Torna, piccola Sheba

Shirley Booth is so convincing in this movie that it makes me think she was wasted in cinema because she was never given an opportunity to display her magnificent talent. She is completely heartbreaking in the movie and deservedly won the Oscar, over such heavyweights as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Burt Lancaster is great also but its Shirley's show all the way and she does not disappoint.

Shirley Booth was 54 when she won the Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance as Lola in the screen version of William Inge's "Come Back, Little Sheba". It was also her screen debut in a role that had previously won her a Tony on the stage and, quite frankly, she was magnificent. It launched her on a short-lived movie career and a slightly longer career on television. It's a fine film, well directed by Daniel Mann and adapted by Ketti Frings and it has three other good performances from Burt Lancaster as the alcoholic Doc, Terry Moore as the young lodger who, unwittingly, is the cause of Doc's hitting the bottle again and Richard Jaeckel as the athletic stud Moore is dallying with. Admittedly Lancaster, who at 39 was 15 years younger than Booth, isn't really right for his role, (he was too young for starters), but he handles it very effectively. Nevertheless, this is Booth's show. If she had never done anything else on screen she would still have earned her place in the pantheon of great performances.

Shirley Booth's performance in this movie is one of the best I've seen.From the moment she appears as Lola Delaney you know almost everything you need to know about her character.It's quite rare that I get moved to tears by a performance,but Shirley Booth managed that feat. She conveys all the emotions of a simple woman who's life didn't turn out the way she dreamed and her realization that the springtime of her life has long gone.Burt Lancaster might have been a bit young for the part of Doc Delaney,but I think he's really good and powerful and frightening in the drunk-scene.Terry Moore was a charming acquaintance for me.Her performance was quite assured and natural. Although this movie is more like a filmed play, I enjoyed it a lot.

Shirley Booth was a remarkably versatile actress - she did comedies, musicals, and dramas - and won the adoration of critics and audiences in all. But as with Agnes Moorehead and Eve Arden, her success in a TV comedy, "Hazel" tended to over-shadow her work on stage or film. A well-liked comedic actress on Broadway since the 1930s, she reinvented herself as a dramatic actress in 1949 with COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA, winning every award in sight. Although the film version was offered to the likes of Bette Davis (who turned it down because she felt she couldn't bring to the role the "gorgeous vagueness" Booth had), Hal Wallis wisely went with Booth to recreate her stage role, casting Burt Lancaster for box-office appeal.

Booth's performance as Lola is astonishing, filled with nervous energy and anxiety, living on the edge - ask anyone who's ever lived with an alcoholic - every gesture, every emotion she plays, is honest and accurate. When I finally saw this film in the early 1990s, I was floored by Booth - where in heck had she done her research? Help for families of alcoholics (the Al-Anon Family Groups) was still several years off when the stage version was done - the resources available to Booth would have been "open" AA meetings and perhaps talking with family members. (Incidentally, the director, Daniel Mann, wasn't finished with AA - a more realistic AA meeting figured in his 1956 I'LL CRY TOMORROW, in which he directed Susan Hayward to an Oscar nomination - ironically, she lost out to Anna Magnani's Mann-directed performance in THE ROSE TATTOO!)

Booth was still alive at the time I first saw this film (around 1991-92), and I knew after watching that, unfortunately, her great success as TV's "Hazel" over-shadowed SHEBA, and that when she died, the obit's would begin, "Shirley Booth, TV's HAZEL, is Dead..." and I was right. Agnes Moorehead had a similar fate - the generation which grew up on "Bewitched" was clueless that Moorehead was one of the finest, most versatile and respected actresses around and, like Booth, every bit the equal of the other leading ladies (whom she'd usually supported). I remember attending a screening for the 50th anniversary of CITIZEN KANE and hearing gasps of astonishment as the cast's names appeared "That was AGNES MOOREHEAD!!!!"

Yes, indeed. And THAT was Shirley Booth, breaking our hearts in COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA. Forget "Hazel," and bring tissues.

William Inge's play transfers nicely to the big screen, with perfectly cast leads Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster.

A middle aged, childless couple struggles with the husband's periodic alcoholic "episodes". When they rent out a room in their house to a young college girl, the audience learns a lot about the couple just by observing their reactions to "the young people". "Doc" Delaney exhibits fatherly, protective feelings toward the young woman, expressing disgust when she brings a young man to her room. A regular at AA meetings, he eventually "gets sick" again. Determined never to give up, his devoted wife Lola stands by her man. The ending leaves us hopeful that all will turn out well.

There are many beautiful moments in this film, assuring a lover of tearjerkers a full pay-off! Shirley Booth deserved her 1953 Oscar for her portrayal of Lola Delaney. Oh, and don't look for little Sheba, she won't be back.