizabeth Taylor and I was going to steal another woman's husband while I made this movie, I would make a play for Paul Newman and not Eddie Fisher. That would make much more sense. People would understand that. Anyway...

The supporting parts are filled out by Burl Ives as Big Daddy, who also sings "Holly Jolly Christmas." Big Mama played by Judith Anderson, Brick's brother Gooper played by Jack Carson (Where are these people getting these names?) and his wife, the perpetually procreating, Sister Woman, played by Madeleine Sherwood, who also appears in another Newman-Williams effort, Sweet Bird of Youth.

We start out in a scene on a high school athletic field where Brick attempts to jump the high hurdles while drunk and breaks his ankle. By the way, has anyone else noticed that the best Paul Newman movies seem to start with a long scene with Newman alone somewhere? Cool Hand Luke, this one, I know there are others. Next, we're back at the Pollitt family home where everyone has gathered to celebrate Big Daddy's birthday. Brick doesn't seem to care about the whole proceeding except where he's going to get his next drink from. Maggie laments the connivings of Gooper and Sister Woman to get their hands on the Pollitt fortune, Brick's lack of interest in it as well as the decline in their love life. Who can blame her, really? Anyway, Big Daddy comes home from a clinic thinking he has a bill of clean health. The family doctor informs Gooper and subsequently Brick that Big Daddy is going to die. Brick's instinct is to bail, which is symptomatic of his larger problem.

Much of the guts in this film derives from the confrontations between Brick and Big Daddy. Big Daddy wants Brick to inherit his empire, Brick doesn't want to. Big Daddy wants to know why Brick drinks and Brick doesn't want to talk about it. Most of it comes down to something called mendacity.



Big Daddy makes Maggie say what happened to Brick's friend, Skipper. It comes down to Brick failing his friend since it is clearly not what happened in the play and even I thought we were getting a little convoluted at this juncture. Big Daddy tries to get brick to face the truth about that and their confrontation leads to Brick spitting out to Big Daddy that he is going to die. It's the first time we see both of them exhibiting vulnerability. This becomes a turning point for father and son, as they're both forced to confront the truth about their lives. As this happens, Sister Woman and Gooper try to talk Big Mama into giving them control of Big Daddy's interests. Maggie stays in the fray there, fighting for position. Big Daddy and Brick come to a similar conclusion, that even if life is fraught with mendacity, it had better be lived than not. Big Daddy seemingly resolves to live out the rest of his days and Brick is going to stop using alcohol to hide from his problems. Meanwhile, Maggie says she is pregnant which is patently untrue, but it really pisses off Sister Woman, everyone else seems to know it's not true, but enters it in the "Who the hell cares?" column. This is ultimately what I like best about the film, we didn't quite get the happy ending, but we're happy enough, as happy as we can be.

What else about this film? It's beautifully shot, even if it's small. The whole thing takes period over a single night. I feel like we get a sense of the heat in the film, even though I can't put my finger on it. Also, this movie has the most monstrous collection of child actors ever and a great line about the Cotton Bowl that I couldn't quite work in here, so you will have to watch the movie. They were going to originally film it in black and white, since most films with an artistic bent were shot in black and white at the time, but director Richard Brooks decided that was crazy given Elizabeth Taylor's eyes and Paul Newman's eyes. Good call. It is obviously different than the play, but I don't think it suffers for it. You just have to look upon it as something separate. I think it becomes about something else, about facing life rather than isolating yourself from it.

So, does the Production Code suck? Would you have liked a real adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play better? Would you have gone for Eddie Fisher, too? If so, why? Will you listen to "Holly Jolly Christmas" differently next time? Do those kids in the meat grinder bother you too? Explain all in the comments section.