El hombre de la piel de víbora

The Fugitive Kind is a hot story of desire and loss and craving and heartbreak between a man and two women set in the deep south. Sounds like quintessential Tenessee Williams, and it is in spurts. Sometimes Williams leans towards being a little preachy, however true (little moments like when Brando and Stapleton have a quiet back and forth about racism via her painting kind of nails it on the head much), but it's his skills at doing melodrama that strike up the coolest beats. In fact, this is one of those super-cool movies of the late 50s that could have only starred someone like Brando, who looks at times disinterested in the scene but at the same time completely engaged, curious, smooth, harsh, and knowing of what life can bring with his trusty Ledbelly-signed guitar. It's not necessarily a towering work for the ages ala Williams collaboration 1 Streetcar Named Desire. But that doesn't mean it should be much under-looked either.

As an early effort for Lumet it's also a scorcher dramatically; he's so good with the actors that whatever little missteps the script might take in pouring on the poetic prose in how some of the characters talk (there's a scene between Brando and Anna Magnani's characters by some ruin of a spot where she says people used to make love that is actually quite boring) can be usually forgiven. Magnani especially is interesting because she should be a case of miscasting, which, apparently in later years, Lumet admitted to. She seems low-key at first, but her strengths bloom out tenfold when it comes time to act like the hard-knock-life kind of woman she is, who's in a crap marriage and had a horrible affair with a man who didn't do anything after the summer they spent together. Now she's put into a situation where she does and doesn't want this drifter, and vice versa, and she's sometimes just as cool (though also quite tough and demanding in that big Italian mama way) as her counterpart.

Meanwhile there's also Joanne Woodard, who has the kind of part many actresses love to chew on; feisty, outspoken, loud but also emotionally moody to the point that she admirably tries (and doesn't quite get to) the heights of Vivien Leigh with her classic Blanche Dubois. Overall, Lumet gets a good feel for the period- and shot in New York state no less- while working with good material and an even better cast. It won't ever be as revered as his other work, and at the same time it's much better than some would give it credit for, where the tragedy acts like another sweaty Southern caricature bemoaning existence and fitting on a bad pair of shoes.

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.

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.

"Orpheus Descending" may be one of Tennessee Williams' lesser plays but this screen version, under the more commercial title "The Fugitive Kind", is a fairly juicy entertainment. thanks for the most part to the playing of Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward. They are superb and lift the material, which is far from first-rate, to an altogether higher plain. The director was Sidney Lumet and while it may not be the best thing he's ever done, he certainly ensures we are never bored.

Williams himself adapted his play along with Meade Roberts and he signposts all the big moments well in advance. Once you hear Magnani's Lady Torrence tell of how vigilantes burned down her father's orchard with him in it, you know how things will turn out - badly! The superb cinematography, in widescreen and in black and white, is by the great Boris Kaufman and the nice, bluesy score is by Kenyon Hopkins.

Based on the play "Orpheus Descending" by Tennessee Williams directed by Sidney Lumet with an exceptional cast: Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton and Victor Jory. I saw it for the first time when I was still in my teens and I had an opaque, sticky memory of the film so when somebody suggested to see it on DVD I knew we were in for an opaque, sticky evening but, as it happens, I was dead wrong. "The Fugitive Kind" is riveting with an opening monologue by Brando that is astonishing. A 1960 Brando when he had still, I imagine. hopes to be the actor, the man he wanted to be. There is an animal innocence in his eyes in his moves. The magnificent Magnani, who learned her lines phonetically because she didn't know English presented Brando with a challenge as an actress and as a woman. I hear it wasn't pretty but the result is a feast for the eyes and the ears. The film may not be perfect but I don't think the original material was either so what we got here is a unique opportunity to see this enormous artists giving their whole. That alone makes it a collectors item.