The Fugitive Kind (1959)

A drifter (Marlon Brando) finds himself in a small Southern town when his car breaks down. He takes a job as a clerk in a mercantile store run by the wife (Anna Magnani) of a dying sadist (Victor Jory) but it's only a matter of time before the drifter and the wife acknowledge their attraction to each other. Based on the play ORPHEUS DESCENDING by Tennessee Williams (who co-adapted his play for the screen) and directed by Sidney Lumet (NETWORK). Reputedly, after seeing the movie Tallulah Bankhead told Williams, "Darling, they've absolutely ruined your perfectly dreadful play!". She's not far wrong. The merits (or lack of them) of Williams' play aside, the movie is a mess. Nobody comes out unscathed. Brando seems to be doing a Brando parody, Magnani grapples with the English dialogue and the usually reliable Joanne Woodward as the town tramp overacts. At his best, Williams' dialogue is pure poetry but here, the poetry is missing. If Williams name wasn't on the film, I'd have called it a faux Tennessee Williams wannabe. What went wrong? I'm not sure the play is good enough to salvage. However, Lumet would go on to make an even worse film adaptation of a Williams play LAST OF THE MOBILE HOT SHOTS (1970) based on THE SEVEN DESCENTS OF MYRTLE. With Maureen Stapleton (who manages not to embarrass herself) and R.G. Armstrong.