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Tag: Tennessee Williams

  • Tempers: Sweet Bird of Youth

    You: If you had to have a dinner party with 10 famous people of your choosing who would you pick?

    Me: Well I’m glad you asked me that. When planning a fantasy celeb dinner party you must remember that it’s still a party. Gandhi, for example, is a great man, but at a party he might be a downer. With that in mind, my choices are: Jean Cocteau, Tina Fey, James Franco, Miles Davis, Groucho Marx, Nicki Minaj (Groucho needs a sassy young thing to chase) and two Geraldine Pages. One to perform, and one to interrogate.

    I first met Geraldine as Alexandra De Lago in Sweet Bird of Youth. It was love at first sight and we have enjoyed a lovely relationship ever since.

    This 1962 Richard Brooks film stars Page and Paul Newman who reprise their Broadway roles as aging movie star Alexandra De Lago (Princess Kosmonopolis) and sad gigolo Chance Wayne. During a screening of her latest “come back” picture De Lago is horrified to see that her youth has faded. She flees the theater mid-showing and embarks on a “I need to forget who I am” bender that spans several continents. Along the way De Lago picks up Chance who fulfills the duties of his position while attempting to exploit her fame and power. You see, Chance is desperate to reclaim the happiness of his youth: Heavenly Finley (Shirley Knight), the perfect white, blonde, nearly translucent example of virginal goodness. Unfortunately for Chance, Heavenly is the daughter of evil politician and virtue preservationist Boss Finley (Ed Begley).

    Though a shirtless Newman lends fuel for masturbatory fire and Begley is despicably grotesque, this is really Page’s show.

    You might consider Bird a poor choice for inclusion in Tempers. Many other characters  scream louder and kick harder. We all know Sonny Corleone has a scary temper, but the anxiety caused by unpredictability is also frightening. Deep in post-failure nihilism, Alexandra is too deflated to rage in her usual way. Instead she battles like a wilting Venus Fly Trap. Her fury never fully surfaces. She is forever on the verge of a tantrum, dropping one shoe and dangling the other.

    Still, she is a power.

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  • Baby Doll

    Oh Elia. Elia, Elia, Elia.

    This is Elia Kazan’s 1956 film Baby Doll written by Tennessee Williams (based on his short plays 27 Wagons Fulls of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short). The film stars* Carroll Baker as Baby Doll, a 19 year old girl married to the middle aged Archie Leigh Meighan, a cotton gin owner played by Karl Malden. In order to marry her, Archie Leigh promised Baby Doll’s now deceased father that she would remain a virgin until her 20th birthday (now two days away!). Baby Doll is utterly unexcited about the prospect of having to consummate her marriage with such a soggy excuse for a man and treats her husband with the utmost contempt. Crazed, sex starved, and broke, Archie Leigh sets fire to the gin of his main competitor in the cotton trade, Silva Vaccaro, a sicillian played by Eli Wallach. Vaccaro sets out for revenge and the delicious seduction of Baby Doll begins.

    If you watch this movie late at night in the middle of summer, you will walk directly into a dream.
    A hot, thick, wet, dream.
    Your legs will become very heavy, you will throw off the sheets and open the window.
    You will lean against the windowsill and look into the night. Look at the streetlight on the leaves on the oak tree. You will return to bed (your bare feet will be damp with sweat and they will stick to the wood floor).
    You will lie on your back.
    You will look at the ceiling.
    You will be very, very, very horny.

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