May 1987 Beazley Is Approved

Home , Lawrence Weingarten, Lois Nettleton, Martin Jurow, Small Craft Warnings, The Night of the Iguana

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

THE FINAL FOUR FILM ADAPTATIONS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in MASS COMMUNICATION by Kimberly Brandewie Beazley

May 1987 Beazley is approved:

California State University, Northridge

ii To MA and PAPPY: For all your love, support, wisdom, and humor during this endeavor and the past twenty-four years. May the next quarter of a century be as good.

In Memory of GEORGE EDWARD BRANDEWIE JR. Oct. 11, 1925 - Dec. 28, 1966

"It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, just so long as you don't forget it and you ain't ashamed of it." William Faulkner

iii ~\ '

"Nowadays is, indeed, lit by lightning, a plague has stricken the moths, and Blanche has been 'put away. ' " Memoirs

"Then what shall I say? That I know that I am a minor artist who has happened to write one or two major works? I can't even say which they are. It doesn't matter." Where I Live

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT • ...... ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Introduction ••.•••• 1 Purpose ...... 5 Research Questions .. 6 Hypothesis .•. 7 Design •••••• 8 Methodology •••••••• 9 Literature Review .. 11 Introduction .• 11 Books ...... 11 Articles ...•. 21 Dissertations .. 24 Conclusion ..•• 25 Endnotes ••••. 27 Bibliography. 33 CHAPTER 2 THEATRE/FILM/ADAPTATION 38 Introduction •. 38 Plot/Story •.•• 41 Idea/Theme •.••.• 42 Mood/Atmosphere. ... 43 Character .••••.• 45 Dialogue ...... 47 Spectacle/Staging. .. 49 Concl us ion ••••. . . 51 Endnotes 53

CHAPTER 3 =IN~FL:...=..;U~E::.:.N.:...::C~E:::=S;..,_,:;O.:..:N--=.;TE=N:..:..:N:..:..:E:.:S::..::S~E::.::E::.-.:.;W:.:I=L~L=I:..::AM=-S .•.•..•• 55 Introduction •• 55 Fa.Illily ...... 56 Early Life •••...... 60 Health ••.•••• ...... 62 Education and Employment •• ...... 65 Travel ...... 67 Artistic Inspiration...... 70 Theatre ••••••• 72 Conclusion •• ...... 75 Endnotes •••• .. . . 77

v CHAPTER 4- TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' CHARACTERS, SYMBOLS, AND THEMES ...... 80 Introduction...... 80 Characters ...... 81 Symbolism ...... 86 Themes ...... 91 Conclusion ...... 97 Endnotes ... .. 99 CHAPTER 5 THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA ...... 102 Background of the Play ...... 103 Synopsis and Main Characters ...... 103 Changes from Stage to Screen: Characters . .. 108 Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon ... . 108 Hannah Jelkes ... . .114 Maxine Faulk ...... 117 Jonathan Coffin ...... 119 Charlotte Goodall .. . .. 120 Judith Fellowes ...... 123 The Ladies ...... 124 The Men ...... 125 Changes from Stage to Screen: Symbolism .... 126 Mexico ...... 126 Costa Verde Hotel .. .126 Time Change. .. .127 Iguana .. .128 Sea ...... 129 Storm ...... 131 "Mei Yoo Gauchi" ••.. ·131 Changes from Stage to Screen: Theme ...... 132 Influence of the Director ...... ·135 Conclusion. . ...•..• ...... 138 Endnotes ...... 140 CHAPTER 6 - THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED...... 141 Background of the Play ....•...... 142 Synopsis and Main Characters. .142 Synopsis of the Film ....•...... 143 Changes from Stage to Screen: Characters ... 146 Alva Starr ...... 146 Owen Legate ...... 149 Willie Starr ...... 151 Hazel Starr ...... 154 The Men...... 155 Changes from Stage to Screen: Symbolism. .157 Depression...... 157 Boardinghouse. . • . . . .157 Trains...... 158

vi New Orleans. ... .159 Stonn ...... 160 Movies ...... • . .. 161 Milky White Sky. . .. • .162 Light ...... 162 Changes from Stage to Screen: Theme. .163 Influence of the Director...... 164 Conclusion •• ...... 166 Endnotes. .168

CHAPTER 7 BOOM ••••••••••••••••••.••••••••••••....• 169 Background of the Play .•.•...•.••..•...••.• • 170 Synopsis and Main Characters ...... 171 Changes from Stage to Screen: Characters ... 173 Mrs. Goforth .••••.•...... 173 Christopher Flanders. . .• 178 Blackie ...•...... • ...... 181 The Witch of Capri.. . .. 182 Rudy ...... 183 Villagers .....•...... 183 The Rest ...... 184 Changes from Stage to Screen: Symbolism .... 185 Sea ...... 185 Wind ...... 186 Earthquake ...... 186 Sun ...... 187 Pink Villino. . .187 Oubliette •..•• . . . .. 188 Roman •...... 188 Oriental •...... 189 Monkey .. .. • . . •• 190 Games .•..•• ...... 191 Mobiles ..• ...... 191 Changes from Stage to Screen: Theme. .192 Influence of the Director. . .. 193 Conclusion ...... •. 195 Endnotes ...... • .197 CHAPTER 8 .:;;TH;..:;E=-=L=A=S:....:T:...._::O;.::.F---""T=H=-E.....;M:..:..O=B::.:I==L=E::.....:.;H:..::;O;.::T_-.:=;S.:..:H...:;.O=TS=-. . . . . • • .198 Background of the Play ...... 199 Synopsis and Main Characters ...... 199 Changes from Stage to Screen: Characters .201 Lot .•...... 201 Myrtle ...... 208 Chicken ..•...... 212 Changes from Stage to Screen: Symbolism .. . . 216 The Flood ..•• ...... 216 The Estate...... 217 The Parlor .• .218

vii Kitchen versus Bedroom ...... 219 Changes from Stage to Screen: Theme ...... 220 Influence of the Director ...... 221 Conclusion ...... 223 Endnotes ...... 226 CHAPTER 9 - CONCLUSION ...... 227

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 234

APPENDIXES ...... 236 A. The Works of Tennessee Williams ...... 237 B. The Films of Tennessee Williams ...... 241

viii ABSTRACT

THE FINAL FOUR FILM ADAPTATIONS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS by Kimberly Brandewie Beazley Master of Arts in Mass Communication

This thesis is an examination, in terms of char acter, symbolism, and theme, of Tennessee Williams' final four film adaptations. Completed between 1964 and 1970, the films are The Night of the Iguana (1964), This Property is Condemned (1966), Boom (1968), and The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots (1970). Although much has been written about Tennessee Williams and his art, this period has not been given deserved or extensive coverage. Cer tain background material is covered. This includes the differences and similarities of film and theatre as they pertain to the process of adaptation, the personal and professional influences which contributed to Tennessee Williams' uniqueness, and a brief look at Tennessee

ix Williams' characters, symbols, and themes. The analysis o£ the adaptations covers the back ground o£ the play, synopsis and main characters, the changes made in character, symbolism, and theme, and the influence of the director. The purpose is to show that Tennessee Williams' characters, symbols, and themes require virtually no modification when transferred from theatre to film. Rules for the development of an adaptation depend on each individual work to be adapted. Therefore, it is hard to look at a film adaptation and be able to state exactly why certain changes were made. One can only look at the results in an attempt to understand the filmmaker's reasoning. Whatever problems arise when employing adaptive material, it is, or should be, the filmmaker's responsibility to protect the work. As exemplified by these final four film adaptations of Tennessee Williams, sometimes the changes work and other times they do not. Of the four, The Night of the Iguana and Boom follow the original work more closely. The directors, in both cases, had an affinity £or Williams and his work and included the playwright in the productions. Opposed to this is This Property is Condemned and The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots. The former was expanded way beyond the brief one-act upon which it was based. The latter was dealt a blow by a director who was not comfortable with comedy and an actor who was allowed, based on a personal

X whim, to alter the essence of the work.

xi CHAPTER 1

THE FINAL FOUR FILM ADAPTATIONS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

INTRODUCTION

Tennessee Williams is considered one of the great est playwrights America has ever produced. Beginning with the appearance of The Glass Menagerie on Broadway in 1944 and on screen in 1950, his work has continued to command the world's attention for over four decades. The adapta tion of Williams' work from stage to screen has culminated, between 1950 and 1970, in fourteen films. Of these, some have garnered great public and critical acclaim while others have received little, if any, approval. As a play wright between 1945 and the early sixties, Tennessee Williams commanded a wide audience. The subsequent years witnessed a downward trend in Williams' popularity as well as the emergence of his new style of writing. Compounding these developments was Williams' personal battle with both physical and mental illnesses. During the late sixties and early seventies when Tennessee Williams experienced a decline in popularity, he

1 2

remained a prolific writer. Although he continued to write and produce plays, critics turned harsh in their reviews of Williams' latter works. They insisted on com paring these later, more experimental works to the success ful formula of "poetic naturalism" found in works like The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar Named Desire. Williams' move toward looser construction, more stylized characterization, and increasing social criticism stemmed from his view of himself as a "play wright-in-progress." He viewed these changes as an im portant aspect of his career and was disheartened when audiences and critics failed to respond favorably. The final four films based on the works of Tennessee Williams were produced between 1964 and 1970. Beginning with The Night of the Iguana (1964), the films that followed were This Property is Condemned (1966), Boom (1968), and The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots (1970). As a whole, Tennessee Williams' primary concerns were with feelings, inner desires, and a coming to grips with a brutal world. Most of his characters are misfits who look to escape from the present or to recovery from the past. Most works of Tennessee Williams begin with the development of a short story. Occasionally, he merged two or more shorter works into one full-length play. Generally, however, he just reworked and expanded a single idea and set of characters into a stage play. Such is the case with these final film adaptations. All of the orig- 3

inal plays, except for This Property is Condemned, were based on expanded and rewritten short stories. In con trast, This Property is Condemned, written early in his career, was always intended as a short one-act. This process of constantly reworking a piece is an important aspect of Williams' career. He considered his work to be "in progress" and was always willing to make modifications in a script. Of these four films, the last two received name changes in the transition from stage to screen. The film Boom was based on The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any more. The final film, The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots, was taken from a play that already had two titles--The Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle) . These frequent title changes may make a commentary on the un stable nature of these last two adaptations. Unlike The

Night of the Iguana and This Property is Condemned whos~ titles reflected authorship by a well-known playwright, the title changes of these last two films obscure their origins. The period in which these plays and films appeared marked a turning point for Williams. Therefore, these plays and films form an important aspect of Tennessee Williams' life and career. In viewing them, one is able to draw a picture of the aging playwright during these troublesome years. Reaching mid-life during this time, Williams turned his pen from violence to a more mellow, 4

reflective mood. This does not mean that his characteris tic use of violence was abandoned--only that it was more subdued. Having spent many years under the care and observa tion of several psychiatrists and/or psychologists, Williams finally announced himself "cured" of the violent tendencies in his writings, and was determined to deal less with the darker aspects of life. In The Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle), which he considered to be his "funny melodrama," Williams does just that. This play shows life, robust and healthy, triumphant over death, decay, and natural disaster. These latter plays tended to illuminate Williams' own mixed feelings and attitudes. The Night of the Iguana is a good example of confused and lonely characters who must continue to live despite having already failed. They must learn, as Tennessee Williams believed, how to "live beyond despair and still live." Adding to these mixed emotions were personal prob lems which confronted the playwright. These included the death of a close, long-time companion as well as battles with both alcoholism and drug addiction. The bouts of ill health and the death of his friend reawakened old fears concerning his own mortality. This awareness and concen tration on death is the central topic for the characters and action in The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. Three important areas in any study of Williams 5

concern characterization, symbolism, and theme. Williams' unique application of these elements has contributed to his becoming a legendary figure in the American theatre. Therefore, any alteration in these three elements should be carefully considered. This does not mean that change in these areas is negative, only that careful thought should go into any modification. For their part, some of the latter plays underwent major alterations in character, symbolism, and theme in the process of adaptation from stage to screen. Although the fourteen films have received varying degrees of artistic and financial success, they have en abled Tennessee Williams to cross over into the cinematic medium. In this way, he has been able to reach an audi ence which might otherwise have never come in contact with his works. Even when the filmed versions do not directly follow the original play, there are always some character istics of Tennessee Williams that manage to shine through the sometimes flawed adaptations.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to analyze the pro cess of screen adaptation of the latter works of Tennessee Williams. Covering the period from 1964 to 1970, the films to be studied are The Night of the Iguana (1964), This Property is Condemned (1966), Boom (1968), 6

and The Last o£ the Mobile Hot-Shots (1970). Although much has been written about Tennessee Williams and his art, this period has not been given deserved or extensive coverage. Except £or The Night of the Iguana, the works adapted into screenplays were considered minor but, al though considered inferior to some earlier filmed works, they signal an important decade in the career o£ a legend ary American literary £igure. In the analysis of these plays and £ilms, the major emphasis will be on the diff erences and similarities in film and theatre as they per tain to the process of adaptation, the personal and pro fessional in£luences which contributed to Tennessee Williams' unique style of writing, the influence exerted by the director's background, and the reasons and results for the changes made on the journey from stage to screen. Overall, the purpose of this paper is to examine the e£fects of adaptation on Tennessee Williams' characters, symbolism, and themes in the final four film adaptations completed between 1964 and 1970.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What are the differences and similarities in theatre and £ilm as they pertain to the process of adapta tion from stage to screen? 2. What were the personal and professional in fluences which contributed to Tennessee Williams' unique 7

style of writing? J. What are the unique characteristics of Tennessee Williams in terms of characters, symbolism, and themes? 4. What changes were made in the adaptations? 5. Why were the changes made? 6. What were the artistic results of those changes? 7. What aspects of the director's theatrical background influenced the film?

HYPOTHESIS

Having made an important impact on ·the American stage, Tennessee Williams has always had a special affinity for the development of characters and symbols. This em phasis on character led to the creation of many confused, semi-tragic, and unforgettable individuals. Symbolism, with the aid of poetic dialogue and setting, reached a high point in Williams' writing. In plays such as The Night of the Iguana and This Property is Condemned, the main dramatic action occurred in the past and the plot revolves around a retelling of past events. This con fined quality may occasionally clash with the cinema's more action oriented elements. Although this presents certain problems in the film adaptations, the overabun dance of characters, symbols, and themes are more than 8

adequate compensation. The course of this study will show that Tennessee Williams' characters, symbols, and themes require virtually no modification when transferred from theatre to film.

DESIGN

The pattern of this study will be divided into three main segments. The first section will contain the background material necessary for a proper analysis of the plays and films. This background material includes the differences and similarities of film and theatre as they pertain to the process of adaptation and an examination of the background and main characteristics which make Tennessee Williams unique. Studying Williams' background as a playwright will provide information on what changes and motivations were taking place during the period of these latter screen adaptations. It will also help to understand the resulting effects on the man and his writ ings. After examining Tennessee Williams the man, Tennessee Williams the artist will be researched. This includes the characteristics that make Williams, the artist, unique with special emphasis on three main ele ments--characters, symbolism, and themes--which are to be utilized in analysis of the adaptations. The middle and most important section deals with the actual plays and films. This segment begins chrono- 9

logically with The Night of the Iguana (1964) and ends with The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots (1970). Each entry will be analyzed along the following lines--background of the play, synopsis of the play and its main characters, an examination of the changes in character, symbolism, and theme, and a look at the influence exerted by the direc tor's theatrical background. In analyzing the main as pects of character, symbolism, and theme, not only will the actual changes be studied but also the reasons for and results of the changes in those areas. A brief appendix to this study will include a complete list of Tennessee Williams' fourteen film adapta tions. A second list will contain a complete resume of all the works of Tennessee Williams. This list will be comprised of one-act plays, full-lenth plays, short stories, poetry, and novellas.

METHODOLOGY

In attempting to properly analyze as well as understand the written and filmed works of a renowned playwright, it is important to utilize both historical and content analysis methods. The historical method will be applied to the analysis of Tennessee Williams' per sonal and professional life before, during, and after the plays and films this study is intended to cover. In ex amining the life and career of Tennessee Williams, the 10

historical method can place the man and the artist in proper perspective within the years in which he prospered, searched, and waned. Looking at the pertinent factors in Tennessee Williams' life will aid in the further compre hension of his works--on both stage and screen. The historical method may also be applied to an examination of the directorial influence exerted by John Huston (The Night of the Iguana), Sydney Pollack (This Property is Condemned), Joseph Losey (Boom), and Sidney Lumet (The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots). This may be accomplished by looking at whether or not the directors had a close relationship with the medium of theatre and how often they worked with stage adaptations. Ascertaining these factors will help to analyze the director's influence on these four films. The method of content analysis will be applied to the final films and the works from which they were adapted. It will also be beneficial to employ this method in looking at the differences and similarities in theatre and film as they pertain to the process of adaptation from stage to screen. All of these areas depend on the method of content analysis for proper perspective and coverage. overall, the content analysis method will be utilized to analyze the films completed between 1964 and 1970 in the. three major areas of character, symbolism, and theme. In this way, a direct assessment can be made 11

between the original play and the film adaptation as to what changes were effected, the reasons behind the changes, and the culminating results.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

In reviewing the literature for this study of the final four films adapted from the works of Tennessee Williams between 1964 and 1970, there are many areas to examine. Fortunately, in looking over the various refer ences, no works were found dealing specifically with the points this study intends to cover, thus leaving this in vestigator an open field to examine. Specifically covering the latter works of Tennessee Williams and the process of adaptation from stage to screen, this litera ture review will generally span the areas of Tennessee Williams, theatre and film, films and filmmaking, adapta tion, the plays, directors, and the reviews.

Books

Tennessee Williams Numerous works have been published on Williams as man and artist. The most recent biography is Donald Spoto's The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee 12

Williarns1 which was published in 1985. Mr. Spoto attempts to offer a well-rounded and unbiased view of the man. Another book, titled The World of Tennessee Williams2 by Richard F. Leavitt, is an interesting but basically pic torial history of Williams' life and career. Composed primarily of personal memorabilia, the author, an acquaint ance of Williams, was able to prevail upon him to write a prefatory note to the volume. These books are an example of the most recent attempts to illuminate the playwright's troublesome life. The majority of works on Tennessee Williams' life were written during the early sixties. Nancy M. Tischler's Tennessee Williams: Rebellious Puritan,3 examines the effects of praise and criticism on the play wright. The author also examines the development of the earlier works from script to stage and seeks to project a look into the future of the playwright. Another look at Tennessee Williams is provided by The Playwrights Speak4 edited by Walter Wager. Overall, this volume contains a series of interviews with major dramatists of the sixties. By way of introduction to the interview, the editor pro vides brief background information on Tennessee Williams and his career and states that the playwright was still striving not to "remain the isolated outsider." (p.223) Fortunately, a good look at Tennessee Williams is provided by the man himself. The first book, simply titled Memoirs,5 was published in 1975. Providing a 1.3

retrospective look at his life and career, the book pre sents a unique view of the aging and, at that time, under appreciated playwright. The second book is a collection of essays and articles compiled after his death. Titled Where I Live6 and edited by Christine R. Day and Bob Woods, the essays were taken from the forward and after words to his plays while the articles were from various interviews. This collection chronicles the playwright's career from the hopes and successes to the disappoint ments and failures. In the area of critical analysis, the best single volume is Tennessee Williams: A Tribute? edited by Jac Tharpe. Compiled after his death, and with approximately one thousand pages, the articles span numerous plays, themes, and characters. Another book on a smaller scale 8 is Tennessee Williams: Collection of Critical Essays edited by Stephans. Stanton. In this collection is a good essay titled "Tennessee Williams' Achievement in the Sixties" which deals solely with the plays written in the latter period. Overall, the most succinct entry is the World Dramatists volume Tennessee Williams9 by Felicia Hardison Londre. It provides a complete list of the writer's one-acts and full-length plays as well as a small synopsis of each. Furthermore, it briefly details the major theatrical and filmed productions. Examining the more unusual areas of Williams' drama is Esther Merle Jackson's The Broken World of 14

Tennessee Williams10 as well as Francis Donahue's The Dramatic World of Tennessee Williams. 11 These two books seek to place the themes and characters in Williams' drama in perspective. In examining the world of theatre and Tennessee Williams' place in its history is Allan Lewis' The Con temporary Theatre: The Significant Playwrights of Our Time. 12 Covering the Irish, French, and German movements as well as Socialist Realism and Epic Theatre, this book pretty well spans the major movements while providing an example for each. Tennessee Williams is included be cause he is considered one of the major forces behind contemporary theatre. Stating that Williams has "created the finest dialogue of any American dramatist writing in prose: lyrical, allusive, idiomatic, pungent, funny, and touching" is one of the primary reasons for Williams' inclusion in Norris Houghton's The Exploding Stage: An Introduction to Twentieth Century Drama. 13 (p.58) Another volume which seeks to place Tennessee Williams as one of the greatest playwrights in American theatre is Century of Innovation: A History of European and American Theatre and Drama Since 18?o14 by Oscar G. Brockett and Robert R. Findlay. A further opinion of Williams' impact on Ameri can theatre is found in Imitation: The Art of the Thea tre15 by Walter R. Stump and Loren K. Ruff. A general overview dealing with the contemporary theatre and dramatists is provided by Brief Chronicles: 15

Essays on Modern Theatre16 by Martin Esslin. It seeks to establish the elements that compose contemporary theatre and predict its future. The book The Lively Years: 1920- 121217 by Brooks Atkinson and Albert Hirschfeld gives a nice listing, by year, of the most important and popular plays. The most comprehensive single book of Tennessee Williams and film is Gene Phillip's The Films of Tennessee Williams. 18 Chronicling all fourteen films, the book is organized by the name of the directors and is basically a study of their work on the Tennessee Williams' adaptation. Although not a thorough study of any one particular film, it does provide a good, clear synopsis of each. It also provides a review of certain pluses and minuses of the films on the part of the critics and the playwright himself. A smaller volume is Maurice Yacowar's Tennessee Williams and Film, 19 in which a brief plot description of each film is given along with a listing of the directors and stars.

Theatre and Film A general education in the main differences be tween stage and screen is provided by the first major work to cover the subject. Released in 1936, it is Allardyce Nicoll's Film and Theatre. 20 Beginning with a general understanding of theatre staging, acting, and directing, then moving to compare theatre with film and 16

television is a book titled A Primer for Playgoers: An Introduction to the Understanding and Appreciation of 21 C~nema. - S t age - Te 1 ev~s~on . . b y Ed war d A Wr~g . ht . Another book on this topic is Theatre and Film: A Comparative Study of the Two Forms of Dramatic Art and of the Problems 22 o f A d ap t a t ~on. o f S t age P 1 ays ~n . t o F~.1 ms b y Roger Manve 11 . In an appendix, it provides a select list of Dramatists whose plays have been filmed. Primarily, Theatre and Film deals with the problems and benefits of adapting stage plays to the screen. Used as examples are several famous plays and films, one of which is Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. In examining the history of theatre and film, the book Evolution of Film Styles23 by Peter and Sandra Klinge studies the early history of cinema when, in its infancy, it shared a common style with theatre. From that point, the authors show the development of film into a separate and distinct art form. In a more concise manner, Douglas Garrett Winston's The Screenplay as Literature24 looks at elements of drama which have been applied to the screen. These range from theme and characterization to point of attack and texture. The Celluloid Literature: Film in the Humanities25 by William Jinks states that there has always existed a close relationship between literature and film. The book goes on to give a good list of writers whose works have been adapted to film or writers of short stories, novels, 17

and plays who have written screenplays. A book which ex amines the attitudes o£ these writers about their craft if Authors on Film26 edited by Harry M. Geduld. Although Tennessee Williams was not included, a couple of his con temporaries, such as Truman Capote and William Faulkner, were considered.

Films and Filmmaking For an introductory look at the industry, two books are o£ importance. Although these books cover the history of Hollywood £rom the days o£ the silents to the present, each gives a good thorough analysis o£ the period in which Tennessee Williams' latter filmed works appeared. The books are: Movie Made America: A Cultural History o£ 2 American Movies 7 by Robert Sklar and The Movies28 by Richard Gri££ith and Arthur Mayer. Spanning the same time period but analyzing the outstanding films, America's Favorite Movies: Behind the Scenes29 by Rudy Behlmer includes a good background on Tennessee Williams' A Street car Named Desire (1951). Narrowing the focus to deal specifically with one time period is The Films o£ the Fifties: Sunset Boulevard to On the Beach30 by Douglas Brode which includes an analysis o£ Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll (1956). Moving away £rom the history o£ Hollywood to the more general concept o£ cinema is V. F. Perkin's Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies31 which traces the 18

pioneers o£ filmmaking to modern day ideas o£ £orm, audi ence, and authorship. Another book titled The Moving 2 Image: A Guide to Cinematic Literacy3 by Robert Gessner seeks to de£ine and examine the nature o£ cinematic con- £lict. A good, overall collection of essays on the sub ject is £ound in Allen and Linda Kirschner's Film: Read ings in the Mass Media.33 Covering the £orm, audience, and criticism o£ £ilm, there is an article by Dudley Nichols on the writer and the £ilm. An interesting book which does not £it into the aforementioned categories is The Celluloid South: Holly wood and the Southern Myth34 by Edward D. C. Campbell Jr. The Celluloid South looks at the region and how it has been portrayed on £ilm £rom Birth o£ a Nation to the pre sent. This is an important book because it examines the role o£ the South in £ilm and its reception by both audience and critics. In this context, Tennessee Williams,· although considered one o£ the world's leading play wrights, was greatly influenced by his Southern background and, consequently, placed a number of works in that setting.

Adaptation Most o£ the significant history and aspects o£ adaptation were £ound and pieced together in books on screenwriting as opposed to separate volumes devoted solely to the artful process. Giving a little background 19

on the subject is Writing for Film and Television35 by

St ewar t Bronf e ld . E d war d Dmy t ry k I s On Screen Wr1• t 1ng• 36 details some of the basic reasons for adaptation. For the most part, the author concentrates on characterization and the necessity of "playing" potential in every scene. Focusing on the history of and need for good screenwriters, A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting for Theater and Television Films37 by Lewis Herman outlines, in relation to the art of filmmaking, the attributes of a good screenwriter. These factors can then be compared to those of the playwright. Lastly, there is Morris Beja's Film and Literature: An Introduction.38 One chapter in this book concentrates on the importance and principles of adapta tion. It goes on to compare the principles and economics between adapting from plays and novels.

Plays Two of the latter four plays of Tennessee Williams which were adapted to the screen had name changes in their transformation from stage to screen. The play adapted to film with the title of Boom was originally published under The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.39 The second to receive a name change was The Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle) 40 which, on film, became The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots. Being a short one-act, This Property is Condemned can be found in a collection titled Twenty-seven Wagons of Cotton and Other One-Acts.41 20

Lastly, the fourth and final play to be examined, The Night of the Iguana, can be found in another collection called Three by Tennessee Williams: Sweet Bird of Youth, The Rose Tattoo, and The Night of the Iguana. 42

Directors In looking at the directors of these four films and their backgrounds, more was found on Joseph Losey the director of Boom. The first book is simply called Losey on Losey, 43 edited by Tom Milne, a collection of some interviews on his cinematic art. One chapter deals with his theatre experience. Another book titled The Cinema of Joseph Losey44 by James Leahy explores just what the title indicates. A third and final book is Michel Ciment's Con versations with Losey45 in which the director details some information on the actual production of Boom as well as other films. A very good and complete volume on Sidney Lumet is found in Stephan E. Bowles' Sidney Lumet: A Guide to References and Resources.46 This book presents a nice analysis of Lumet's subjects, themes, characters, and cinematic style. It concludes with a complete list of his films to date and provides each a brief synopsis. There were several books on John Huston. Of these, most were of a biographical nature. In the area of di recting, one book, titled The Cinema of John Huston47 by Gerald Pratley, lists and briefly examines each of 21

Huston's films. The section on The Night of the Iguana includes Huston's chronicle on the production, a synopsis, list of credits, and a final comment by Mr. Pratley. A similar book is Stuart Kaminsky's John Huston: Maker of Magic. 48 Huston's work with The Night of the Iguana is found in the chapter titled "Defrocked." In searching for material on Sydney Pollack, the director of This Property is Condemned, an article, by Vicki Piekarski, was found in the volume Close-Up: The Contemporary Director. 49 Other than this article, not much was found on the director.

Articles

Tennessee Williams The majority of articles searched for and found deal with the later days of Tennessee Williams. Between articles and books, more information on the latter decades of his life and art were found in the former. It is interesting how much attention was given to Tennessee Williams in the earlier seventies--at least in the way of articles. For example, an interview in 1972 called "Talk about Life and Style with Tennessee Williams" 50 (Saturday Review) by J. Gaines points up a trend toward or maybe a reawakened interest in Tennessee Williams--the survivor. Along these same lines is Robert Skloot's "Submitting Self to Flame: The Artist's Quest in Tennessee Williams"5l 22

(Educational Theatre Journal) which seeks to provide a general overview. Several others during this period look candidly at the playwright. These include "Tennessee Williams Turns Sixty"52 (Esguire) by Rex Reed which was printed in 1971 and one completed in 1976 titled simply "Tennessee Williams at 65"53 (America) by Catherine Hughes. Tending to focus more on Tennessee Williams the man and how he managed to continue living and writing for over twenty five years is "Tennessee Williams Survives"54 (The Atlan tic) by T. Buckley. Written in the early seventies, this article examines Tennessee Williams' ability to survive the sixties. Another article, written in the eighties, gives an overall view of the man as seen a decade later. It is by Glen Loney and is called "Tennessee Williams: The Catastrophe of success"55 (Performing Arts). In the area of critical evaluation, an article completed in the mid-sixties seeks to examine the position of Tennessee Williams at that time and where he was headed. The article was aptly titled "Tennessee Williams: A New Direction?"56 (The Christian Century) by Williams R. Mueller. Another article looks at how Tennessee Williams and his works were received during the sixties. Written by Charles W. Cole and Carol I. Franco, it is called "Cri t eal Reaction to Tennessee Williams in the Mid 60's"57 (Players Magazine). A third, "Dialogue of Incompletion: Language in Tennessee Williams' Later Plays .. 5S (Quarterly 23

Journal of Speech) by Thomas p, Adler, is one of few efforts to study the later and less popular works. In comparing the emphasis placed on the last years of Tennessee Williams, the man and the artist, and the latter works created during this time, more priority has been given to Tennessee Williams the man and artist. Be tween the earlier and later works, a greater percentage of books, papers, and articles have been written on the former.

Reviews The reviews of the four films are important to any well-rounded study. Although one single review cannot be properly utilized, two or more provide a consensus of opinion. For The Night of the Iguana, three differing reviews were found. Bosley Crowthers found, in his review titled "The Night of the Iguana" (New York Times) , the film "ambiguous"59 while Edith Oliver, in her review "Let My Iguana Go" (The New Yorker), found the film "a dreary mess." 60 Only in "Tropical Blooms" (Newsweek) was out right praise given to the film. 61 In the four reviews found on This Property is Con demned, the reviewers were closely allied in the opinion that the film overstrained and stretched the original one act play. These reviews included "This Property is Con demned"62 (New York Times) by Bosley Crowthers, "Boarding house Reach" 63 (Newsweek), "Belle Wringer" 64 (Time), and 24

"The Current Cinema" 65 (The New Yorker). The two reviews found covering Boom agree that the film had problems. Paul D. Zimmerman's review titled "Under the Rock" (Newsweek) did not find one redeeming feature in the film. 66 On the other hand, Vincent Canby, in his review "Boom" (New York Times), considered the film a "fuzzy unconsummated work." 6? The reviewers agreed once more on the film The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots. In his review "The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots" (New York Times), Vincent Canby calls the movie "a cruel parody" 68 of Williams while "Men agerie a Trois" (Time) says the film is not so much a "version as a perversion."69 Lastly, isS. K. Oberbeck's "Southern Discomfort" (Newsweek) which agrees, for the most part, with the two aforementioned reviews. 70

Dissertations

In this area of study, only three dissertations have been found dealing with Tennessee Williams and film. The first one, completed in 1961, is Ertem Asral's Tennessee Williams on Stege and Screen71 (Univ. of Penn sylvania). This was followed in 1963 by Clifton L. Warren's Tennessee Williams as a Cinematic Writer72 (Indi ana Univ., Bloomington). Last is the 1965 work Tennessee Williams from--Play to Screenplay?) (Univ. of Texas, Austin) by Charles R. Bier. All completed on or before 25

1965, they do not span the final films that this study intends to cover. Of the latter four films, only The Night of the Iguana (1964) might possibly have been ex amined in the third dissertation. Since 1965, many stud ies have been done on Tennessee Williams. However, no other dissertations have been found that cover the films between 1964 and 1970.

Conclusion

This literature review is intended to provide a partial background on previously written books, articles, and dissertations. As far as this study is concerned, there is plenty of information on both Tennessee Williams' personal and professional life. However, even with all this material, it is surprising that none deals specifi cally with these final four films. No one, from the research already completed, has sought to properly place these films into perspective with the life and career of Tennessee Williams. In order to properly examine these final film adaptations of Tennessee Williams, it will be necessary to look at the process of adaptation from stage to screen, the differences and similarities in theatre and film as they pertain to the latter film adaptations, and the in fluences on Tennessee Williams the man and artist as well as the main characters, symbolism, and themes that made p • 26

the playwright unique. In examining the actual adapta tions, the focus will be on the specific changes, reasons behind those changes, the results thereof, and the in fluence of the director on the film. From these headings, the essence of these four films will be captured. 27

ENDNOTES

1. Donald Spoto, The Kindness of Stran ers: The Life of Tennessee Williams Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1985). 2. Richard F. Leavitt, The World of Tennessee Williams (New York: G. P. Putnam's and Sons, 1978). J. Nancy M. Tischler, Tennessee Williams: Rebellious Puritan (New York: The Citadel Press, 1961).

4. Walter Wager, ed., The Pla~ights Speak (New York: Delacorte Press, 19 7). 5. Tennessee Williams, Memoirs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975). 6. Christine R. Day and Bob Woods, ed., Where I Live: Selected Essays (New York: New D1rect1ons Publishing Co., 1978). 7. Jac Tharpe, ed., Tennessee Williams: A Tribute (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1977) . 8. Stephans. Stanton, ed., Tennessee Williams: Collec tion of Critical Essays (Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977). 9. Lina Mainiero, gen. ed., World Dramatists (New York, Frederick Ungar Publish1ng Co., 1979), Tennessee Williams, by Felicia Hardison Londre. 10. Esther Merle Jackson, The Broken world of Tennessee Williams (Madison: Un1vers1ty of W1scons1n Press, 1966). 11. Francis Donahue, The Dramatic World of Tennessee Williams (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1964). 12. Allan Lewis, The Contem orar Theatre: The Si ifi cant Playwrights of Our Time, rev. ed. New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1971). 13. Norris 28

bright and Talley, 1971). 14. Oscar G. Brockett and Robert R. Findlay, Century of Innovation: A Histor of Euro ean and Ameri can Theatre and Drama Slnce 1 70 Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1973). 15. Walter R. Stump and Loren K. Ruff, Imitation: The Art of the Theatre (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Hunter Publlshing Co., 1979). 16. Martin Esslin, Brief Chronicles: Essa s on Modern Theatre London: Temple Smlth Ltd., 1970 . 17. Brooks Atkinson and Albert Hirschfeld, The Lively Years 1920-1973 (New York: Association Press, 1973). 18. Gene D. Phillips, The Films of Tennessee Williams (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1980). 19. Maurice Yacowar, Tennessee Williams and Film (New York: Frederick Ungar Publlshlng Co., 1977). 20. Allardyce Nicoll, Film and Theatre (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1936). 21. Edward A. Wright, A Primer for Playgoers: Intro- duction to the Understandin and A reciation of Cinema - Stage - Television Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1958). 22. Roger Manvell, Theatre and Film: A Comparative Study of the Two Forms of Dramatic Art and of the Problems of Adaptatlon of Stage Plays lnto Films (London: Associated University Presses, 1979). 23. Peter Klinge and Sandra Klinge, Evolution of Film Styles (Lanham, Maryland: Unlverslty Press of America Inc., 1983). 24. Douglas Garrett Winston, The Screenpla¥ as Literature (Cranbury, N.J. : Associated Unlversi ty Presses Inc . , 19 73) • 25. Williams Jinks, The Celluloid Literature: Film in the Humanities {Beverly Hills: Glencoe Press, 1974). 26. Harry M. Geduld, ed., Authors on Film (Bloomington: Indiana Universlty Press, 1972). 29

27. Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (New York: Vintage Books, 1975). 28. Richard Griffith and Arthur Mayer, The Movies (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970). 29. Rudy Behlmer, America's Favorite Movies: Behind the Scenes (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1982). 30. Douglas Brode, The Films of the Fifties: Sunset Boulevard to On the Beach (Secaucus, N.J.: The Citadel Press, 1976). 31. V. F. Perkins, Film as Film: Understandin and Jud~ing Movies Balt1more, Maryland: Penguin Boos Inc., 1972). · 32. Robert Guide to Cine- P. Dutton and

33· Allen Kirschner and Linda Kirschner, Film: Readings in the Mass Media (New York: The Odyssey Press, 1971). 34. Edward D. C. Campbell, Jr., The Celluloid South: Hollywood and the Southern Myth (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981). 35· Stewart Bronfeld, Writing for Film and Television (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1981). 36. Edward Dmytryk, On Screen Writing (Boston: Focal Press, 1985). 37. Lewis Herman, A Practical Manual of Screen Play writing for Theater and Television Films (New York: New American Library Inc., 1952). 38. Morris Beja, Film and Literature: An Introduction (New York: Longman Inc., 1979). 39. Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1964) 40. of Earth The Seven Norfolk, Conn.: New

41. Tennessee Williams, Twenty-seven Wagons Full of Cotton 30

and Other One-Acts (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1953). 42. Tennessee Williams, Three by Tennessee Williams: Sweet Bird of Youth, The Rose Tattoo, and The Night of the Iguana (New York: New Ameri can Library, 1976). 4J. Tom Milne, ed., Losey on Losey (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co. Inc., 1968). 44. James Leahy, The Cinema of Joseph Losey (New York: A. S, Barnes and Co., 1967). 45. Michel Ciment, Conversations with Losey (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1985). 46. Stephan E. Bowles, Sidne Lumet: A Guide to Refer ences and Resources Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1979). 47. Gerald Pratley, The Cinema of John Huston (Cranbury, N.J.: A. S. Barnes and Co. Inc., 1977). 48. Stuart Kaminsky, John Huston: Maker of Magic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1978). 49. Vicki Piekarski, "Sydney Pollack," Close-UE_: The Contemporary Director (The Scarecrow Press, 1981). 50. J. Gaines, "Talk about Life and Style with Tennessee Williams," Saturday Review, 29 April 1972, pp. 25-29. 51. Robert Skloot, "Submitting Self to Flame: The Artist's Quest in Tennessee Williams," Educational Theatre Journal, May 1973, pp. 199-206. 52. Rex Reed, "Tennessee Williams Turns Sixty," Esquire, September 1971, pp. 105-108. 53. Catherine Hughes, "Tennessee Williams at 65," America, 1 May 1976, pp. J82-J8J. 54. T. Buckley, "Tennessee Williams Survives," The Atlantic, November 1970, pp. 98-106:-- 55. Glen Loney, "Tennessee Williams: The Catastrophe of Success," Performing Arts, 1983, pp. 73-87. 31

56. William R. Mueller, "Tennessee Williams: A New Direction?," The Christian Century, 14 October 1964, pp. 1271-1272. 57. Charles W. Cole and Carol I. Franco, "Critical Reaction to Tennessee Williams in the Mid 60's," Players Magazine, Fall-Winter 1974, pp. 18-23. 58. Thomas P. Adler, "Dialogue of Incompletion: Language in Tennessee Williams' Later Plays," Quarterl~ Journal of Speech, February 1975, pp. 48-5 . 59. Bosley Crowther, "The Night of the Iguana," New York Times, 1 July 1964. 60. Edith Oliver, "Let My Iguana Go," review of The Night of the Iguana, The New Yorker, 15 August 1964.

61. "Tropical Blooms," review of The Ni~ht of the Iguana, Newsweek, 13 July 1964, p. 5. 62. Bosley Crowther, "This Property is Condemned," New York Times, 4 August 1966. ---

63. "Boardinghouse Reach,,; review of This Pro;erty is Condemned, Newsweek, 1 August 196 , pp. 83-84. 64. "Belle Wringer," review of This Property is Condemned, Time, 22 July 1966, p. 62.

65. "The Current Cinema," review of This Propert~ is Con demned, The New Yorker, 27 August 19 6, p. 88. 66. Paul D. Zimmerman, "Under the Rock," review of Boom, Newsweek, June 1968, p. 104. ---- 67. Vincent Canby, "Boom," New York Times, 27 May 1968. 68. Vincent Canby, "The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots," New York Times, 11 January 1970. "Menagerie a Trois," review of The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots, Time, 19 January 1970, p. 67. 70. S. K. Oberbeck, "Southern Discomfort," review of The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots, Newsweek, 2~ 71. Ertem Asral, Tennessee Williams on Sta e and Screen (University of Pennsylvan~a, 19 1 . D~sserta tion: English. 32

72. Clifton L. Warren, Tennessee Williams as a Cinematic Writer (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1963) D~ssertation: English. 73. Charles R. Bier, Tennessee Williams from to Screenplay Aust~n: Un~vers~ty o 1965). Thesis: English. (! ' 33

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adler, T. P. "Dialogue of Incompletion: Language in Tennessee Williams' Later Plays." QUarterly Journal of Speech, February 1975. Asral, Ertem. Tennessee Williams on Stage and Screen. University of Pennsylvania, 1961. Dissertation: English. Atkinson, Brooks, and Hirschfeld, Albert. The Lively Years 1920-197]. New York: Association Press, 1973. Behlmer, Rudy. America's Favorite Movies: Behind the Scenes. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1982. Beja, Morris. Film and Literature: An Introduction. New York: Longman Inc., 1979. "Belle Wringer," review of This Property is Condemned. Time, 22 July 1966. Bier, Charles R. Tennessee Williams from Play to Screen ~· Austin: University of Texas, 1965. Disser tation: English. "Boardinghouse Reach," review of This Property is Con demned. Newsweek, 1 August 1966. Bowles, Stephan E. Sidney Lumet: A Guide to References and Resources. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1979. Brockett, Oscar G., and Findlay, Robert R. Century of Innovation: A History of European and American Theatre and Drama Since 1870. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1973. Brode, Douglas. The Films of the Fifties: Sunset Boule vard to On the Beach. Secaucus, New Jersey: The Citadel Press, 1976. Bronfeld, Stewart. Writing for Film and Television. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentlce-Hail .Inc., 1981. Buckley, T. "Tennessee Williams Survives." The Atlantic, November 1970. Campbell, Edward D. C., Jr. The Celluloid South: Holl¥ wood and the Southern Myth. Knoxville: Univers1ty of Tennessee Press, 1981. Canby, Vincent. "Boom." New York Times, 27 May 1968. Canby, Vincent. "The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots." New York Times, 11 January 1970. Ciment, Michel. Conversations with Losey. London: Methuen and Co . Ltd . , 1985 .

Cole, Charles W., and Franco, Carol I. "Critical Reaction to Tennessee Williams in the Mid 60's." Players Magazine, Fall-Winter 1974. Crowther, Bosley. "The Night of the Iguana." New York Times, 1 July 1964. Crowther, Bosley. "This Property is Condemned." New York Times, 4 August 1966. Day, Christine R., and Woods, Bod, eds. Where I Live: Selected Essays. New York: New D1rect1ons Pub lishing Co., 1978. Dmytryk, Edward. On Screen Writing. Boston: Focal Press, 1985. Donahue, Francis. The Dramatic World of Tennessee Williams. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1964. Esslin, Martin. Brief Chronicles: Essays on Modern Theatre. London: Temple Smith Ltd., 1970. Gaines, J. "Talk about Life and Style with Tennessee Williams." Saturday Review, 29 April 1972. Geduld, Harry M., ed. Authors on Film. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972. Gessner, Robert. The Moving Image: A Guide to Cinematic Literacy. New York: E. P. Dutton and co. Inc., 1970. Griffith, Richard, and Mayer, Arthur. The Movies. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1970. Herman, Lewis. A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting for Theatre and Television Films. New York: New Amer1can L1brary Inc., 1952. 35

Houghton, Norris. The Exploding Stage: An Introduction to Twentieth Century Drama. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1971. Hughes, Catherine. "Tennessee Williams at 65." America, 1 May 1976. Jackson, Esther Merle. The Broken World of Tennessee Williams. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966. Jinks, William. The Celluloid Literature: Film in the Humanities. 2d ed. Beverly Hills: Glencoe Press, 1974. Kaminsky, Stuart. John Huston: Maker of Magic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1978. Kirschner, Allen, and Kirschner, Linda. Film: Readings in the Mass Media. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1971. Klinge, Peter, and Klinge, Sandra. Evolution of Film Styles. Lanham, Maryland~ University Press of America Inc., 1983. Leahy, James. The Cinema of Joseph Losey. New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1967. Leavitt, Richard F. The World of Tennessee Williams. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1978. Lewis, Allan. The Contemporary Theatre: The Significant Playwrights of Our Time. rev. ed. New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1971. Loney, Glen. "Tennessee Williams: The Catastrophe of Success." Performing Arts, 1983. Mainiero, Lina, gen. ed. World Dramatists. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1979. Tennessee Williams, by Felicia Hardison Londre. Manvell, Roger. Theatre and Film: A Comparative Study of the Two Forms of Dramatic Art and of the Problems of Adaptation of Stage Plays into F1lms. London: Associated University Presses, 1979. "Menagerie a Trois," review of The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots. Time, 19 January 1970. Milne, Tom, ed. Losey on Losey. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co. Inc., 1968. Mueller, William R. "Tennessee Williams: A New Direction?" The Christian Century, 14 October 1964. Nicoll, Allardyce. Film and Theatre. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1936. Oberbeck, S. K. "Southern Discomfort," review of The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots. Newsweek, 26 January 1970. Oliver, Edith. "Let My Iguana Go," review of The Night of the Iguana. The New Yorker, 15 August 1964. Perkins, V. F. Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies. Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books Inc., 1972. Phillips, Gene D. The Films of Tennessee Williams. Phila delphia: Art Alliance Press, 1980. Piekarski, Vicki. "Sydney Pollack," Close-Up: The Con temporary Director. The Scarecrow Press, 1981. Pratley, Gerald. The Cinema of John Huston. Cranbury, New Jersey: A. S. Barnes and Co. Inc., 1977. Reed, Rex. "Tennessee Williams Turns Sixty," Esquire, September 1971. · Sklar, Robert. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. New York: Vintage Books, 1975. Skloot, Robert. "Submitting Self to Flame: The Artist's Quest in Tennessee Williams." Educational Theatre Journal, May 1973. Spoto, Donald. The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1985. Stanton, StephanS., ed. Tennessee Williams: Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1977. Stump, Walter R., and Ruff, Loren K. Imitation: The Art of the Theatre. Winston-Salem, North Carol1na: Hunter Publishing Co., 1979. Tharpe, Jac, ed. Tennessee Williams: A Tribute. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1977. "The Current Cinema," review of This Property is Condemned. The New Yorker, 27 August 1966. 37

Tischler, Nancy M. Tennessee Williams: Rebellious Puritan. New York: The Citadel Press, 1961. "Tropical Blooms," review of The Night of the Iguana. Newsweek, 13 July 1964.

Wager, Walter, ed. The Pla~ights Speak. New York: Delacorte Press, 19 7. Warren, Clifton L. Tennessee Williams as a Cinematic Writer. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1963. Dissertation: English. Williams, Tennessee. Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtlel. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1968. ------Memoirs. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975. ------The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any ~· Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1964. ------Three by Tennessee Williams: Sweet Bird of Youth, The Rose Tattoo, and The Night of the Iguana. New York: New American Library, 1976.

------Twenty-seven W~ons Full of Cotton and Other One-Act Plays. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1953. Winston, Douglas Garrett. The Screenplay as Literature. Cranbury, New Jersey: Associated University Presses Inc., 1973. Wright, Edward A. A Primer for Playgoers: An Introduction to the Understanding and Appreciation of Cinema - Stage - Television. Yacowar, Maurice. Tennessee Williams and Film. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1977. Zimmerman, Paul D. "Under the Rock," review of Boom. Newsweek, 3 June 1968. CHAPTER 2

THEATRE/FILM/ADAPTATION

Introduction It is important to acknowledge the basic differ ences and similarities of theatre and film as they pertain to the process of adaptation. Thus, one can better under stand these media and the reasons for certain changes in the transition from one art form to the other. This brief examination is not intended to be exhaustive. Instead, the purpose is simply to draw a broad picture of these vital art forms in conjunction with the process of adapta tion. This information will provide a useful background when analyzing each of the final four film adaptations of Tennessee Williams in terms of character, symbolism, and theme. A good method of studying adaptation as well as theatre and film is to employ six elements of drama. These are general categories, applicable to both art forms, which provide a well-rounded view of all major areas of emphasis. They include plot/story, idea/theme, mood/at mosphere, character, dialogue, and spectacle/staging. Al though all of these categories will be briefly examined in the next few pages, only two or three of these elements will generally be emphasized in a particular work.

J8 39

It is inevitable that some changes will be made in adapting a stage play to the screen. Film adds a third factor to the relationship of audience and performer--the camera. The camera provides a variety of angles and close ups which are denied the audience of a stage play who generally view the drama from one stationary position. Besides the important factor of the "little black box," the technical aspects of film provide more than just a picture. Along with the camera comes a technology that brings with it sound recording, film editing, optical effects, and film laboratories. With these additions, there is more under consideration than simple artistic endeavors. This technology allows for almost near perfec tion of sound and picture which, unfortunately, does not necessarily guarantee either artistic or financial sue- cess. Film has been said to offer a "minutely observed, technically perfected, and detailed rendering of the drama, which, once completed, offers exactly the same experience to audiences all over the world."1 Of course, film is comprised of more than just technical elements but this assessment sums up the fundamental difference between the two mediums. One is "impermanent and in a constant state of flux," while the other is "permanently established and unchangeable." 2 Any theatrical performance is "in the process of dying as it is born" with no two performances ever exactiy alike.3 40 ,, .

The number of changes made in adapting a work does not determine its artistic and financial success or failure. However, the kind of changes made do have an effect on the overall purpose or intended goal of the work. What may be considered a successful adaptation is one in which the results are obtained from a

"reworking, or reorientation, of the original theatre piece into a form that suits the new medium and that enables the characters and action to be observed much more closely and flexibly than is possible or even desirable, in the theatre." 4

The changes made can provide a new interpretation, comment, or emphasis on the work. Therefore, changes should not be made arbitrarily but should be attempted with a specific goal or purpose in mind. As far as the script is concerned, the main alteration involves a combination of "editing, compressing, or shortening" which is "the integral operations of almost every adaptation."5 This·compression can effect any or all areas of a work such as plot, theme, mood, character, dialogue, or staging. Although these six dramatic elements are separate and distinct, they are not mutually exclusive, Any change in one area will naturally effect, in some manner, all or part of the remaining elements. Consequently, adaptation is a process that should not be employed lightly. 41

Plot/Story In differentiating between these two similar areas, the story has been defined as the "listing o£ the events that happen in their relation to time, while the plot ex plains why these events occurred."6 Although deceptively close to the play in the structuring o£ its story, film is more closely allied with the novel. Film, like the novel, need not always follow temporal order or the normal se- quence o£ events. On the other hand, a stage play, due to the confines o£ the acting space, must concentrate on specific acts and may only progress through the dialogue o£ its characters. The audience o£ a stage production watches the "future become the past" while a film audience observes the "past becoming the present."? The visual medium o£ film depends strongly on "showing" rather then "telling." Therefore, in adaptation, the plot may undergo certain changes. Many locales employed in the plot can simply be pictured on screen. In conjunction with visual effects is the all-essential in gredient o£ movement. Here again, what was once verbally related is now frequently acted out on screen. In adap ting £rom stage to screen, this change in plot alters the audience's emphasis £rom one o£ sound to one o£ sight. This emphasis on visual movement motivates the characters and storyline as opposed to characters and dialogue being the prime motivators. The most dramatic alteration in plot comes when a 42

seemingly sad ending is changed to a "happily ever after" scenario. This is a drastic change in the original intent of the playwright. An example of this can be seen in the filmed version of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The future of the shy young Laura is changed from one of inevitable doom to one of hope and future happiness. This sort of conclusion completely alters the original ending of the stage play and misses the point Williams was attempting to make.

Idea/Theme The theme does not have to be earth shattering to make its point. To the contrary, it is

"nothing particularly inherent in the action or the dialogue, but rather something won or achieved by the protagonist himself and through him trans ferred to the audience. It is, in short, an experience." 8

In contrast to film, theatre, with its slower pace and physical limitations, tends to "reflect and interpret man's more basic, subtle, inner personal thoughts and feelings and the more permanent truths of life."9 This is not to intimate that the cinema does not attempt to reflect these same ideas. Both mediums are conducive to the treatment of serious subject matter. But, due to its depend ence on the visual, film exhibits ideas more through physical movement rather than dialogue. 4J

Like the plot, a theme, considered too harsh or discouraging may be toned down or altered altogether. Serious thematic material such as death, despair, and de struction may not be deemed appropriate. With a pressing need for financial success, some producers may be un willing to go out on a limb to handle such topics. This problem has been faced by the adapters of Tennessee Williams, whose works deal with, for the most part, the darker aspects of life. As with any changes in theme, the entire work is effected. For example, in altering the thematic intent of a piece by Tennessee Williams, one would also alter the intensity of the characters, the basis for the plot, the mood of the work, the need for dialogue, the effects of staging, and the impact of the symbolism. Therefore, in adapting a theme from stage to screen, consideration should be given to the other areas that will be effected.

Mood/Atmoshpere This topic deals with the overall pervasive "feel'' of a film or stage play. Webster defines atmosphere as a "pervading or surrounding mental or social influence" which is "the general tone of a work of art." In addition, the tone refers to certain attitudes that are consistent with wording or phrasing utilized in a work. This concept of mood/atmosphere is very important for both cinema and the theatre. Various components, like lighting, setting, 44 dialogue, make-up, costumes, and sound, go into the construction of ambience for a particular play or film. Lighting, for example, is used

"most dramatically at certain points momentarily turning what are basically representational sets or actual locations into expressionist environments, directly reflecting emotional obsession in the characters." 10

This demonstrates the vital nature of establishing mood/ atmosphere. Although mood/atmosphere is vital to both art forms, it has been said that of all the elements, "the pictures are more interested in atmosphere, mood, and movement than in character."11 The reasoning behind this may be due to accessibility. The technical achievements in film enable changes to take place instantly. Every thing wanted, thought of, or needed can materialize before an audience as if by magic. Opposed to this is the con finement of the theatrical arena. On stage, the pace of adjustment depends upon the swift feet of the set shift crew, the speed with which the actors can exchange one costume for another, or the nimble fingers of the lighting and sound crews. In film, the "subjective and objective approaches are combined" and the "utterly fantastic equally is granted a home." 12 With this easy access to various moods/atmospheres, it is necessary to not, when adapting, 45

be carried away by what stupendous and special effects the motion picture industry has to offer. In adaptation, en hancement made to a work's mood/atmosphere is good. But, this should not be allowed to take control of the whole piece and relegate the characters, theme, and dialogue to a secondary position. For Tennessee Williams, mood/atmosphere is a pow erful, sometimes oppressive, element. In staging, the playwright generally limits the action to one set. Whether utilizing one section or the entire stage, the movement of the storyline is contained within a single multi-purpose structure. In addition, little, if any, scenic alterations are required during the run of the theatrical piece. This may enhance the audience's feelings of oppression and claustrophobia which permeate the major ity of Williams' plays. A problem would be created if, in adaptation, one were to open,up or broaden the mood/at-· mosphere in the works of Tennessee Williams. Employing such technical abilities of filmn1aking, as opposed to theatre, would completely alter this powerful element.

Character As stated before, the need for movement in motion pictures generally motivates its characters, while theat rical characters tend to do the motivating. However, in comparison with the novel, characters, in both film and theatre, must "constantly be doing or saying something and 46

reveal themselves through their own acts or lines rather than by exposition on the part of the author ... l3 With this in mind, the main difference in the characters that inhabit the worlds of theatre and film can be seen as a question of depth. With the cinema's dependence on visu- alization and movement, characters may be broken down into certain stock caricatures. These characters "often prove to be merely types rather than the individuals sought in the theatre." 14 As with most areas, this is not necessarily the norm. An interesting aspect in the life of any character are the performers who take on the task of recreation be fore an audience. Aside from talent, actors may be cast for their box-office appeal. In this way, they "empha size and exploit mere personalities rather then artis- try ... l5 On the other hand, the playwright, at any time, is "governed by the actors who are available at the time he creates his roles."16 To this end, it can be said that, the "plays of a period are no better than the actors available to play in them." 17 A playwright may even go so far as to create a part with a specific actor in mind. On several occa sions this has been the case with Tennessee Williams--especially in the formation of his older female characters. Unfortunately, in a role tailor-made for one individual, problems may arise when others attempt to succeed in the part. Certain mannerisms and characteristics may be 47 Q •

changed; of course, this is always evident in each new per formance. An example of this can be seen in the characters of Mrs. Goforth and Christopher from The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. In the film version, Boom, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were cast in the roles. From the start, Elizabeth Taylor was too young for the part of the old, dying Mrs. Goforth, while Richard Burton was too old for the part of the young Christopher. With this casting, the intensity and meaning behind these characters dimmed considerably. Besides the role of the actor in the shaping of a character, adaptation may create the need to combine two or more lesser characters into one. In a tightening of this manner, several characters are given their permanent pink slip. Another loss in character may occur when a director chooses to emphasize one main character above .the others. This may change an individual character into a stock figure in order to concentrate the action on the main character. Although these do not happen all the time and in every adaptation, it is important to comprehend what can occur.

Dialogue Dialogue is one of the most essential modes of communication in a theatrical piece. The same can not be said of film dialogue. In fact, film dialogue does "not 48

require more than seemingly casual emphasis; indeed, the problem is often to give it significance along with ap 18 parent aural weightlessness." The film's dependence on visual imagery naturally relegates dialogue to a second place finiah. Only the minimum of spoken words is re quired. As presented earlier in the section on plot, more film scenes may need to be added to show what, on stage, had only been discussed or related. This coincides with a reduction in the dialogue. The skill of a dramatist lies in

"writing 'projectable,' theat rical dialogue; in this sense, the dialogue of most plays is written 'up,' pitched beyond normal speech, in order to be come effective as spoken by actors and actresses." 19

Not only concerned with technically skillful composition, a playwright's dialogue must "command attention, it must have dramatic power in the form of emotional tension, psychological involvement, wit, or humor. It must under line character."20 This emphasis is seen in the fact that "with its values invested largely in dialogue," a stage play "becomes also a branch of literature, and therefore is not only performable, but publishable." 21 In this area, the equation of dramatist-director is brought into focus. With dialogue being less of a premium in film, the controller of the action shifts from the dramatist to the director. In a film, the director 49 ascends to a position above that of the screenwriter. Therefore, it is the director who establishes the overall style of a particular movie. In his role as a playwright, Tennessee Williams crafted some of the most beautiful and powerful dialogue. Not only did these words set the mood/atmosphere, it also defined character and theme. With his emphasis on both physical and written symbolism, every word in a Williams' work is vital to its essence. In adaptation, the need, but more likely the desire, to cut dialogue may arise. Fully understanding the importance of Tennessee Williams' dialogue, any tampering should be done with caution.

Spectacle/Staging Spectacle is the last of the six dramatic elements. It may be a strange or remarkable sight, usually on a grand scale. Once again, a film's visual need and limit- less environment "can show anything that can be photo graphed and is at its best in pageants, huge sagas, spec tacles, historical events, and so forth." 22 The use of spectacle is not always highly admired. This is due, in part, to the fact that it is the least valued of all the elements that compose drama. Many believe that is is "used only after the script has proven to be barren of story, theme, character, dialogue, or mood." 23 Further more, the motion picture industry has "too often valued the spectacle above all these others, and for no reason 50 than just that they had the facilities and ability to do so. ,24

In this section, the aspect of staging has been combined with spectacle. This way, the ordinary as well as unordinary approaches utilized in staging may be dis cussed. In looking at both art forms, the moving pictures "had all the visual impact of a play but without any of the restrictions of the stage." 25 In the restrictiveness of its physical environment, the stage has become "the kingdom of the actors," while the limitlessness of film enables it to become "the kingdom of the pictures." 26 Another difference in the staging of film and theatre is the relationship of the actor to his audience. In theatre, where actors perform before live audiences, any flubbing of lines or problems with scenery and props will be immediately recognized. Consequently, an audi ence accepts a certain amount of theatricalism in ex change for the quality of it being "live." In this way, the audience becomes part of the action from which the actor derives motivation. In comparison to theatre, the technical basis for film instantly creates a distance between the actor and his audience. In a movie theatre, no interaction between the two is possible. An audience member merely observes a work which has already been created and assembled. Un- like the theatre in which one's view is generally station ary throughout the entire performance, a moviegoer's eyes 51

are never allowed to concentrate on one single view of the action. With this collection of shots, the audience is given the director's interpretation of the characters and action. Despite his successes on Broadway and film, Tennessee Williams continued to prefer little theatres for the performance of his work. Their confined and more intimate arenas superbly fit the nature of Williams' dramas. The construction of these smaller areas allowed the audience to be drawn into the characters and action. Ironically, some of his works, which failed on Broadway, were successfully revived in little theatre productions across the country. As far as'staging was concerned, Williams usually confined the action of an entire play within one multi purpose set. Williams rarely incorporated spectacle into his productions. In addition, Williams did not utilize large casts. Action was carried out by only three or four main characters, with no more than a few supporting (secondary or minor) roles.

Conclusion Many believe that no changes should be made when adapting a work to the screen, while others feel that adaptation permits a new and revealing interpretation. The desire to utilize adapted material has always been important to filmmakers. From the beginning, when the 52

role of the screenwriter had not been clearly defined, Hollywood looked elsewhere for material. Not all of this material, however, came from the theatre. The majority came from books which, previously stated, have some simi larities with motion pictures. Nevertheless, Hollywood's need for material has been inexhaustible and plays have contributed their share. Consequently, these adaptations, over the years, have become an interesting area for study. In conclusion, this section has been an attempt to understand the differences and similarities in theatre and film as they pertain to the process of adaption. In doing so, the implementation of the six dramatic elements provided well-rounded categories for investigation. This researcher fully understands that, for every point raised and discussed, there is an exception. However, is was necessary to make an attempt to analyze these topics in order to better comprehend the adaptations of Tennessee Williams. 53 0 .

ENDNOTES

1. Roger Manvell, Theatre and Film: A Comparative Study of the Two Forms of Dramatic Art and of the Problems of Ada tation of Sta e Pla s into Films London: Associated University Presses, 1979), pp. 24-25. 2. Allardyce Nicoll, Film and Theatre (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1936), p. 26. J. Ibid., p. 25. 4. Manvell, p. 35. 5. Edward Dmytryk, On Screen Writing (Boston: Focal Press, 1985), p. 70. 6. Edward A. Wright, A Primer for Playgoers: duction to the Understandin and A reciation of Cinema - Stage - Televis~on Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1958), p. 100. ?. Ibid., p. 211. 8. Ibid., p. 65. 9. Ibid., p. 203. 10. Manvell, P· 51. 11. Wright, p. 209. 12. Nicoll, p. 187. 13. Wright, p. 54. 14. Ibid., p. 209. 15. Ibid., p. 219. 16. Ibid., p. 54. 17. Ibid. 18. Manvell, p. JJ. 19. Ibid., p. J2. 54

20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., p. 25. 22. Wright, p. 208. 23. Ibid., p. 219. 24. Ibid. 25. Stewart Bronfeld, Writing for Film and Television (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1981)' p. 8. 26. Wright, p. 205. CHAPTER 3

INFLUENCES ON TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Introduction Before looking at the works of Tennessee Williams and, in this case, specifically the latter works, it is important to review the major influences that have shaped the man and, consequently, the playwright. In this way, the importance and uniqueness of Tennessee Williams will be highlighted. Once shown, a comparison can then be made of the stage and screen versions to determine if the cine matic adaptation is a genuine representation of Tennessee Williams on film. The areas of influence to be highlighted include family, early life, health, education and employment, travel, artistic inspiration, and theatre. These seven basic items are not intended to be a summation of every influence on the playwright. However, these general sub jects are immediately recognizable in the works of Tennessee Williams and are the basis for the playwright's uniqueness in the creation of characters, symbols, and themes. Even Tennessee Williams believed in the signifi cance of influences of either a conscious or unconscious nature. He said,

"I don't believe in 'original sin.'

55 56

I don't believe in 'guilt.' I don't believe in villains or heroes--only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still--uncompre hended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents." 1

Family Everyone, to a greater or lesser degree, is influenced by their family in a combination of genetics and environment. Born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911, as the second child and first son of a "Puritan" mother and ''Cavalier" father, "Tennessee" Williams was to forever reflect the conflicting natures of his parents. Further back in the Williams line are the violent natures of East Tennessee frontiersmen and Indian fighters as opposed to the pen of Sidney Lanier whose "haunting, musical poetry is among the best Southern writing of the nineteenth cen tury."2 With this background, "the tone of romantic ante bellum aristocracy is just as much a part of his paternal heritage as is the violence--and both suffuse Williams' dramas ... 3 Personally, Tennessee Williams considered himself a "rebellious Puritan" and in an effort to make up for the restrictiveness in his youth, he willingly tackled any subject--especially those concerned with conventional moral attitudes and judgments. The war of strong counter forces waged by his parents affected young Williams and 57 his sister Rose. For the outcome and duration of the conflict, it has been stated that "although his father's Cavalier blood appears to have won the victory over the maternal Puritanism, their conflict found an agonized battlefield in the mind and emotions of the growing boy."4 One of the more antagonistic relationships Tennessee Williams maintained during his lifetime was with his father. As a traveling shoe salesman, C.C. Williams was often away and, when he was on the scene, his "shrewd business sense, his capacity for liquor, his poker playing, and his boisterous good spirits" made him very unpopular.5 These tendencies clashed with the Puritan aspects of Williams' mother. Constantly derided and ridiculed by his father as "worthless" and a "sissy," the playwright's one great effort to incorporate the old man in his work is seen in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The relationship

"between Brick and Big Daddy is, in many ways, the one Williams and his father has had, the brick wall isolating them from one another so that all their talks ended in misunderstanding. The masculinity of the domineering father who finds it hard to understand the idealistic, yield ing sensitiveness of the son is an echo of that earlier, impossible relationship." 6

This was his only concentrated attempt to explore the re lationship between himself and his father. Even this attempt at understanding was made only after certain feel- 58 ings softened due to his father's death and undergoing psychoanalysis. Looking back in retrospect, Tennessee Williams said that:

"He lived on his own terms, which were hard terms for his family, but he should not be judged as long as he remains the mystery that he is to us who lived in his shadow. Maybe I hated him once, but I certainly don't anymore. He gave me some valuable things; he gave me fighting blood, which I needed, and now he has given me, through the revelations of my psychoanalysis, a sense of necessity to forgive your father in order to forgive the world that he brought you into: in my opinion, an important lesson which I hope I have really learned." 7

On the other hand, Tennessee Williams' mother was a constant figure providing both monetary and emotional support throughout his life and career. This presence is continually seen in various works, with the most widely acclaimed character being that of Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie. It has been said that "'v'Jilliams' own attachment to his mother was one of the warmest, yet most unfortunate parts of his youth." This was because "his world became increasingly feminine, and he became 8 negatively sensitized to masculine crudities." Another relative who appeared in the works of Tennessee Williams was his slightly older sister Rose. They enjoyed a close brother/sister relationship even after the "petals of her brain ... simply closed through 59

f'ear" with "no telling how much they had closed upon in the way of' secret wisdom."9 Rose's loss of' sanity during the troubled adolescent years became a recurring theme exemplif'ied as a "moth f'igure" being "crushed by the brute world." To Tennessee, Rose represented "romantic beauty that, f'or him, was and is the best and purest part of life."10 Despite a lifetime of providing good, institu tional care for his sister which he says is "probably the best thing I've done with my life, besides a few bits of work," 11 he confides that

"It's not very pleasant to look back on that year and to know that Rose knew she was going mad and to know, also, that I was not too kind to my sister. You see, for the first time in my life, I had become accepted by a group of young f'riends and my delighted relations with them preoccupied me to such an extent that I f'ailed to properly observe the shadow f'alling on Rose." 12

All in all, his "tributes to her, his loveliest works, unite the pain with the love in a poignant, personal, emo tionally charged symbol--the rose, a f'lower as delicate and evanescent as his sister."13 The only members of' the family to escape the scrutiny of' Tennessee Williams' pen were his maternal grand parents--the Dakins. One reason they may never have appeared in his writings is because "they were the most constantly understanding and sympathetic humans he knew" and 60 he considered "their personalities too sacred for literary exploitation."14 After the death of his grandmother, his grandfather came to stay with him and "despite his clerical collar, the retired clergyman enjoyed his cocktails, loved meeting the celebrated people who gathered around his grandson, and remained unshocked by anything Williams wrote."15 When his grandfather passed away at the ripe old age of ninety-eight, more than just a beloved man was gone. With him died the "embodiment of a beauty that Williams had envisioned as the classical elegance of the aristocratic South, symbols of which recur in his dra mas. "16

Early Life The single most traumatic event of young Tennessee Williams' early life was the move from Columbus, Missis sippi to St. Louis, Missouri at the age of eight. This move, the result of a promotion for his father to sales manager, was to permanently provide Williams with a negative view of large cities. To him, large cities were cold, barren, and ugly. Upon arriving in the city, Tennessee "discovered there were two kinds of people, the rich and poor, and that we belonged to the latter.'' 17 'J.lhis dis- covery was brought about by wartime, his father's stingi ness, and the fact that "their new home was in a tenement in a lower middle-class neighborhood which seemed revolt ingly ugly." 18 Tennessee described the residence as "a 61

perpetually dim little apartment in a wilderness of iden tical brick and concrete structures with no grass and no trees nearer than the park."l9 Further adding to this un pleasantness was the ridicule of their Southern speech and manners by schoolmates. This dislike of St. Louis never wavered and even when The Glass Menagerie was on its way to Broadway and he found himself confronted in st. Louis by the city press, he "replied to their inquiries with brutally candid recollections of his miserable youth there and his impressions of its ugliness and unfriendliness." 20 On the other hand, he recalled those earlier years in Mississippi as

"the most joyously innocent of my life, due to the beneficent home life provided by my beloved Dakin grandparents, with whom we lived. And to the wild and sweet half imaginary world in which my sister and our beautiful black nurse Ozzie existed, separate, almost invisible to anyone but our little cabalistic circle of three." 21

According to Nancy Tischler, the

"Mississippi Delta has become a symbol of the artist's longing for the 'sweet bird' of his youth in a country touched with the merciful blur of remembrance. After his clash with industry and urban squalor, this town and others of the area were increasingly imbued with purity and beauty for him, qualities that frequently stand in terrible contrast to the ugliness of the human animal that inhabits it." 22 62

The stark contrast of rural and urban areas became a major emphasis in Williams' work.

Health Tennessee Williams was plagued throughout his life by a variety of mental and physical illnesses that in cluded depression, claustrophobia, hypochondria, alcohol ism, and drug addiction. He attributes some of these incidents to the maternal side of his family where he claims there "have been alarming incidences of mental and nervous breakdowns." 23 By far, his greatest preoccupation was with death--especially his own. He continually believed that his time on earth was nearing its inevitable conclusion and that he would be unable to finish his work.

Physically, he· was troubled by conditions of the heart P~d eyes and, coinciding with his mental state at the time, he once decided on an eye operation "mainly because of the excuse it gave me to withdraw from the world behind the gauze mask. " 24 Another major thread that wove its way through his works is that of man's inability to communicate with his fellow man. He believed that "each of us is sentenced to solitary confinement in our own skins" which "is a lonely idea, a lonely condition, so terrifying to think of that we usually don't." 25 Personally, Tennessee always suf fered with an awkward and often embarrassing shyness. The agony of attempting to communicate led him to writing and, even later in life, he found it "somehow easier to level with crowds of strangers in the hushed twilight of orchestra and balcony sections of the theatres than with individuals across a table from me."26 Writing enabled him to communicate but he felt that, as the years passed, it was more difficult for him to break through the walls and reach out. Along with an inability to verbalize himself, Tennessee was also inundated with fears of loss. This loss refers to anything of importance--not just death. He cap tured his feelings when he said that

"All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire a thing or to love a thing intensely is to place yourself in a vulnerable posi tion, to be a possible, if not prob able, loser of what you most want. Let's leave it like that." 27

He considered fear, which frequently bordered on terror, his adversary. These feelings found a way of turning up in his plays, and in his view, they "gave me a certain tendency toward an atmosphere of hysteria and violence in my writing, an atmosphere that has existed in it since the . . 28 b eg1.nn1.ng." Williams spent a good deal of time, especially the latter period, in psychoanalysis. Through this process, he professed to understand that the anger he directed at mankind was, in fact, a self-condemnation. This led him to say that 64

"Since I am a member of' the human race, when I attack its behavior toward f'ellow members I am ob viously including myself' in the attack, unless I regard myself' as not human but superior to humanity. I don't. In f'act, I can't expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself'. I have exposed a good many human weaknesses and brutalities and consequently I have them." 29

All of' the doctors he dealt with conf'irmed the presence of violence in the man and, consequently, the playwright. He agreed wholeheartedly with this diagnosis but claimed that his violence was all verbal. Af'ter years of analysis, Williams decided that

"Bestiality still exists, but I don't want to write about it any more. I want to pass the rest of my lif'e believing in other things. For years I was too preoccupied with the destructive impulses. From now on I want to be concerned with the kinder aspects of' life." 30

As a consequence of' these years of' self'-analysis and study on the subject, Tennessee came up with a short play, Suddenly Last Summer, specif'ically addressing psychiatry and the bestiality in mankind. Health, both physical and mental, was a prime motivator to Tennessee Williams. Bouts with f'ear in numerous areas of' his personal as well as prof'essional lif'e in duced him to take barbituates, the "phone numbers of God," which temporarily eased the pain but eventually led to a more serious problem. With the majority of his works being partially autobiographical, Williams, like Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, has "always depended upon the kind ness of strangers" but, in his case, he found this depend ence "without being often disappointed. In fact, I would guess that chance acquaintances, or strangers, have usually been kinder to me than friends--which does not speak too well for me. To know me is not to love me. At best, it is to tolerate me ... 31

Education and Employment In the quest for the elusive college degree, ' Tennessee finally received his B.A. in Theatre in 1938- nine years and three schools after he began to pursue the degree. The institutions he attended were the University of Missouri at Columbia, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Iowa. Several times tuition was provided by grandmother Dakin. His father had washed his hands of his "spineless" son and refused to keep him in school after he failed R.O.T.C. However, when he was en- rolled, Tennessee tested the waters for a future career. While in attendance at the University of Missouri and its noted journalism department, Williams applied for a job on the paper and was finally assigned death notices and live stock news. Deciding that the first of the two was of more interest, this initial step convinced Williams that his concentration should be in the area of fiction--not 66 reality. After failing to renew his son's tuition, Tennessee's father procurred him a job as clerk typist at the International Shoe Company. The three years spent in this occupation witnessed Tennessee typing and dusting shoes and finding the hours as "indescribable torment to me as an individual but of immense value to me as a writer, for they gave me first hand knowledge of what it means to be a small wage earner in a hopelessly routine job ... 32 Finding this sort of work unbearable and extremely tedious, Williams decided that "the lives of most people are insu- lated against monotony by a corresponding monotony in their own souls ..• Alas for the poet, the dreamer ... who has been cast into the world without this indispensable solution ... 33 The seemingly endless amount of time spent at the shoe factory served as an example by which several characters were created. These simple characters, as exemplified by The Gentleman Caller of The Glass Menagerie and Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire, view the little man at the mercy of the machine.34 Working at a job which offers little mental stimulation, these characters plod through their daily lives like robots rather than individuals. This experience provided Williams with a dislike of common everyday life and determined his course into the world of Bohemia. Upon graduating from college, Tennessee went to Chicago where he was unable, during the Depression, to 67 secure employment. He looked to the W.P.A. Writers' Project and was turned down because his writing lacked the appropriate amount of social content and his Southern refinement and behavior made him appear "frivolous and decadent to the conscientiously rough-hewn pillars of the Chicago project ... 35 Soon after this, Williams failed again to become part of' the W.P.A. Writers' Project when he applied in New Orleans. Between 1938, when he graduated college, and 1944, when The Glass Menagerie appeared on Broadway, Williams held numerous odd jobs including, among other, waiting tables while doubling as an entertainer late at night reciting off-color verses of his own making, being kept by a group of' amiable alcoholics who enjoyed his recitations, running an elevator in a New York hotel, ushering at the Strand Theatre, working on both a chicken farm in Cali fornia and a squab ranch in the Southwest, and finally . being hired briefly, as a writer, by M.G.M. in Hollywood f'or a whopping two hundred and f'if'ty dollars per week.36

Travel Tennessee Williams entered into a Bohemian lifestyle "because the alternative was something too dull to endure" and became a part of' "that common American phenom enon, the rootless wandering writer ... 37 This sort of' lifestyle, in which "anarchy, the dissociation from the intol erable bonds of human affection" and detachment resided, 68

was vital to Williams as an artist and individual.3B Williams felt a sort of kinship with his fellow Bohemians in their ability to provide "a kind of freedom I had al ways needed. And the shock of it against the Puritanism of my nature has given me a subject, a theme, which I have n·ever ceased exploiting ... 39 Like the autobiographical

character of Torn in The Glass Menagerie, Williams was al ways searching for something or attempting to "find in motion what was lost in space." During his many wanderings, Tennessee consistently returned to New Orleans' Vieux Carre where he encountered

"prostitutes and gamblers, sailors who wrote verse, poets who traveled in boxcars, and unreconstructed Basin Street musicians, sweet old ladies who quietly drank pain killer all day, and nasty old men who quietly molested little boys, alcoholics and hoboes and junkies and pimps and homosexuals, all in a comprehensive sampling of those too brave, frightened, pure, corrupt, angry, gentle, clear, confused, creative, numb to accept the peace, comfort, stagnation and rot of re sponsibility." 40

New Orleans, more than any other area of the world, provided the playwright with an unforgettable array of char acters. Considering the city his horne, if he had managed .to have just one, it became symbolic. Near the street on which he lived in the French Quarter, there were,

"running on the same tracks, ••. two streetcars, one named Desire and the other named Cemetery. Their indiscourageable progress up and down Royal struck me as having some symbolic bearing of a broad nature on the life in the Vieux Carre--and everywhere else for that matter." 41

Another area of interest to the wandering poet was Mexico. Confronted by fears and occasionally fleeing success, Williams bid farewell to civilization and headed to, what was then, the wilds of Mexico. To him, it was an

"elemental country where you can quickly forget the false dignities and conceits imposed by success, a country where vagrants innocent as children curl up to sleep on the pavements and human voices, es pecially when their language is not familiar to the ear, are soft as birds . " 42

This country appears as the setting for some of his works, one of which is The Ni~ht of the Iguana. After his early success with The Glass Menagerie, Williams was financially able to travel the world. On these excursions, he became captivated by the country of Italy, the city of Rome, and the Italian people. He found himself attracted by "their art, their dignity, their phys ical beauty, their speech, their zest for life" and dis covered in them "something of the excitement, naturalness, color, and anarchy that had stirred him in Mexico."43 This setting found its way into The Rose Tattoo which has 70

been considered "comic and honestly lusty, sweet, robust, 44 healthy." These descriptions are generally the opposite of what one normally uses when alluding to Williams' dramas. Overall, these various places and Williams' rather Bohemian style have managed to become an important aspect in his plays, setting the scene and establishing extra- ordinary, and often unforgettable, characters. In choosing that lifestyle, Williams lived like a "gypsy" or a "fugi tive" and finally decided that "no place seems tenable to me for long anymore, not even my own skin."45 Looking back, Tennessee said "my place in society, then and possi bly always, since then, has been in Bohemia. I love to visit the other side now and then, but on my social pass- port Bohemia is indelibly stamped, without regret on my part. "46

Artistic Inspiration There were a number of artists upon which Williams drew inspiration. Some of these writers he drew on more than others. Throughout his nomadic wanderings, the only book he managed to keep hold of was a volume of Hart Crane. It struck Tennessee as symbolic that, as an itinerant poet, he should possess, in his permanent library, a single book of Hart Crane's--another nomadic poet. He valued Crane above all others because of his "organic purity and sheer . 47 breathtaking power." 71

Another major influence came from D.H. Lawrence, whose death Williams captured in a play titled I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix. Though considering much of Lawrence's work "chaotic and distorted by tangent obsession, such as his insistence upon the woman's subservience to the male," Williams believed that "all in all his work is probably the greatest modern monument to the dark roots 48 of creation. " The subject that brought these two artists together, yet created divisions, was the issue of sex. Both were led to make the topic a fetish by a certain perverse Puritanism. For Lawrence, it was an obsession and means of salvation while, for Williams, it was to be feared and purchased only momentary relief. In general, Williams appreciated Lawrence for being the "life-long adversary of those who wanted to keep the subject (of the mystery and power of sex, and the primal life urge) locked away in ~he cellars of prudery."49 This recurrent battle caused by needing the warmth of another person, yet experiencing the Puritan horror of a physical relationship, has confronted almost all of Williams' characters in some way or other. More than that of D.H. Lawrence, Williams felt influenced by the works of Anton Chekhov. Chekhov, as he said, "takes precedence as an influence--that is, if there has been any particular influence beside my own solitary bent ... 5° When young and first discovering Chekhov, he felt a close affinity for the writer but later decided 72

that his writings held too much in reserve. Despite this conclusion, he still continued to respect the delicate poetry of his writing and believed The Sea Gull to be one of the greatest modern plays. There are several similarities between Williams and Chekhov. Both of these writers had a tendency to instill isolated and outwardly trivial events with a sense of spiritual significance. They also dealt with the isolation of human beings and their tragic inability to communicate, and their plays are, occasionally, elegies to a decaying aristocracy.5l A main school of writing in which Tennessee placed himself was termed Gothic. It was an American school of writing which combined expressionist, impressionist, symbolist, surrealist, and naturalist elements. Some of the other famous authors in this school included Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Lillian Hellman, Williams Faulkner, and Eudora Welty. These writers used the South because, as Williams remarked, "there is something in the region, something in the blood and culture, of the Southern state." 52

Theatre Williams entry into the world of theatre was not planned. He said of his inauspicious beginnings that

"probably no man has ever written for the theatre with less fore- 73

knowledge of it. I had not seen more than two or three professional productions ...My conversion to the theatre arrived as mysteriously as those impulses that enter the flesh at puberty." 53

It was not long until this situation was remedied on a permanent basis. Although he had previously written poetry and short stories, his true talent was to be found in theatre. Thinking in terms of color, sound, and movement, theatre, Williams discovered, was more than simply another written 1 anguage . Tennessee's first play Cairo!, Shanghai!, Bombay!, written for the Rose Arbor Players of Memphis in 1934, was a farcical but touching comedy about two sailors out on a date with a couple of "working" girls. From this, he de cided that "then and there the theatre and I found each other for better and for worse. I know it's the only thing that's saved my life ... 54 Theatre was a powerful stimulant to the young playwright who was excited about receiving immediate feedback from the audience. From the beginning, Williams, as a playwright, was modest and un assuming because he felt others had more knowledge of the art form than he did. This attitude remained with him throughout his career. A good deal of time, in this early period, was spent in a sort of apprenticeship with The Mummers, a small theatre group in St. Louis. Flourishing during the Depression, this group possessed a spark of anarchy as 74

well as o££-beat dramatic and intellectual trends which Williams was to admire and carry with him during his lifetime. Most o£ the members participating in the group held other jobs. As Williams recalled,

"they had to, because The Mummers were not a paying proposition. There were laborers. There were clerks. There were waitressess. There were students. There were whores and tramps and there was even a postdebutante who was a member o£ the Junior League o£ St. Louis." 55

These people had "about them that kind o£ excessive roman- ticism which is youth and which is the best and purest part o£ li£e ... 56 The group de£ined £or Tennessee the essence o£ theatre. It is "something wild, something exciting, something that you are not used to. O££beat is the word." 57 Later in his career, Williams approached Broadway with misgivings. This period has been re£erred to by Mr. Williams as his "Stoned Age." Emerging with a new style in writing, he was con£ronted by mostly non-£avorable re views by both audiences and critics. Compounding this was a growing problem with drugs. With the £ear o£ Broadway, Williams turned to the little theatres o£ 0££- Broadway. These small theatres had always made the author £eel com£ortable and relaxed. It should be noted that several o£ Williams' plays, which £ailed on Broadway, were revived success£ully on 0££-Broadway stages. 75

Williams frequently expressed criticism of his audiences. This was especially true in the later period when, faced with opposition over his new experimental style, he commented that

"there is a duality in my attitude toward an audience now. Of course I want their approval, I want their understanding and their empathy. But there is much about them that strikes me as obdurately resistant to any kind of theatre these days. They seem to be conditioned to a kind of theatre which is quite diff erent from the kind I wish to prac tice." 58

Williams compared the conservative audience to a caged bird. To the bird, a cage represents security as well as confinement. In this way, audiences are willing to re linquish partial reality but are unwilling to forfeit all objective reality. They are condemned by Williams for running when they feel their security threatened rather then relishing and participating in the sense of freedom it affords.

Conclusion Williams always maintained that his intent was "to express my world and my experience of it in whatever form seem suitable to the material ... 59 In his opinion, a writer could not present life and truth from any other perspective than the one he perceived through his own eyes. One could not write if one had not experienced. 76

Besides, immediate experience is only part of the picture. Also figured in are certain preordained characteristics which, combined with experiences, make everyone a separate and distinct individual. The previous pages have been an attempt to dis cover and identify certain experiences and characteristics that have contributed to making Tennessee Williams one of the greatest modern playwrights. Some of these topics have covered family, early life, health, education and employment, travel, artistic inspiration, and theatre. These areas have made a general sweep of the playwright's life and career as opposed to a specific account of every minute detail in his personal and professional experiences. The purpose of outlining these influences has been to set the stage for an examination of the final four film adap tations of Tennessee Williams. 77

ENDNOTES

1. Christine R. Day and Bob Woods, eds., Where I Live: Selected Essays (New York: New Directions Publishing Co., 1978), pp. 91-92. 2. Nancy M. Tischler, Tennessee Williams: Rebellious Puritan (New York: The Citadel Press, 1961), p. 16. J. Ibid. 4. Ibid., p. 21. 5. Ibid., p. 25. 6. Ibid., pp. 212-213. 7. Ibid., p. 26. 8. Ibid., p. 19. 9. Ibid., pp. 22-23. 10. Ibid., pp. 54-55. 11. Tennessee Williams, Memoirs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975}, p. 127. 12. Ibid., p. 121. 13. Tischler, pp. 54-55. 14. Ibid., p. 41. 15. Ibid., p. 217. 16. Ibid., p. 217-218. 17. Ibid., p. 24. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., p. 106. 21. Williams, p. 11. 78

22. Tischler, p. 11. 23. Williams, P· 116. 24. Tischler, p. 133· 25. Ibid., p. 216. 26. Ibid. 27. Day and Woods, PP· 106-107. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., P· 109. 30. Tischler, P· 290. 31. Williams, p. 131. 32. Tischler, p. 38. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., p. 56. 36. Ibid., pp. 88-89. 37· Ibid., PP· 59-60. 38. Ibid. 39· Ibid., p. 61. 40. Ibid., P· 60. 41. Ibid., P· 62. 42. Ibid., PP• 133-134. 4J. Ibid., p. 166. 44. Ibid., p. 167. 45. Williams, p. 247. 46. Ibid., p. 100. 47. Tischler, PP• 64-65. 48. Ibid., PP• 120-121. 79

49. Ibid. so. Williams, p. 41. 51. Tischler, p. 29?. 52. Ibid. , pp. 301-302. 53· Ibid. , pp. 84-85. 54. Williams, pp. 41-42. 55. Tischler, pp. 4?-48. 56. Day and Woods, p. 9· 57. Ibid., p. 11. 58. Williams, p. xvii. 59. Ibid. CHAPTER 4

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' CHARACTERS, SYMBOLS, AND THEMES

Introduction This final section will focus on Tennessee Williams' characters, symbols, and themes. These three broad areas will culminate the study of important background material. This is necessary in an examination of the final four film adaptations of Tennessee Williams. In looking at a work, it is important to understand where the playwright has concentrated his attention. With this knowledge, one can better analyze the playwright, his works, and overall significance. By examining characters, symbols, and themes, Williams' major areas of concentration can be outlined. As a writer, Williams has been titled an "amoral moralist." 1 While shy about his personal life and shocking in his professional one, Williams is considered a paradox as both a writer and a person. For the most part, writing has come naturally for Williams, although public accept ance has not always been easily gained. A colleague once commented that Williams had

"literary diarrhea--it just poured out of him. His original manuscripts were the length of three full plays and you could throw out heaps of type written pages and still have enough

80 81

for a full-length play." 2

This natural gift has enhanced the world with an amazing number of full-length plays, one-acts, short stories, poems, and novellas. Williams claimed that his "thing" was "revolution, personal and artistic ... 3 This artistic and personal revo lution took the form of writing. His writing was always an extremely personal experience as the characters in his works reflected his own fears and anxieties. Of Williams, it was once remarked that ''because of his loneliness, he turned to writing; because of his anxieties, he keeps working; and because of fear, he has turned to stories of violence."4 With the need for writing emerging out of a desire to maintain sanity, his work was not geared towards a social commentary. Instead, he has come to represent the "repressed individual" rather than the "oppressed class." 5 In this way, he has managed to reach a wide and receptive audience.

Character Characters are the essence of Williams' writing with a gallery of memorable individuals as proof of this. Of these characters, Williams comments that

"tny characters make my play, I always start with them, they take spirit and body in my mind. No thing that they say or do is ar bitrary or invented. They build 82

the play about them like spiders weaving their webs, sea creatures making their shells, I live with them for a year and a half or two years and I know them far better than I know myself, since I created them and not myself." 6

Williams claimed that he never gave a character an emotion which he himself had not previously experienced. His favorite characters are those who, despite failure and hard times, try to retain some dignity. Williams believes that "a high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace."? This is what Williams attempted to instill in all his characters. Since Williams wrote from his own experiences, the characters emerge from his assortment of emotions and anxieties. Williams does not pretend to write about the world and its social, political, and religious problems. Con currently, he feels "there must be some limitations in me as a dramatist" because "I can't handle people in routine 8 Sl."t ua t" 1.ons." In reflecting on the troubled individuals and violence of his plays, Williams did not believe his works had any correlation to the escalating violence in the mid to late twentieth century. As he says, "I don't pre tend to write about a world that has become increasingly violent. I may write about troubled people, but I write from my own tensions."9 The world of a play offers an audience an intensi- 83 fied, yet select, slice of life with a beginning, middle, and end. Williams considered this presentation vital to the life of his characters:

"if the world of a play did not offer us this occasion to view its characters under that special condition of a 'world without time,' then, indeed, the characters and occurrences of drama would become equally pointless, equally trivial, as corresponding meetings and happenings in life." 10

This perspective allows the audience to observe the unique characters of Williams. Once they are created, Williams steps back to observe their progression. In examining the character of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, John Mason Brown commented.that

"Mr. Williams understands and would have us understand what has brought about her decline. He passes no moral judgment. He does not condemn her. He allows her to destroy herself and invites us to watch her in the process." 11

This commentary, by no means intended solely for Blanche, can be applied to other characters of Williams. The play wright's goal was merely to set the stage with troubled characters and bring in an audience to observe their eventual salvation or destruction. Williams' characters offer an audience a view of themselves. Dealing with emotions such as love, anger, humiliation, failure, jealousy, envy, and degradation, 84

il .

Williams has put on stage the innermost fears of mankind. The majority of his characters are misfits, loners, and invalids who struggle to achieve dignity after having failed at life. These emotions and characters appeal to audiences. As Williams said,

"People are humble and frightened and guilty at heart, all of us, no matter how desperately we may try to appear otherwise. we have little conviction of our essential decency, and consequently we are more interested in characters on stage who ~hare our hidden shames and fears, and we want the plays about us to say 'I understand you. You and I are brothers; the deal is rugged but let's face and fight it together. '" 12

Williams concentrated on characters and emotions in order to reach out and touch the audience. He wanted to shake them up and make them "feel" because he believed that "fear and evasion are the two little beasts that chase each other's tails in the revolving wire-cage of our nervous world. They distract us from feeling too much about things."lJ Frequently, Williams' pen has focused on women- especially Southerners. In his compassion for and subtle analysis of these women, Williams "transcends all other American dramatists." 14 For Williams, these women "have a tendency to gild the lily" and "speak in a rather florid style" which suited his desire to write out of emotion. 15 In addition, their Southern charm adds another character- istic which attracted Williams' attention. Williams' love for the South, with its qualities of honor, courage, and gallantry, has been incorporated into the majority of his unique characters. In defense of his female characters, Williams commented that

"frustration is almost exactly what the women I write about are not. What was frustrated about Amanda Wingfield? Circumstances, yes! But spirit? .•. was Blanche of A Streetcar Named Desire frustrated? About as frustrated as a beast of the jungle! And Alma Winemiller? What is frustrated about loving with such white-hot intensity that it alters the whole direction of your life, and removes you from the parlor of an Episcopal rectory to a secret room above Moon Lake Casino?" 16

All in all, Williams has provided the world with women who are proud, defiant, determined, and strong, yet tender and vulnerable. Besides women, Williams has concentrated on "the elderly and the lonely, on artists, blacks, and helpless sensualists, and on any derelict whose luck has run out." 17 The common denominator of all these different characters is their attempt "to salvage a bit of dignity."18 Having never felt himself to be part of the mainstream of American life, Williams wrote with evident compassion and understanding about "the misfits, the deformed, and the damned ... l9 These individuals have, as Williams noted "no 20 magnitude, at least on the surface." In writing of these 86

"little people," Williams said that he "sometimes thinks there are only little conception of people. Whatever is living and feeling with intensity is not little and, ex amined in depth, it would seem to me that most 'little people' are living with that intensity that I can use as a writer." 21 Life has robbed the majority of Williams' char acters of their physical as well as emotional security. There is no one or no where to turn to for help. Even when a respite from the storm is provided, it is only temporary. That old enemy--time--works against them. The only saving grace for these individuals is their ability, when all else fails, to salvage some dignity. Although doomed to eventual destruction of either a physical, mental, emo tional, or financial nature, Williams has instilled his characters with strength of will and courage. More than just creating a gallery of unique individuals, Williams provides each member of the audience with an insight into themselves. This includes the darker side of humanity as well as the more positive aspects.

Symbolism It has been said that Tennessee Williams has "a poet's weakness for symbols." 22 The works of Williams are full of symbols which reflect and emphasize the char acters and action. This combination of symbolism, poetic dialogue, powerful themes, and memorable characters has 87 become Tennessee Williams' trademark. Beginning as a poet and writer of short stories, Williams soon turned from lyric and narrative writing to dramatic writing. Williams claimed that the transition was necessary because "the turbulent business of my nerves demanded something more animate than written language could be."23 Not until he combined symbolism with realism did Williams find a winning combination. As with characters, the most effective use of symbols were those gleaned from Williams' own experiences. Combined with his poetic qualities, Williams' ability to view his life and world metaphorically greatly enhanced his work. These techniques have endowed Williams' prose with a "poetic overtone that gives to each a high order of l J.•t erary merJ.•t ," 24 In addition, his dialogue has been considered the finest with descriptions ranging from "lyrical, allusive, idiomatic, and pungent" to "funny and touching." 25 To Williams, symbols are "nothing but the natural speech of drama." 26 The basis of both dreams and communi cation are these types of images which lie on the conscious or unconscious level. Therefore, as a means of communication, the purpose of symbols is to "say a thing more directly and simply and beautifully than it could be said in words ... 27 Used to replace what would ordinarily be page after page of time consumming exposition, a well placed symbol is the "purest language of plays."28 88

Williams is in top form when, instead of super imposing irrelevent or traditional images, he creates symbols out of the characters and action. For example, the captured iguana, in The Night of the Iguana, represents the internal battle being waged by Shannon, while the rail road tracks down which Willie walks, trying to maintain her balance, in This Property is Condemned, represent her fragile existence. This use of symbolism provides a con trast to the stark realism in Tennessee Williams' works. Although employing symbolism, he seldom strays from basic realism into a symbolist fog. In looking at symbolism, it is important to examine the length and intensity of the imagery employed. Williams often uses symbols on a large scale. This can be seen in the setting for The Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle). In this set, Chicken, in the well-lit and earthy kitchen, is separated from Lot, in his mother's dimly-lit bedroom, with Myrtle constantly running up and down the stairs between the two brothers. Neither brother moves from their respective positions. On the other hand, Williams also utilizes small symbols which, in the beginning, may not be fully recog nized. An example of this is the character of Christopher Flanders, in The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, whose name represents both life and death. A shortened version of Christopher is "Christ," while Flanders, as in the World war I poem by Lieut. Col. John McCrae, repre- 89

sents death. In the play, the young man has arrived to assist Mrs. Goforth in facing her imminent death. In an examination of Tennessee Williams' works, several recurring images are found. These include:

''birds, cats, foxes, fox-teeth in the heart and in the gut, Don Quixote, a lamp or candle at night, ice and snow, gauzy summer gowns, Arthur Rimbaud and his drunken boat, stairways and narrow passages, par titions and doors between people, ceremonial tea drinking, scavenging for food, and devices marking the passage of time." 29

Although not appearing in each and every work, this concise list exhibits some of Williams' more widely used symbols. Williams' interest in metaphor and symbolism may stem in part from modern psychology and a regard for the French symbolist poets. In comparing the French and American schools of writing, Williams commented that the link between the two styles was "definable, as a sense, an intuition, of an underlying dreadfulness in modern ·experi ence."30 The difference was that the Americans, as opposed to the French, tended to have "more of an emotional and romantic nature ... 31 For Williams, who considered himself to be an incurable romantic, symbols were a natural by product of this nature. As far as modern psychology is concerned, Williams was both a patient and student. Having undergone many years of therapy, Williams became interested in studying 90 certain aspects of psychological behavior. His best known play, based on his research in this area, was Suddenly Last Summer. When Catherine reveals the unpleasant truth about Sebastian's cannibalistic death, Sebastian's mother, in reference to a lobotomy, wants the doctors to "cut that hideous story out of her brain ... 32 On a more personal note, the physical and psychol ogical relationship between father and son is examined in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Actually an examination of Tennessee Williams and his own father, this play turned out to be one of Williams' favorites. If not concerned directly with the subject, many characters experience un- successful relationships with parents, sibling, spouses, and friends. Whether blatant or obscure, the developments in modern medicine and psychology play their role in the symbols and imagery of Williams' works. Another basis for the symbols and imagery in the works of Tennessee Williams is religion. Although raised with the Puritan ethic and organized religion, Williams shuns contact with, and occasionally ridicules, these areas. Despite this, Christianity is seen as a "source of his symbolism, and often the key to his stories ... 33 Tennessee Williams believed more in angels, the human kind, as opposed to God. The world of Tennessee Williams is a battleground of opposing forces such as flesh vs. spirit, reality vs. dreams, and brutality vs. ideals.34 This duality emphasizes the major duality in Puritanism which is 91

(l •

the constant struggle between good and evil. Whether based on religion, modern psychology, or a regard for other symbolist poets, Tennessee Williams con sidered symbols to be one of the purest forms of dramatic language. Employing imagery throughout his works, Williams symbolized everything from setting, mood, and dialogue to the character's actions, name, and personality. As a writer, Williams believed that "symbols and their meanings must be arrived at through a period of time which is often a long one, requiring much patience ... 35 However, a reward for the long process is receiving a "puzzle which is still puzzling but which, whether you fathom it or not, still has the beautifully disturbing sense of truth, as much of that ambiguous quality as we are permitted to know ... 36

Theme It has been said of Tennessee Williams that "he. doesn't choose his themes; they obsess him ... 37 A good, concise list of his themes includes:

"fear (of loneliness, of loss, of death), search for a lost ideal (youth, purity, involvement), honesty vs. mendacity, the need for compassion and tenderness among all people isolated in their separate skins." 38

All in all, these themes underlie a basic motive of Williams which is the search for purity. Better yet, it is the ability to rise above the darker and more haunting 92 aspects of life. In the aforementioned themes, Williams sought purity in death, the past, human nature, and communication. In defense of his writings, Williams was occasionally perplexed by people's response. He remarked that

"for a writer who is not inten tionally obscure, and never, in his opinion, obscure at all, I do get asked a hell of a lot of questions which I can't answer." 39

Although not conscious, when writing, of particular themes, Williams believed his works were about "life." When questioned about a theme, he said

"I look vague and say, 'It is a play about life.' What could be simpler, and yet more pretentious? You can easily extend that a little and say it is a tragedy of incom prehension. That also means life. Or you can say it is a tragedy of Puritanism. That is life in America, or you can say it is a play that considers the 'problem of evil.' But why not just say 'life'?" 40

Though not necessarily planned, the themes which have emerged from Williams' writings do represent some of the most important aspects of modern life--honesty, mendacity, fear, loneliness, death, and lack of communication. While writing about the important aspects of "life," Tennessee Williams also provides us with his view of the world. Despite his search for purity, Williams 93 confessed that "there is implicit criticism of society in everything I've written from The Glass Menagerie to all of them."41 Williams believed that life, with its corruption and failure, took away "bit by bit, step by step, the quality of fresh involvements, new, startling reactions to experience. "42 As the gypsy says in Camino Real, "the world is a funny paper read backwards. And that way it isn't so funny." 43 As a writer, Williams felt it was his responsibility to express the horrible condition of the world. In his work, he could express his own frustration and anger while helping serve as a release for others. Although his work expressed outrage at the condi tion of the world, it was not his intention to expound social, religious, or political change. He merely sought to diagnose the disease, not to cure it. That was up to the individual audience member. However, he did strive to illuminate the essential ambiguity of life and human nature. It was important, he felt, to comprehend this basis of existence. The goal of a performance was to leave the audience

"feeling that they have met with a vividly allusive, as well as disturbingly elusive, fragment of human experience, one that not only points at truth but at the mysteries of it, much as they will leave this world when they leave it, still wondering somewhat about what happened to them, and for what reason or purpose." 44 94

When audiences found his work strange and baffling, Williams felt that he had succeeded in writing about life. The continual and ever increasing loss of time is an important ingredient in the works of Tennessee Williams. This loss "deprives our lives of so much dignity and meaning."45 On the other hand, the quality that Tennessee Williams calls "arrest of time" provides "cer- t a1n. p 1 ays th e 1r. f ee 1"1ng o f d ep th an d s 1gn1 . "f" 1cance." 46 As witnesses of these plays, Williams said an audience can

"sit back in a comforting dusk to watch a world which is flooded with light and in which emotion and action have a dimension and dignity that they likewise have in real existence, if only the shattering intrusion of time could be locked out." 47

For an audience, the suspension of time is important for an understanding of the characters and action of a play. Besides giving a play depth and significance, Williams constantly pits his characters against time. In this way, they are never sure what tomorrow or, for that matter, what the next hour will bring. Therefore, the action and development of a character depends upon how effectively they use their allotted time. Vital to Tennessee Williams' writings is the fact that time is short and "it is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless 95

you devote your heart to its opposition." 48

Battling against the inevitable tide of time, most of Williams' characters manage to retain a certain innocence. Williams agreed with William Saroyan's theme in The Time of Your Life that purity of heart is the one success worth having."49 Therefore, doomed to certain failure against time, it is essential that "in the time of your life--livei"50 As a theme, it is not the loss of time that is most important but how effectively one makes use of time. Another important thematic element in Tennessee Williams' works is the concept of loneliness. Nearly all of Williams' characters, regardless of age; gender, or occupation, are afflicted with loneliness. They may have either chosen to isolate themselves from the world, like the little girl in This Property is Condemned, or ~ay have been ostracized by the community, like Shannon in The Night of the Iguana. Either way, they are loners- both physically and emotionally. Like Don Quixote says in Camino Real, "In a place where so many are lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone ... 51 Per sonally, Williams considered loneliness to be a "pon- derous shadow too heavy to drag after me all of my days and nights ... 52 In their attempt to relieve themselves of this burden, the characters, in Williams' works, indulge in a 96 variety of dangerous alliances with drugs, drinking, and sex. This, however, does not end their loneliness--only momentarily deadens the pain. On less harmful terms, many characters revert to life in the past in which everything and everyone was pure and glorious. It is obvious from the characters that loneliness is an all-consumming emo tion and a prime motive for action. Preoccupied with his own feelings of imminent death, the topic became another important thematic element in his work. When asked why writers are constantly pre occupied with disease and death, Williams stated that "any artist dies two deaths, not only his own as a physical being but that of his creative power, it dies with him ... 53 Therefore, death includes not only the loss of a physical body but also the demise of the soul or spirit. In death as well as life, "there is something much bigger ... than we have become aware of (or adequately recorded) in our living and dying ... 54 In facing death, Williams' characters find more in the act then simply loss. Physical death may be viewed as a comfort or release from a futile existence. Furthermore, the manner of death may, in itself, be an act of purifica tion. An example of this is the washing away of Lot's (The Kingdom of Earth/The Seven Descents of Myrtle) dead body, and the decay he represents, by the flood. On a more violent note is the cannabalistic death of Sebastian (Suddenly Last Summer) who is devoured by the children he 97 misused. The thematic material of Tennessee Williams in cludes broad topics such as time, loneliness, and death. Although powerful, these themes do not take control of a piece. Rather, they provide background information and motivation for the characters. overall, Williams writes about "life." Therefore, no one theme is more important then another because life, at some time, includes one or all of these areas. In writing about life, Williams has not chosen to be revolutionary. His goal is not to create and implement a set of social, political, or religious changes. To the contrary, Williams believes the most dangerous attack on the human animal comes from the fears, failures, and disappointments of everyday existence. This existence eventually robs people of the desire and abil ity to think, feel, and, consequently, to create.

Conclusion Tennessee Williams equated the profession of writing with freedom. While those writers who are "pro fessionally employed" please their publishers and public, the "free" writer is motivated by some sort of inner logic. Considering himself to be a writer in the latter category, Williams believed there was "truth to be pursued each day with words that are misunderstood and feared because they are the words of an Artist ... 55 While engaged in the im portant craft of writing, it is Williams' belief that an 98 Q • artist is not likely to die or go mad. This may be due to the fact that writing, which is honest, cannot be separated from its creator. It is the "essence, of what is strongest and purest in his nature, whether that be gentleness or anger, serenity or torment, light or dark. This makes it deeper than the surface likeness of a mirror and that much more truthful . .. 56 As a writer during the late fifties and early sixties, Tennessee Williams experienced an increase in criticism. In considering why the critics should turn on him so fiercely, Williams suspected that it was a "cabel to cut me down to what they thought was my size ... 57 Person ally, Williams considered his size to be that of an artist "who has consistently given all that he has to give to his work with a most peculiar passion ... 58 To Williams, this period represented a natural change in the direction of his career. Overall, this third and final section has been an attempt to examine the basic characters, symbols, and themes of Tennessee Williams. These three, rather broad topics, provide an insight into Tennessee Williams, the man and the artist, by illuminating his major areas of emphasis. The information discovered can then be applied to the next section which is an examination, in terms of these three areas, of the final four film adaptations of Tennessee Williams. 99

ENDNOTES

1. Nancy M. Tischler, Tennessee Williams: Rebellious Puritan (New York: The Citadel Press, 1961), p. 11. 2. Ibid., p. 50. 3. Tennessee Williams, Memoirs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), p. 238. 4. Tischler, p. 30. 5. Ibid., p. 39. 6. Christine R. Day and Bob Woods, ed., Where I Live: Selected Essays (New York: New D1rect1ons Publishing Co., 1978), p. 72. 7. Williams, p. 252. 8. Tischler, pp. 245-246. 9. Ibid. 10. Day and Woods, p. 50. 11. Norris Houghton, TheE lodin Sta e: An Introduction to Twentieth Century Drama New York: Wey bright and Talley, 1971), p. 58. 12. Day and Woods, pp. 117-118. 13. Ibid., p. 53. 14. Houghton, p. 58. 15. Lina Mainiero, gen. ed., World Dramatists (New York: Frederick Ungar Publ1sh1ng Co., 1979), Tennessee Williams, by Felicia Hardison Londre, p. 33. 16. Day and Woods, p. 26. 17. Londre, p. 32. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., p. 21. 100

20. Williams, pp. 234-235· 21. Ibid. 22. Tischler, p. 102. 23. Ibid., pp. 52-53. 24. Houghton, p. 58. 25. Ibid. 26. Tischler, pp. 191-192. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. 29. Londre, p. 32. 30. Days and Woods, p. 42. 31. Ibid. 32. Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Williams: Four Plays (New York: New American Library, 1976), p. 93. 33. Tischler, P· 300. 34. Ibid. 35. Days and Woods, p. 146. 36. Ibid. 37. Tischler, pp. 245-246. 38. Londre, p. 32. 39. Days and woods, pp. 25-26. 40. Ibid. 41. Londre, p. 25. 42. Ibid., p. 30.

43. Tischler, P• 245. 44. Days and Woods, pp. 73-74. 45. Ibid., P· 49. 101

46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., p. 52. 48. Ibid. , p. 22. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid., p. 113. 52. Williams, Memoirs, P· 99. 53· Ibid., pp. 241-242. 54. Days and Woods, p. 110. 55. Ibid., p. 171. 56. Ibid., P· 100. 57. Williams, Memoirs, p. 173· 58. Ibid. 102

The Night of the Iguana

Hannah: In fact, I've discovered something to believe in. Shannon: Something like ... God? Hannah: No. Shannon: What? Hannah: Broken gates between people so they can reach each other, even if it's just for one night only. Shannon: One night stands, huh? Hannah: One night ... cornrnunication between them on a verandah outside their ... separate cubicles, Mr. Shannon. Shannon: You don't mean physically, do you? Hannah: No. Shannon: I didn't think so. Then what? Hannah: A little understanding exchanged between them, a wanting to help each other through nights like this. CHAPTER 5

THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA

Background of the Plax Published as a short story in 1948, the trans formed one-act version appeared at the 1960 Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. The Night of the Iguana had its New York debut on December 28, 1961. Directed by Frank Corsaro, the play starred Bette Davis as Maxine, Patrick O'Neal as Shannon, and Margaret Leighton as Hannah.

Synopsis and Main Characters The action of this play is centered around the Costa Verde Hotel. Located on a hill above the beach near Puerto Barrio, Mexico, it is owned and operated by Maxine Faulk. She is a big, lusty recent widow who has two young Mexican boys to fulfill her needs. The only other guests at the hotel are a group of Germans. They (parents, daughter, and son-in-law) frolic in scanty costumes and listen excitedly to radio broad casts concerning the burning of London. The majority of their time is spent drinking champagne, listening to the radio, and swimming at the beach. Arriving on the scene, feverish and at the end of his wits, is the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon. He has

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brought with him, in his job as tour guide, a busload of schoolteachers from the Baptist Female College in Blowing Rock, Texas. Having hoped to see and talk to Fred, Maxine's dead husband, Shannon collapses when he learns of Fred's demise two weeks earlier. Maxine indicates that she would be happy if Shannon remained behind to take Fred's place. Adding to Shannon's problems is the busload of schoolteachers whom he has taken on a detour against their will. Lead by the vocal Miss Fellowes, the group of ladies refuses to ascend the hill to the hotel. Only Miss Fellowes appears at the hotel in order to make a telephone call. Shannon suspects that she is calling to have him fired and confesses to Maxine that one member of the tour, 'sixteen year old Charlotte Goodall, has been trying to seduce him. Shannon tells Maxine that he is planning to go back to the church. It is at this point that Miss Fellowes completes her call and rages at Shannon. While Shannon pleads with her to understand, she contends that he is defrocked and trying to pass himself off as a minister. Maxine advises him to give the ladies the bus key so that they can leave but Shannon fears losing his job with Blake Tours. He has lost every other job and can get no lower. It is at this point that Hannah Jelkes is seen

pushing Nonno, her ninety-seven year old poet grandfath~r, up the hill. Hannah is a New England spinster in her late 105

thirties. She and her grandfather travel around the world with Hannah selling her sketches and Nonno titled as "The World's Oldest Living Poet." Maxine tries to turn them away but Shannon intercedes. At Shannon's insistence, Maxine provides this new twosome with adjoining cubicles for one night. Later that day, Maxine asks to speak to Hannah while she sets up the verandah for dinner. She tells Hannah that she has found a place in town that will take her and her grandfather on credit. Hannah attempts to barter for more time with a piece of carved jade but fails. Charlotte Goodall charges up the hill in search of Shannon. Hannah tries to divert her attention but she corners Shannon and insists that he marry her after what happened between them in Mexico City. When Miss Fellowes arrives, Shannon runs to his room and Charlotte is dragged off. After Miss Fellowes and Charlotte exit, Hannah and Shannon emerge from their rooms. Shannon is outfitted in a black silk bib, heavy gold cross, and clerical collar. It is his intention to show the ladies that he has not been defrocked. Hannah asks why he left the Church and, as he relates his story, does a quick sketch of him. Apparently a year after his ordination, while serving in Pleasant Valley, Virginia, Shannon was ap proached by a young Sunday School teacher who declared her attraction to him. They knelt to pray and ended up making 106

love. Afterwards, Shannon hit her. The girl later tried to kill herself thereby causing a scandal. The following Sunday, instead of apologizing to the congregation, Shannon argued against their concept of God as an "angry, petulant old man." As a result of his tirade, he is locked out of the church and sent to an asylum. Ever since, Shannon has been trying to collect evidence to prove that God is a God of Lightning and Thunder. During this conversation, Nonno is heard working on his first new poem in twenty years. Having recently suffered from a slight stroke, he has trouble remembering his verses. This has made it difficult for he and Hannah to make a living. For the first time in their travels, they are penniless. That same night, Shannon writes a letter to his former bishop while Maxine tries again to get him to stay. Maxine relates how she once overheard Shannon telling Fred the root of all his problems. Apparently, Shannon's mother made him feel guilty for any kind of sexual pleasure by invoking God's wrath. He has continued to get back at his mother through various young girls. Shannon realizes that the schoolteachers are gath ered around the bus. Jake Latta has been sent by Blake Tours to take over the group. With the aid of Hank, the bus driver, Jake forcibly removes the bus key which Shannon has. kept hidden on his person. Enraged, Shannon runs down the hill and, amid squeals from the ladies, 107 urinates on their luggage. When the bus departs and Shannon returns to the hotel, he begins slashing his neck with the chain of his cross. Hannah intervenes by removing the chain and Shannon runs toward the beach. The two young Mexican boys catch Shannon and tie him in the hammock. Hannah agrees to untie him only after he calms down and quits indulging himself in a symbolic crucifixion. She brews some mild, sedative poppyseed tea and states that his problem is that he needs to believe in something or someone. Furthermore, she tells him that the only way to exorcise his "spook" is by endur ance. In response to Shannon's inquiry, Hannah relates the only two, according to her, "love experiences" she has ever had. One occurred at a movie theatre when she was sixteen years old. A man pressed his knee against hers and her scream brought about the man's arrest. She later got him released. The most recent experience, two years ago, involved a traveling salesman who asked for an article of her underwear. Hannah tells Shannon that these experiences did not disgust her because they were not unkind or vio lent. Shannon wonders if he and Hannah might be able to travel together but Hannah tells him that it would never work. Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of the iguana straining at its rope under the verandah. Cap tured earlier by the two Mexican boys, it was being fat- 108

tened for Maxine's dinner. Hannah asks Shannon to free the creature. As soon as the creature is free, Nonno completes his final poem, a poem of acceptance, and dies. Maxine states again her desire for him to remain. Shannon takes one last look at Hannah, freed by Nonno's death from her life of wandering, and follows Maxine to the beach. He warns Maxine that he can make it down to the beach but is not sure if he will make it back. Maxine assures him that she will help him.

Changes from Stage to Screen: Character Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon The Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon remains basically the same in both the stage and screen versions of The Night of the Iguana. Shannon appears in the play "panting, sweating, and wild-eyed." About thirty-five, he is "a young man who has cracked up before and is going to crack up again--perhaps repeatedly." He states that his "degree from Sewanee is Doctor of Divinity, but for the past ten years geography's been my specialty." By the time Shannon makes it up the hill to the Costa Verde Hotel, his emotional limit has been reached. He says, "it's horrible how you got to bluff and keep bluffing even when hollering 'Help! ' is all you're up to." Later, Hannah calls him a "man of God, on vacation." Shannon has come to the Hotel in the hopes of finding his old friend Fred. He counted on Fred to bail 109

him out but Maxine, Fred's widow, tells Shannon how Fred "died with his boots on. Hooked into a big marlin and the marlin won." In the play, Fred died when he cut his hand on "a fishhook, it got infected, infection got in his blood stream, and he was dead inside of forty-eight hours." Fred's philosophy was "live and let live." As Maxine says, "anybody with troubles ... which is everybody ... would spill' em to old Fred and he'd listen forever." Shannon is desperately in need of what Fred had to offer. Shannon's name has a variety of religious connotations. The T. alludes to the Cross. Lawrence may either represent D. H. Lawrence, a man obsessed with the role of religion in man's psychic life, or T. E. Lawrence, a man who aspired to be a savior of sorts to the Arab world. Shannon is the River Shannon of Ireland which is the river of death that the sufferer must cross in atone ment. In Tennessee Williams' work, Shannon will be in tor quite a bit of atonement. 1 Religion is important to Shannon. His goal, from the beginning, is to be allowed back into the church. Throughout the two versions, he is seen writing or planning to write a letter to the bishop. After checking up on Shannon, Miss Fellowes calls him defrocked. Shannon defends himself by saying "I was never de-frocked. I was only locked out of my church." To prove to the ladies that he has not been defrocked, Shannon struggles into his faded old uniform. Unfortu nately, the neckband is frayed and the collar will not 110 stay on. The event, revealed later in the play, which led to Shannon being locked out of his church in Pleasant Valley, Virginia is used, in the film, as a pro logue. Run before the opening credits, it shows Shannon kneeling before the church altar. After praying, he stumbles and moves to the pulpit as if it were the "execu tioner's block." Outside a storm threatens while inside Shannon observes the "Grant Wood" faces of the congrega tion. In his atypical sermon, he talks about the weakness of man and the congregation's judgmental nature. He also talks about his ancestors who were clergy and bishops as well as those "scalped in the mountains of a wild and free country." Shannon's family tree is not mentioned in the play. In the film, he urges the congregation to ''get out your tomahawks. Sharpen your scalping knives. SCALP me!" The purpose behind Shannon's reference to his forefathers is an attempt to illuminate his own, as well as everyone else's, dual nature. Instead of allowing Shannon to verbally relate his journey through Mexico with the Baptist school teachers, the film opens with them in a small town. It is evident that the friction between Shannon and Miss Fellowes is reaching its boiling point. The trouble between the two is centered around the young and impressionable Charlotte Goodall. She has a crush on Shannon but he tells her to "go home ..•Lead me not into temptation. I can find 111

my way all by myself." This scene, between Shannon and Charlotte in his room, is altered slightly from the play. It is obvious in the play that Shannon and Charlotte con summate their relationship before arriving at the Costa Verde. Due to the MPAA Code, this scene was shot to in dicate that Miss Fellowes arrived at the appropriate time. Like most people, Shannon can be kind as well as unkind. This is best exemplified by the old Indian and the burro. While driving the bus, Shannon comes across an Indian slumbering in the road. Screeching the bus to a halt, the Indian's sleep is not disturbed. Nei ther is the laden burro next to him. Instead of waking the Indian and insisting that he move, Shannon orders the ladies out of the bus. He then proceeds, despite Miss Fellowes' protest, to scrape past the Indian on the shoul der of the road. Shannon's "law" states that "drunk or sober, where a man finds sleep, there he has a right to lie." Unusually kind to the Indian, Shannon does not always extend the same courtesy to the ladies. Nearing the end of his rope and unmindful of the tour, he deliber ately races through Puerto Vallarta in his desire to get to the Costa Verde. Before the group leaves the hotel, Shannon urinates on Miss Fellowes' luggage. After this in cident and while Miss Fellowes is threatening him, Shannon defends Miss Fellowes from Maxine's wrath. Later, Shannon verbally strikes out at Maxine who has been nice to him. 112

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Therefore, Shannon has a dual nature in which he is kind to the one who treated him badly and unkind to the one who was nice to him. The only real change in Shannon's character concerns his quest. Ever since he was locked out of the church, Shannon has been travelling and collecting evidence concerning his "personal idea of God, not as a senile de linquent, but as a ... " He tells Hannah that he wants to "go back to the Church and preach the gospel of God as Lightning and Thunder." Hannah disagrees. She feels that when the time comes, Shannon will choose to throw out his furious sermon and "lead them beside still waters because you know how badly they need still waters." In his job as a tour guide, Shannon has deliberately lead people past the most disgusting and horrifying sights. Defending him self, he claims to have "always allowed the ones that were willing to see, to see!" Shannon provided them with a view of the "underworlds of all places, and if they had the hearts to be touched, feelings to feel with, I gave them a priceless chance to feel and be touched. And none will ever forget it." This is altered, in the film, to a search for evidence of "Man's inhumanity to God." Shannon talks about "the pain that we cause Him. We've poisoned His atmosphere ..• slaughtered His creatures of the wild ... polluted His rivers ... " Going farther, Shannon says, "we've even taken his noblest creation, man himself, and 113

brainwashed him into becoming our product ... not God's. Packed, stacked, and canned." With this change, the s ig nificance of Shannon's original search is diminished. This quest for man's inhumanity to God is no less important. But, it is also not as volatile an issue as the existence of God. For the most part, people are in agreement that nature has been destroyed by man. The answer Shannon seeks, in the film, is easily found. As opposed to this, a search for God can never be completely resolved. Being a religious man as Shannon is, any doubt about God's exist ence or nature creates more tension. With this eliminated, Shannon's tension can be easily allayed. Shannon's inner struggle revolves around reconciling the fantastic and realistic levels. To Shannon, "when you live on the fantastic level and have to operate on the real level you're spooked." The spook is what has brought Shannon to the Costa Verde Hotel. Once there, Shannon tries to explain to Miss Fellowes about his predicament. She wants to know how that will compensate her group. Shannon replies to this by saying, "don't make me feel that any adult human being puts personal compensa tion before the dreadful bare fact of a man at the end of his rope who still has to try to go on." Later, Maxine does not understand why Shannon stopped her from insulting Miss Fellowes who, as Maxine says, has "done a pretty good job of destroying you." Shannon tells Maxine not to "rob me of the credit for my own small accomplishments." Fi- 114

nally, Shannon believes that the "spook's triumphant. He's proved there's no place for Shannon on the realistic lev el." With the last thin thread gone, Shannon begins to lash his neck with the cross. By the end of the play and film, Shannon achieves a certain amount of peace. Staying with Maxine, he gives his cross to Hannah. He tells her to sell it and use the money to go home. However, Hannah says she will pawn the cross and send him the ticket. In this act, Shannon has made peace with his past. He will no longer strive to be readmitted to the church but will content him self with Maxine.

Hannah Jelkes In the play, Hannah is described as "re markable-looking--etheral, almost ghostly. She suggests a Gothic cathedral image of a medieval saint, but animated. She could be thirty, she could be forty: she is totally feminine and yet androgynous looking--almost timeless." Arriving at the Costa Verde with her grandfather, Hannah is at the end of her financial rope. She tells how "no body would take us in town, and if we don't get in here, I would have to wheel him back down through the rain forest, and then what, then where?" Shannon persuades Maxine to let them stay. To Maxine's comment that she has only "special guests," Shannon says, "if they're not special, who the hell is?" 115

Hannah's entrance is similar in both ver sions. The only difference is that, in the film, she supports Nonno as they ascend the hill instead of pushing him in a wheelchair. In this way, she is either trying not to show Maxine what sad shape they are in or she does not completely understand the extent to which her grandfather has deteriorated. To a certain extent, both are true. When Hannah tries to help Maxine in the kitchen, Maxine calls her a "fantastic cool hustler." Not proud or ashamed of being poor, Hannah says it "just happens to be what's happened to us lately." After Nonno' s funeral, Hannah tells Shannon that she now understands why Nonno wanted to come to Mexico and the sea. In the play, Hannah is cog nizant of her grandfather's condition. Hannah has been through many experiences. She and her grandfather have travelled the world by depend ing on Hannah's talent as a quick sketch artist and Nonno's title of "The World's Oldest Living Poet." Shannon com ments on Hannah's sticker covered luggage and Hannah says she has been around the world "almost as many times as the world has been around the sun. And I feel as if I had gone the whole way on foot." As in the play, Maxine gives Hannah the room that leaks and Hannah assures Shannon that she will "find a dry spot if it rains." Hannah tries to help people. In the film, this includes Miss Fellowes. Hannah helps Maxine out in the kitchen by preparing fish. As she tells Maxine, "I think perhaps with a soothing meal 116

in her stomach ... well, it might soothe her spirit." Later, when Miss Fellowes threatens to have Shannon blacklisted and arrested, Hannah asks, "you're free of him, Miss Fellowes. Doesn't that satisfy you?" As Hannah says, "nothing human disgusts me unless it's unkind, violent." She relates to Shannon the only two experiences with men she has ever had. Once, at sixteen, she was seated in a movie theatre when a man pressed his knee against hers. Startled, she screamed and the man was arrested. Later, she had him released by saying that the picture had made her too emotional. Her second experience, with an Australian salesman, was more recent. Out for the evening, he timidly requested a piece of her underclothing. She complied and, far from being disgusted, was only saddened by the isolation of the event. Shannon considers Hannah to be "a lady. A real one .•. and a great one." In both the play and film, Hannah gives unselfishly of herself and her belongings. out of money, Hannah has an old pack of cigarettes with two left in it. Deciding not to use up what she has, she puts them away. However, when Shannon asks for one, she gives it to him without hesitation. Shannon exchanges her old cigarettes for his superior ones. When Shannon injures his feet by walking on the glass, it is Hannah who doctors them. In the process of adaptation, Hannah's role is subtly decreased. She is still there for Shannon while 117 he is tied in the hammock. However, some of the insight which Hannah had into Shannon is transferred to Maxine. It is Maxine who tells Shannon, when he is being tied in the hammock, to "Quiet down. You know and I know half of this show you're putting on is playacting." In the play, it was Hannah who captured the real Shannon with one of her quick sketches. Another example is the tea. On stage, Hannah takes it upon herself to make Shannon a cup of poppyseed tea. In the film, Hannah suggests that Maxine fix Shannon some tea. This is not to say that the overall effect of her character is diminished. Only that wisdom, associated with Hannah, is now divided between her and Maxine.

Maxine Faulk Maxine is the recently widowed proprie tress of the Costa Verde Hotel. She is described, in the play, as "a stout, swarthy woman in her middle forties- affable and rapaciously lusty." In her first screen appearance, Maxine wears tight levis and an unbuttoned blouse. She is also fond of rum cocos. Since before Fred's death, she has been amusing herself with two young Mexican boys named Pepe and Pedro. Despite this, she did care for Fred. In the film, she tells Hannah how Fred loved to fish but that he would "catch'em and put'em back in unless they'd swallowed the hook ... Fred lived and let live." 118

Maxine's efforts to have Shannon fill Fred's shoes, both literally and figuratively, is evident throughout the two works. Pleased with Shannon's arrival, she wants him to have a pair of Fred's old shoes. She in forms him that he could do worse than to fill Fred's shoes. In the play, Maxine tells Shannon that "we've reached a point where we've got to settle for something that works for us in our lives--even if it isn't on the highest kind of level." Through the course of the works, Maxine becomes disillusioned with her two young companions. Eventually, she separates herself from them in favor of Shannon. In the play, she tells Shannon how "it's, well, it's •.. humiliating--not to be ... respected." This occurs, she feels, when an employer gets too involved with her em ployees. The film shows Maxine breaking from Pepe and Pedro's embrace on one of their night swims. In the end, Maxine assures Shannon that she will be there to help him back up the hill. Although Shannon talked Maxine into allow ing Hannah and Nonno to stay, Maxine does not like the vibes which she senses between Shannon and Hannah. In the play, Maxine orders Hannah to "lay off him, honey. You're not for Shannon and Shannon isn't for you." Furthermore, she uses the situation to make a deal. As she says, "if you just don't mess with Shannon, you and your Grampa can stay on here as long as you want to, honey." The film shows Maxine going farther. She accuses Hannah of using 119

Nonno like the Chinese beggars who carry crippled babies. When Hannah tries to be helpful, Maxine warns her not "to con me. I understand me." Near the end when Shannon is tied in the hammock, Maxine attempts to give Shannon some tea but, when it burns his mouth, he complains and insults her. Maxine tells Hannah "he's all yours. You take over entirely." Of all the characters, Maxine receives the most development in the adaptation. She goes from being secondary in the play to one of the three main screen characters. Not only does she have a greater role but she is also more sympathetic. After Nonno's funeral, Maxine proposes to Hannah and Shannon that they stay on and run the hotel. She volunteers to leave. They, of course, do not take her up on the offer. However, the stage's Maxine would never have considered making such a deal. Maxine is mentioned in Hannah's speech about how to conquer spooks and blue devils. When she says the creatures re spect endurance, Shannon asks, "like taking a few deep breaths?" Hannah adds, "or rum cocos ... or even Mexican night swimmers." Therefore, the film indicates that Maxine has, like Shannon and Hannah, her own spook or blue devil to battle.

Jonathan Coffin Nonno, the ninety-seven year old grand father of Hannah, is not long, as his name implies, for 120

this world. He is constantly referred to, by Hannah, as being "ninety-seven years young." In the play, Hannah calls her grandfather "a minor league poet with a major league spirit." Arriving at the Costa Verde in a wheel chair, Nonno has recently suffered a number of "cerebral accidents." As Hannah says, "it isn't so much the loss of hearing and sight but the ... dimming out of the mind that I can't bear." This Nonno is basically the same as the one which appears on screen. Dressed in white, Nonno arrives at the Costa Verde leaning on his granddaughter. Shannon is kind to Nonno because the old man, as is writ ten in the play, "touches something in him which is out side of his concern for himself." Maxine is nicer to the old gentleman. She accuses Hannah of using Nonno like Chinese beggars carry crippled babies. In both works, Nonno expires after completing his poem. At this point, the play concludes. The film goes farther and provides Nonno with a funeral which Hannah, Shannon, and Maxine attend.

Charlotte Goodall Charlotte Goodall is the young lady who has a crush on "Larry" Shannon and whose role is consid erably expanded in the film. As stated before, Charlotte and Shannon are not shown to consummate their screen re lationship. This change does not have any harmful effect 121 on their original relationship. In the play, Shannon has already used and dismissed her before they reach the Costa Verde. Therefore, Charlotte's goal was to win him back. Developing the character for film, Charlotte is allowed to become disillusioned with Shannon. It is she who eventually leaves Shannon instead of the other way around. The film, as opposed to the play, shows Charlotte's initial attempt to win Shannon's affection. She talks a lot about his life as a minister and how glad she is that he is a religious man. Charlotte feels it is "such a noble life ... I mean, being interested in people's souls and all like that ... you can bring so much to peo ple." Furthermore, Charlotte assures Shannon that her "Daddy" will fix everything so Shannon can·have a wife who "understands the nobility of your mission." To an emo tionally bankrupt Shannon, she vows to "rule your spirit. I'll hold you." When Shannon strands the group at the Costa Verde, Charlotte informs the other ladies that Shannon's actions were based on his desire to keep her from leaving. The night before, Miss Fellowes swooped down on Charlotte and Shannon before anything could happen. After that incident, Charlotte planned to go home at the next town. Charlotte mistakes Shannon's last ditch effort to save his sanity for an act of love. Later, she startles Shannon when she enters his cubicle at the Costa Verde. Shannon drops and breaks his cologne . 122

and mouthwash bottles. While walking barefoot on the broken glass, Shannon tells her she is dangerous. Charlotte tries to aid his injured feet but he rejects her overtures. Instead of leaving, she joins him and walks on the glass. As he throws her out, she cries that he has killed her. After this incident, Charlotte is next seen drinking and dancing at the local bar, The Ramada. The bar is filled with locals. As the music builds, Charlotte dances to the accompaniment of Maxine's two boys on maracas. When the Patron asks her to leave, she says, "I have no home. I'm a creature of the wild." Charlotte tries to fight off Pepe and Pedro as they take her out of the bar. Finally, they pick her up and run through the jungle and surf. In the meantime, everyone searches for Charlotte. Hank, the bus driver, finds Charlotte and is beaten up by the boys, She apologizes to Hank and ex plains that her present predicament is all Shannon's fault. After this, Charlotte and Hank are inseparable. They are seen sitting together at lunch and staring an grily in Shannon's direction. In the film, it is Charlotte and Hank who finally take the distributor cap from Shannon. Hank holds him down while Charlotte snatches the cap. She informs Shannon that the purpose of her actions is "to show you how I hate you." Thus, by the end, Charlotte is not only hurt, but she hates Shannon. 12.3

Judith Fellowes The character of Judith Fellowes is given a little more development in the film version. Miss Fellowes' sexual preference is questioned in the play by Sharmon's constant reference to her as a "butch vocal teacher." This question becomes clearer in the film. It shows her anger at Charlotte and Shannon's fateful rela tionship as more than just an attack on her job as Charlotte's chaperone. While waiting for Hank to fix the tire on the bus, Charlotte joins Shannon in the water. Miss Fellowes is angered by Charlotte's actions and stands shouting at the shoreline. She yells to Charlotte that "you're taking advantage of my affection for you ... you only got to come on this trip because I insisted." That night, Judith apologizes to Charlotte for her behavior at the beach. Glancing at Charlotte's bed, she finds it unused and, enraged, runs to Shannon's room where Charlotte has ventured. Miss Fellowes' actions revolve, in both the play and film, around her repressed feelings for the young Charlotte. She does not comprehend the depth or nature of her own feelings. Angry because Charlotte is attracted to Shannon, she goes out of her way to find fault with him. When Charlotte is finally disenchanted with Shannon and moves on to Hank, Miss Fellowes shifts her attention. While Charlotte and Hank glare at Shannon, she glares at Hank. As the little group is ready for 124

departure, Shannon urinates on Miss Fellowes' luggage. Judith vows to have him blacklisted and arrested if he should ever return to the United States. Fed up with Judith's threats, Maxine begins to insult her. Shannon stops Maxine by saying that Miss Fellowes is "a highly moral person. If she ever recognized the truth about her self, it would destroy her." Shannon's screen parting with Miss Fellowes is gentler than in the play.

The Ladies The busload of ladies Shannon is taking on a tour of Mexico are Baptist schoolteachers from Blowing Rock, Texas. Except for Charlotte and Miss Fellowes, these ladies are heard but not seen in the stage version. How ever, on screen, a few of the ladies are further developed. Miss Peebles is the one lady who tries to be nice to Shannon. After Miss Fellowes catches Shannon and Charlotte together, Shannon attempts to go on the next day as if no thing happened. He buys each lady a souvenir which con sists of a bright doll on a stick. Miss Peebles is the only one to happily accept her gift. Unfortunately, she gives it back after the rest of the group stares her into submission. When stranded at the Costa Verde, the ladies refuse at first to climb the hill to the hotel. As in the play, Shannon has Hank try to lure them out of the bus with a menu. It is not until Miss Peebles becomes ill 125

r . that the ladies help her to the hotel. At her appearance, Shannon leaps to her side welcoming her as if she were his savior. Miss Fellowes is angry at the women for their weakness. The women later go out in a glassbottom boat to see Mexico's underwater world. The character of Miss Peebles is intended to provide the ladies with greater depth. They are not all seen to be as mean and vindictive as they seem in the play. The ladies also provide a humorous note or two. On the long bus ride, they enter tain themselves by singing. Their repertoire consists of "Happy Days are Here Again," "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You," and "The Three Little Fishes."

The two other male characters found in the play are condensed, on screen, into one. Jake Lotta, another of Blake's tour guides, is eliminated totally. Hank's role as bus driver and maintenance man is expanded. Once relegated to the background, Hank becomes more vocal. He searches, along with the others, for Charlotte and de fends her from Pepe and Pedro. It is Hank to whom Charlotte turns in her time of need. After rescuing Charlotte from Maxine's boys, she tells him how grateful her father will be for his heroic defense. From then on, Hank and Charlotte are inseparable. In the play, Jake Lotta is sent by the company to take control of Shannon's stranded group. It is Jake who removes the bus key from 126 ,, .

Shannon's person while Hank holds him down. With Jake gone, these responsibilities fall to Hank. The bus key is changed to a distributor cap and, along with Charlotte's help, Hank retrieves it. This move allows the group to leave.

Changes from Stage to Screen: Symbolism Mexico Mexico is the setting for both the play and film. In the film, Shannon stops the busload of women on a bridge in an attempt to show them a "moment of beau ty." The view from the bridge offers the women a glimpse of women washing clothes, children playing, and a stray animal. Shannon feels that it is "a fleeting glimpse into the lost world of innocence." They, however, do not share this view and complain of the delay. One of the ladies, Miss Throxton, even talks about her brother's

1 abundance of laundromats back in Texas. Unable to see the beauty and calming nature of their surroundings, the women complain of its primitiveness. Whether set in the late thirties, as in the play, or in a later period, as in the film, Mexico is still seen as a wild and unspoiled territory. It is what draws Shannon to the area in the first place.

Costa Verde Hotel The Costa Verde Hotel is described, in the 127

play, as being on a hill overlooking the "morning beach" of Peurto Barrio and one of the world's wildest and love liest rain forests. This semi-rundown establishment, in the film, is mounted on stilts so that the verandah is almost at eye level. What is stressed is the area's primitiveness. The small cubicles which Shannon terms "cells" in the play are not highlighted in the film. Serving as bedrooms, the purpose of these cubicles is to show man's isolation from man. Shannon, Nonno, and Hannah are seen, in the play, to each have a separate "cell." Although adjacent, these cubicles, while occupied, keep the characters at a distance from one another. This is not as stressed in the film.

Time Change The time change which occurs in the adap tation eliminates certain symbols found only in the play. Set in the late thirties, the play revolves around Hannah, Shannon, and Maxine as well as the beginning of World War II. In residence at the Costa Verde is a family of Germans. The family consists of a father, mother, daugh ter, and son-in-law. They are described as "pink and gold like baroque cupids in various styles." Shannon calls them "fiends out of hell with the ... voices of ... angels." The majority of their time is spent swimming in scanty costumes and listening eagerly to the radio broad casts about the bombing of London. 128

These wolves in sheep's clothing are not essential to the work and, consequently, they do not appear in the adaptation. Their preoccupation with vio lence is just another example of the sad and ironic condi tion of the world. These "fiends" are actually enjoying the suffering of others. In removing the Germans from the screenplay, it was not necessary to keep the work set in the late thirties. A more contemporary decade could be used with the same effectiveness. Thus, in the film, there is no reference to World War II or any of the events which surrounded it.

Iguana Even the iguana has a bigger part in the film. What once was a regular symbol is now the central symbol. The first glimpse of iguanas is seen before Shannon stops the bus on the bridge. Young Mexican boys are selling iguanas by the roadside. Shocked at the idea of eating iguanas, Shannon reassures the ladies that they taste like chicken. The iguana, with its unattractiveness and tough hide, represents humanity. In the play, Hannah asks Shannon "can you look. at me and tell me truthfully that you don't know it's able to feel pain and panic?" Doing what is right, Hannah says, "it's not an attractive creature. Nevertheless, I think it should be cut loose." The movie also has Hannah requesting that Shannon cut the iguana loose. He says, "we'll cut the damned lizard 129

loose so that it can run back to its bushes because God won't do it and we are going to play God here." In the two works, the iguana also repre sents Shannon and Nonno. Like the tethered iguana, both are at the end of their ropes. However, one is literally tied while the other is figuratively. After threatening to swim to China, Pepe and Pedro, on Maxine's orders, strap Shannon in the hammock. There he howls and strains at the ropes in a mock crucifixion. Nonno is the charac ter bound figuratively. At ninety-seven years young, he is struggling against time to finish his last poem. Shannon, in the play, asks Hannah if the iguana's situa tion "doesn't mostly disturb you because of its parallel situation to your Grampa's dying-out effort to finish one last poem?" It is not until after the iguana is freed that Nonno recites the entire poem. After this, he is free to die and does. On Nonno's departure, Shannon says that "God played God and set him free."

Sea The sea is another symbol which is ex panded in the film. Nonno calls the sea the "cradle of life." Hannah explains, in the play, how she tried to persuade him to return to Nantucket when his mental and physical condition began to deteriorate. However, he in sisted they continue on to Mexico and the sea. Maxine is another character who enjoys the sea and her nightly 130

swims with Pepe and Pedro. When distraught, Shannon threatens to "swim to China." At the end, Shannon joins Maxine for a swim in the sea. This is a sign of their future together. All of the above and more appear in the film. When the tire blows out on the bus, Shannon leaves Hank to fix it. He strips and plunges into the surf. There Shannon floats and, for the first time in a long while, relaxes. Charlotte follows him into the water and insists on holding his hand so they "don't drift apart." As Miss Fellowes paces back and forth along the shoreline shouting angrily, Shannon begins to laugh freely. Later, after drinking and dancing at the local bar, Charlotte is carried through the surf by Pepe and Pedro. In this in stance, the water revives her and she struggles against their hold. With Shannon's arrival, Maxine realizes she wants more than what her young studs provide. On one of their night swims, Maxine breaks from their embrace. The sea is shown to mean different things to different people. To Shannon, it is calming. In contrast, it brings Charlotte to her senses. The power of the sea matches Maxine's own passionate nature. For Nonno, the journey back to the sea represents a full circle and, upon reaohing the cradle of life, he is free to die. Storm A storm appears in both the play and film. This storm characterizes the tension of the situation at the Costa Verde. As Hannah says in the play, "sometimes outside disturbances like that are an almost welcome dis traction from inside disturbances." In the play, the storm, "with its white convulsions of light, is like a giant white bird attacking the hill top of the Costa Verde." Hannah tells Shannon that "here is your God, Mr. Shannon." At the close of Act Two, Shannon extends his hands under the rainfall. He catches the water and bathes his fore head. The act ends with his hands "reaching for something outside and beyond himself." This storm occurs later in the film. It is not until the end, when Shannon is tied in the hammock, that the storm hits. The fury of the storm succeeds in reducing some of Shannon's fury at his situation. After the storm, Shannon begins to really listen to what Hannah has to say.

"Mei Yoo Guachi" Chang, the Chinese cook at the Costa Verde, is actually seen in the film. In the play, only his philosophy of' "Mei Yoo Guachi," or "no sweat," is men tioned. Maxine relates how her late husband Fred used to say these three words summed up "all the wisdom of the East." It is no wonder that Chang proposes this theory. When Maxine enters the kitchen, Chang is stoned. In a 132

drug induced state, it is obvious how Chang arrived at this philosophy. It is not revealed in the play that the cook's philosophy is created by drug use. This changes the significance of these three words as well as certain other Oriental references which were dropped from the adaptation. For Shannon's time in the hammock, Hannah, outfitted in a faded Kabuki robe, soothes Shannon's strained nerves with conversation and poppyseed tea. She relates her experience in Shanghai's House for the Dying. Shocked at first, she returned and witnessed friends and family placing little comforts beside the death pallets. Earlier, she is described as holding "a goldlacquered Japanese fan." Her attitude has the "style of a Kabuki dancer's pose." By the end of the play, Maxine has her own Oriental characteristics. She is described as having been mellowed by the night's progress. Her face "wears. a faint smile which is suggestive of those cool, impersonal, all-comprehending smiles on the carved heads of Egyptian or Oriental deities." These Oriental images are not present in the film.

Changes from Stage to Screen: Theme The theme suffers little change. Both versions deal with the struggle for and lack of communication among people. A communication which is hard to establish much less maintain. As Hannah says in the play, "we all 1JJ

wind up with something or with someone, and if it's some one instead of just something, we're lucky, perhaps ... unusually lucky." In the film, Hannah mirrors this senti ment by saying "I think of a home as something two people have between them in which each can nest ... rest ... live in ... emotionally speaking." The basic theme is summed by Hannah when she says that "I'm a human being and when a member of that fantastic species builds a nest in the heart of another, the question of permanence and propaga tion aren't the first or even the last things to be con sidered." This comment ends, in the play, with a ques tion. The question is answered by Hannah, in the film, when she adds "what's important is that one is never alone." Besides communication, the other thematic element concerns spooks and blue devils. The play shows only Shannon and Hannah being acquainted with their own per sonal spooks. This is expanded, in the film, to include Maxine. Dealing with these creatures requires endurance. As Hannah says, "endurance is something that spooks and blue devils respect. And they respect all the tricks that panicky people use to outlast and outwit their panic." Hannah handles panic by stepping back and taking a few deep breaths while Shannon experiences occasional breakdowns. Besides these methods, Hannah says a spook can be chased away by "rum cocos ... or even Mexican night swimmers." In this way, Maxine deals with her own inner 134

devil. The goal, according to Hannah, is "anything, everything that we do to give them the slip and so to keep on going." Both versions end on a positive and up lifting note. Shannon chooses to lead a somewhat "normal" life with Maxine while Maxine finds someone to be her friend and partner in life. Nonno is allowed to die with dignity and Hannah, with Nonno's death, is given a chance to stop and rest. The poem which Nonno works on all throughout the play and film is as follows:

How calmly does the orange branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer, With no betrayal of despair. Sometime while night obscures the tree The zenith of its life will be Gone past forever, and from thence A second history will commence. A chronicle no longer gold, A bargaining with mist and mould, And finally the broken stem The plummeting to earth; and then An intercourse not well designed For beings of a golden kind Whose native green must arch above The earth's obscene, corrupting love. And still the ripe fruit and the branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer, With no betrayal of despair. 0 Courage, could you not as well Select a second place to dwell, Not only in that golden tree But in the frightened heart of me?

This poem deals with courage. The courage to take what 135

life has to offer, whether bad or good, in stride. Life is to be valued and living takes courage. A poem by Emily Dickinson appears as an introduction to the written play. The little poem goes:

And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms, Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.

The introduction provided by Miss Dickinson's verse finds a conclusion in Nonno's poem. In the beginning, the characters are physically close, stranded at the Costa Verde, but emotionally distant. By the end, they come to an understanding and choose life over death. Only Nonno, who has had a long and full life, is permitted to die.

Influence of the Director Known for such classics as The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Moby Dick, and The African Queen, John Huston's films have often dealt with man's struggle to "endure the challenges of life in the face of 2 the likelihood, if not the inevitability, of failure." He also examines the character's suppressed emotional conflicts. Of his films, the director says, "critics have never been able to discover a unifying theme in my films, and for that matter neither have I."3 Frequently working with adaptations, Huston feels he does not "seek to interpret reality by placing my stamp on it. I try to be 136

as faithful as I can to the material I have chosen to film."4 In this way, "everything technical and artistic in the picture is designed to depict that material for an audience. That, in the end, is all that really matters."5 In working with adaptations, Huston's respect for a piece depends on its literary reputation. This respect determines the number of changes that would be made. It has been said of John Huston that "he is less intimidated by his material than he is respectful of it."6 Out of respect for Williams' original play, Huston was loyal in his adaptation. The screenplay was co-written by John Huston and Anthony Veiller. Shooting the film in Puerto Vallarta, script conferences were held between Williams and Huston. Williams agreed to all of their minor adjust- ments and contributed some additional dialogue. Huston said Tennessee Williams "took no credit and I would gladly have given it to him because his contribution tq the screenplay was enormous."? Despite their good working relationship, Huston did disagree with Williams' treatment of Maxine Faulk. This extended to the spiderlike qualities of womankind that Williams attributed to Maxine. Under Huston's treatment, the ending was changed. After all, he "liked the girl" and "didn't see any reason for an unhappy ending." 8 Even considering their difference of opinion, Williams never accused Huston of damaging the work. Huston's touch is clearly evident in the film. 137

As in other films, he concentrates on a group of isolated losers. Being pursued by Charlotte, Shannon, like other Huston heroes, tries to "demonstrate his strength and independence from the sexuality and emotion a woman repre sents." 9 Both Maxine, an earthy woman, and Hannah, who lives in a kind of fantasy world, are seen to be appealing to Shannon. Shannon must decide between the practical and fantastic. This choice is a constant theme in Huston's works. Another choice Huston finds difficult to make is the one between illusion and reality. However, Huston generally resolves the conflict in favor of the practical and real. In the area of animal imagery, Huston, like in Moby Dick, chose to accentuate a specific animal. In this case, it was the iguana. 10 What attracted John Huston to the play was the moving nature of Nonno's poem as well as Shannon's symbolic execution. For the director, the old man's poem expressed the mood for the whole work. The overall theme, according to Huston, concerned "loose, random souls trying to account for themselves and finally being able to do so through love."11 All in all, he easily handled Williams' somewhat erratic and extravagant characters. This gentle touch produced a "wildly hilarious farce with tragic overtones." 12 Upon completing the film, Huston commented that "it is the easiest picture I have done in years. It's almost too easy."13 He also added that "to me it smells good. You get a sense about these things and this one looks really good."14

Conclusion The film "is that fine rarity, an improvement on the play. Everything good has been retained and re fined."l5 Bosley Crowther's review of the film was not as ecstatic as the Newsweek one above. To Mr. Crowther, Tennessee Williams wrote, in his play, about the diffi culty of communication between individuals. Compared to this, he felt it "ironical that the film John Huston has made from it has difficulty in communicating, too." 16 Another reviewer stated the original play "while shoddy, is not nearly as vulgar or obvious as Mr. Huston's movie of it."17 Debuting to mixed reviews, the film did succeed at the box-office. The adaptation, due to the MPAA Code Commission, required a few alterations. First, it is evident that Shannon and Charlotte did not consummate their relationship. The stage version, as opposed to the film, left no doubt in the audience's mind as to what had transpired between the two. Secondly, Hannah, in talking about the salesman, was forbidden to say that he took "satisfaction" in holding her garment. These two minor changes were all that was required by the commission and, fortunately, the adaptation was not marred. 18 All in all, this film adap tation went smoothly and was relatively well-received Shot on location in Mexico, there were no major problems. At the completion o£ the film, John Huston said it was the "£astest picture I ever made. Everyone adored them selves and one another."19

I 140

ENDNOTES

1. Gene D. Phillips, The Films of Tennessee Williams (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 19BO), p. 282. 2. Ibid. , p. 289. 3· Ibid. , p. 297. 4. Ibid., p. 299. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. , p. 298. 7. Gerald Pratley, The Cinema of John Huston (Cranbury, N.J.: A. S. Barnes and Co. Inc., 1977), p. 144. 8. Ibid., p. 142. 9. Stuart Kaminsky, John Huston: Maker of Ma ic (Boston: Houghton M~ff ~nCo., 197 , p. 159. 10. Ibid., p. 159-160.

11. Pratley, p. 143. 12. Ibid., p. 145. 13. Kaminsky, p. 158. 14. Ibid.

15. "Tropical Blooms," review of The Ni~ht of the Iguana, Newsweek, 13 July 1964, p. 5. 16. Bosley Crowther, "The Night of the Iguana," New York Times, 1 July 1964. 17. Edith Oliver, "Let My Iguana Go," review of The Night of the Iguana, The New Yorker, 15 August 1964. 18. Phillips, p. 297. 19. Ibid. This Property is Condemned

Willie: I'm going to live for a long, long time like my sister. An' when my lungs get affected I'm going to die like she did--maybe not like in the movies, with violins playing- but with my pearl earrings on an' my solid gold beads from Memphis. CHAPTER 6

THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED

Background o£ the Plax Written as a one-act, This Property is Condemned was first published in Twenty-seven Wagons Full o£ Cotton and Other One-Act Plays in 1946.

Synopsis and Main Characters This brie£ one-act deals with Willie, the thirteen year old child/woman. Walking along, trying to balance on the railroad track, she wears lipstick, rouge, and rhine stones while carrying a beat up old doll. It is in this fashion that she meets the young boy Torn who is playing hooky £rom school in order to £ly his kite. During their conversation, she tells him about · Alva and exposes her current living conditions. Deserted by her parents, Willie lives on the fantasy li£e o£ her beloved older sister Alva. Alva died o£ a lung infection and now Willie lives alone in the condemned old boarding house which once boasted parties £or the railroad men who used to pass through. Throughout the piece, Willie comments on the train whistle and the milky whiteness o£ the sky. The sky re minds her o£ a clean piece o£ paper upon ·which she dreams

142 of reliving Alva's life. Willie exits, back the_way she came, singing Alva's favorite song "My Blue Heaven."

Synopsis of the Film The synopsis of this particular film is included due to the extensive plot and character additions. Tennessee Williams' brief one-act is used to introduce and conclude the action of the film. The action of the film revolves around the entrance of Owen Legate. He arrives by train in Dodson, Mississippi and is forced to jump when the engineer refuses to stop. Unhurt, he proceeds to the Starr Boardinghouse where he meets young Willie and Hazel, her mother. Owen is given the room of Willie and Alva's father, who deserted the family. At this point, Alva arrives and joins the birth day party for her mother. Owen and Alva spot one another across the room. Back in Alva and Willie's room, Hazel sponges down Alva to cool her. She tells her daughter how impor tant it is to be nice to Mr. Johnson, the conductor who rents their largest room. Instead, Alva wants to leave Dodson. It is her dream to design clothes and visit New Orleans. The next day Owen takes a walk around the town. He spots Willie at Vacation Bible School and she joins him on his tour. As owen goes into the drugstore to buy Willie an ice cream cone, she is confronted by a group of 144

schoolboys who came to the boardinghouse the night before yelling for Alva. Willie beats Lindsey, the leader, with a stick and Owen, upon exiting the store, shoves an ice cream in his face. Later, Owen is seen at the railroad office pre paring to lay off some men. In his job with the railroad, Owen must reduce the work force due to the Depression. At the same time, Willie is seen watching the trains pass by filled with vacant eyed vagrants. That evening at the boardinghouse, Willie asks Alva if the men she associates with love her. Alva says that it does not seem that way. Not wanting to go out with Mr. Johnson, Alva is slow in getting ready for the evening. To Hazel, Mr. Johnson is their "ace in the hole" and she does not want Alva to mess it up. Leaving Mr. Johnson waiting on the porch, Alva follows Owen to the mailbox where he is mailing more pink slips. They argue about Mr. Johnson. Owen tells her she needs to be her own girl while Alva argues that she is not everybody's property. Irritated, Alva runs back to the house and suggests to the boarders that they all go skinny dipping. Owen declines. Once in the water, Alva is unable to sustain her mood. Trying to get off by herself, she is confronted by J.J., her mother's boyfriend who has the hots for her. He tells her the real reason that Owen is in town. Alva runs to the boardinghouse and confronts Owen. He tells her that if the town has to shut down, she will have an excuse to leave, and leave a town which she has always wanted to but never done. It is at this time that Owen kisses her and she responds. The pink slips Owen mailed have gotten around town and everyone is upset. Willie says she did not know Owen was such a fink. Alva meets Owen at the freight office where he is working. The men glare menacingly at the two some and Owen tells her she should not have come. Alva takes him to an old railroad car. She shares her fantasy of leaving but Owen tells her that there are real trains that can take her away. Meanwhile, Hazel has concocted a deal with Mr. Johnson. In their arrangement, he agreed to set them up in Memphis in exchange for Alva's personal attention. When Hazel tells her daughter about the deal, Alva refuses to agree. Later, Owen overhears Hazel on the phone talk ing about Mr. Johnson. She knows he is listening and says, for his benefit, that Alva is excited about their impending move. Angry, Owen confronts Alva and tosses a ticket to New Orleans, which he had purchased for her, at her feet. As he walks out, he says she is just a dreamer. After Owen leaves, Alva gets drunk at Moon Lake Casino with Hazel, Mr. Johnson, and J.J. Alva turns on J.J. and demands that he chose between her and her mother. To Hazel's amazement, he picks Alva. Alva demands that he marry her and he readily agrees. They leave the others in 146

shocked silence. Alva is next seen in a motel room with a sleeping J,J, She rifles through his pockets for money. Taking the money and marriage license, she leaves. At the train sta tion, she purchases a ticket for New Orleans and boards a dirty train filled with impoverished people. Once in New Orleans, she walks around the French Quarter. She and Owen spot each other and, as Owen moves toward her, she runs. Finally, they meet at the pier and begin talking. She moves in with him and they share a few happy days. It is not until Alva sends Willie some post cards that Hazel knows where her daughter has gone. She arrives and, although Alva pleads with her, spills the news about Alva and J.J. Alva runs out into the rain and Owen, cursing Hazel, follows. The final scene of Alva shows her back in Dodson. She is in the train station attempting to pick up a young salesman.

Changes from Stage to Screen: Character Alva Starr In the film, Alva enters "dressed in a dress so lovely it almost belies her connection with this household." She is described as having a "young, natural beauty that must appear goddess-like in a small town such as this." Everyone in the boardinghouse has been antici pating her arrival and, with her entrance, the birthday 147

party for her mother is enlivened. Alva, in the one-act, does not have a potential savior like Owen and she does not dream of escaping to New Orleans. While dying, she real izes that the men have deserted her like "rats from a sink ing ship." Alva's dreams center around leaving Dodson. New Orleans is the city she sees as the perfect escape, especially during Mardi Gras. She talks about designing her own costume "out of black shiny sequins, so my skin'll look white against it and I'll glitter when I walk and sparkle when I dance." Furthermore, she will never know the masked men and "they'll never know who I am .•• and I'll dance and dance and dance ••. " Despite her dreams, Alva finds it hard to actually leave Dodson. Owen tells her that "it' 11 take more than gentleness ... to get away from here." Alva is already suffering physically. Unable to breathe, she thinks that when "God breathed the breath of life into all of us, he didn't breathe enough into me." This sensation of not being able to catch her breath also relates to her feelings of entrapment. Alva assumes that Owen has never "had that feeling ..• of not being able to breathe" because he has never "been stuck anywhere." While in Dodson, Alva has several attacks but, once she escapes, they end. Alva also suffers from the heat. Early on, she tells Willie that she cannot find any place cool. When Hazel wants her daughter to be nice to Mr. Johnson, she sponges Alva down to cool her off. Alva asks Owen if he knew that "there is a fire in the center of the earth an' it burns for all eternity." In contrast, she points out that in space "it's so cold it's a hundred thousand degrees below zero." Alva, like the core of the earth, is on fire. Her dreams keep the flame burning within her. The trouble Alva has is being herself. Al though the men do not treat her right, she does not stop seeing them. When Willie asks Alva if the men love her, Alva responds by saying "I guess they're supose to--but- it sure don't seem like." Despite this bad luck, Alva still talks about how wonderful it will be when she gets married. Owen tries to make her understand. how important it is not to be everyone's "property." At first, she re jects his views. She says "just because some people like me, that doesn't mean I'm everybody's property." Alva's life is full of dreams. Reality does not often match the world Alva has created for her self. For example, the fantasy she shares with Owen about the faded old railroad car is nowhere near the same as when she actually rides on a real train. The real train, with its dirt and poverty, is not like the gentility and class of the old one. Upon meeting Owen, she tells him about going to the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. She later confesses that she had never actually been but that a man once brought her a menu from the hotel. To Owen, she 149

states "I felt like I was there ... which is just as good as bein' there." Another example of Alva's daydreaming is the little glass ball which, when shaken, snows. The glass ball is everything that her own life is not. It is white, cool, and represents a world beyond the small town of Dodson, Mississippi. During their one major argument, Owen yells at her that "the snowstorm's a fake! ... but it's enough for you ... Be cause you're a fake Alva! " When suffer ing from the heat, Alva spends time gazing at the miniature snowstorm and imagining what it would be like to be cool. The film, as opposed to the play, shows Alva achieving her dream. Brief though it may be, she is provided with a chance. When she and Owen finally meet in New Orleans, Owen stares at her because he has "never in my life before, met someone whose dream had come true." To Alva, the concept of the moss and trees symbolizes her dream. She says that "sooner or later the trees die under those robes of moss." Although Owen tells her that the destruction takes a long time, Alva does not understand why having to choose must be so terrible. After all, she adds that the "moss is so lovely--but the tree, too, is .. ,"

Owen Legate As a character, Owen Legate is too good to be true. Purely a creation of the screenwriters, no char acter like Owen appears in the one-act. The stage's Alva, 150

as opposed to the screen's, does not have a savior. Owen's last name symbolizes his position. A legate is "an envoy or ambassador, especially one officially representing the Pope." Owen's official mission is as an employee of the railroad. His job is to lay off a certain number of rail road workers. However, on an unofficial level, he provides Alva with an escape route and a chance at love. Willie believes that Owen, unlike the other men, would honestly love Alva. Described as "lean, well built with a pleasant and quick smile," Owen seemingly has no faults. He makes his own bed and, unlike most of Williams' char acters, has no fears, phobias, delusions, or dreams. Rooted firmly in reality, he has no need to. fantasize. Life, as he says, is "just living ... sometimes good ... some times not so good ... it adds up ... and I like it." When Alva shares her fantasy about the faded old railroad car, Owen tries to make her understand that "there are real trains ... trains that go." Upon his arrival, Owen is given the room of Alva and Willie's father. The father, who deserted the family years earlier, is still revered by his daughters. They look upon him as an adventurer. Putting Owen in his room signifies that he will take the father's place in Alva's affections. In this way, Owen tries to help Alva change from a little girl to a mature woman. Astonishingly perfect, Owen never falters 151

in his acceptance and understanding of Alva's past. He has no qualms about becoming involved with her. When Alva appears in New Orleans, Owen accepts her arrival without question. Together for several blissful days, Owen assumes that Alva will become his wife. They do not discuss the problem which split them up in the first place. When Hazel arrives with the truth, Owen curses her. He still does not seem to have any second thoughts about Alva as he follows her out into the storm. Owen's love for Alva is intense and unfailing. Even though some of Williams' characters might have finally accepted Alva, there would at least have been some evidence of an inner struggle. Owen also holds no enmity for the railroad men who beat him after he issues their pink slips. Unlike the men, he manages to keep his job and, by the end, has prospects for better employment in Chicago. Even in the midst of a nationwide depression, nothing seems to touch him or get him down. What eventually happens to him is un known. Trailing into the rain after Alva, he is never seen or heard from again. Based on his past actions, one can assume that he will lead a relatively normal life, with little or no regrets.

Willie Starr Willie, one of the main characters in the one-act, becomes a minor character in the film. She is described, in the one-act, as a "remarkable apparition-- 152

thin as a beanpole and dressed in outrageous cast off fin ery." Only about thirteen and despite her costuming, there is "something ineluctably childlike and innocent and with a sort of precocious, tragic abandon." Named Willie because she was expected to be a boy, she manages to survive on her own. Willie's goal is to be like Alva, her older sister. She views Alva, who she considered "The Main At traction," more as an idol than a sister. Apparently, Alva continued to care for Willie after their parents de serted them. With Alva's death, Willie inherited all of her belongings. As she says, "everything Alva's is mine." This includes her clothes, jewelry, and beaux. Deserting the dying Alva like "rats from a sinking ship," her old beaux have now taken up with Willie. The dress Willie wears and the doll she carries is shown, in the film, to have belonged to Alva. When she had them, they were new and clean. In the one act, Willie addresses the doll as "Crazy Doll." She tells Tom that "most of her brains spilled out." Like Willie, the doll has been "acting silly ever since. Saying an' doing the most outrageous things." Willie has transferred her own feelings about her new lifestyle to the doll. Willie also tells Tom about the corsages she has been receiving. Withered when brought home, she tells him how to "stick 'em in a bowl of water to freshen 'em up." Like Alva, Willie's light will probably shine 153

brightly for a little while and then fade. Willie has no delusions about her death. When it is time, she is going to die like Alva did. She says, "maybe not like in the movies, with violins playing--but with my pearl earrings on an' my solid gold beads from Memphis." In the film, attention shifts to Alva. Willie is seen in the background and, by the end, she is not even mentioned. Her loyalty to Alva is seen, in the film, when she tries to chase off a group of boys who have come looking for Alva. Later, when these same boys try to harrass Willie, she whacks their leader with a stick. Al though Willie struggles to protect Alva, she does not seem to do much fighting for her own future. She falls easily into a way of life which destroyed Alva. Willie informs Owen that the "ol Booze's got me." She thinks maybe booze, which took "papa all right •.. clear out of Dodson," could do the same for her. Besides the dress and doll, Willie exhibits other characteristics similar to Alva. When Owen plans to leave Dodson, Willie informs him that she wants to go. She closes her eyes just like Alva does when she is dreaming. Before this, Hazel catches Willie with a group of little boys. Willie says they would not play with her unless she showed them "something special." Loneliness is the key to much of Alva's, and consequently Willie's, actions. The parties, men, and trinkets are an escape from their isola tion. Torn, in the one-act, asks Willie if she will dance 154

naked for him like she did for an acquaintance of his. She says no because "I was lonesome theh an' I'm not lonesome now."

Hazel Starr In the one-act, Alva and Willie's mother is the first to desert the family. The film more fully devel ops the character of Hazel. She is described as being "in her late thirties" while still retaining much "of her full blown beauty." It is her birthday that the boarders are celebrating when the film opens. Unlike her daughters, Hazel lives in the real world. Her goal is to be taken care of by some prosperous or semi-prosperous man. Unable to secure it for herself, she tries to use Alva, whom the men are attracted to, as bait. Hazel is not only manipu lative but, unlike most of Williams' females, mean spir ited. A survivor more than dreamer, Hazel plays on Alva's dreams. She uses the men's attraction to Alva for her own advantage while continually assuring Alva that she will soon have a chance to pursue her dreams. Hazel keeps telling Alva how important Mr. Johnson is to both of them. Trying to make a deal with Mr. Johnson, Hazel will tolerate no interference from Alva and Owen's burgeoning relationship. While attempting to manipulate her oldest daughter, she is soothing and gentle. But, when Alva re fuses to accept her arrangement with Mr. Johnson, Hazel 155

turns on her. She tells Alva not to act innocent. Hazel purposely sabotages Alva's relation ship with Owen. First, she leads Owen to believe that Alva has accepted Mr. Johnson's offer. Later, when Alva and Owen are together in New Orleans, Hazel again interrupts their lives. Despite Alva's pleas, she fills Owen in on Alva's marriage to J.J. and feels no guilt about hurting her daughter. It is just the opposite. She blames Alva for ruining the deal with Mr. Johnson and marrying J.J. Her goal is simply to strike back. At the end, when Alva runs out into the rain, Hazel is not concerned. After all, as she tells Owen, Alva's "got no place to go."

The Men The men who appear as minor characters in the film are J.J., Mr. Johnson, and Sidney. Of these three, only Mr. Johnson and Sidney are mentioned in the one-act. J.J. Nichols, Hazel's boyfriend, has designs on Alva. He is described as a "swarthy man in his thirties" who is "handsome but with a malevolent, frightening qual ity." A boarder, he continually confronts Alva but she refuses to have anything to do with him. It is J.J. who tells Alva about Owen's real purpose in Dodson. When layed off, J.J. plans to move back to Oklahoma where his mother lives. His plans change one night at Moon Lake Casino. Mad at Hazel, Alva challenges J.J. to choose be- 156

tween them. In choosing Alva, he agrees to marry her. Later, Alva leaves J.J. on their wedding night and boards a train for New Orleans. After that, J.J. is not seen again. But, the truth about Alva's secret marriage to J.J. is what sends her out into the rain. Mr. Johnson, according to Hazel, is their "ace in the hole." Working as a conductor on a passenger train, he makes more money and rents the largest room in the boardinghouse. Although married, he is attracted to Alva who does not share the same feelings. Hazel senses Mr. Johnson's feelings for Alva and decides to use it for her own gain. She makes an arrangement whereby he will set them up in a house in Memphis in exchange for Alva's companionship. Mr. Johnson offers to set Alva up in a house of her own without Hazel. When Alva marries J.J., Mr. Johnson cancels his deal with Hazel. In the one-act, Mr. Johnson is the freight superintendent who, like the others, deserts Alva when she is dying. The last of the threesome is Sidney. A big, awkward kid, he truly cares for Alva. He is not seen in much of the film except for the night of the birthday party. In the one-act, Sidney is the only one of Alva's beaux to stay with her. After each run, he used to bring her a "great big heart shaped red silk box of assorted chocolates and nuts and hard candies." Despite his atten tion, Alva 9-id not care for Sidney because his "teeth was decayed so he didn't smell good." 157

Changes ~rom Stage to Screen: Symbolism Depression

The ~ilm, as opposed to the one-act which has no speci~ic time period, is set during the Depression. The Depression characterizes the real world which is slowly creeping into the city o~ Dodson, Mississippi. In one scene, Willie is shown watching the trains, ~illed with vacant eyed vagrants, pass. E~~ects, such as businessess closing, can already be seen throughout the town. Owen, with his pink slips, brings the ~irst tangible evidence of the turmoil to the railroad community. Any trouble with the economy of the railroad will have consequences for the inhabitants of the Starr Boardinghouse. However, it o~~ers Alva a chance to escape Dodson and pursue her dreams.

Boardinghouse The boardinghouse, in the one-act, is run down and decaying. It has already been condemned by the city. Willie tells Tom how she lives there but is not supposed to. To her, "the property is condemned but there is nothing wrong with it." The condemned house symbolizes Willie in her cast off finery and rhinestones. No one is willing to look beneath its dirty exterior to see if the house (and Willie) can be salvaged. The house, as seen in the ~ilm, symbolizes Alva. It is bright, busy, and full of hope. These ~eelings diminish as Alva gradually fades and 158

dies.

Trains Trains are seen and heard throughout the work. In both the one-act and film, Willie enters and exits while attempting to balance on the railroad tracks. A major mode of transportation during this era, trains are also involved in the appearance of Owen Legate. Legate not only works for the railroad but has come, during the eco nomic hard times, to lay off a bunch of railroad workers. The "Cannonball Express," which Willie describes as "the fastest thing on wheels between st. Louis, New Awleuns an' Memphis," is changed, in the film, to the "Honey Dew Express." The primary source of income for the Starr Boardinghouse is the railroad men. Located near the tracks, the house has been the stopping place for many men over the years. Alva and Willie's father even worked, be fore running away, for the railroad. He painted the num bers on the cars. To Alva, the trains represent an escape from her situation. She says, "I just wish sometimes that old express would jump right off those old tracks, right through the grass, right up here, right through me and carry me off to points unknown." Alva's unrealistic dream of life is seen in the faded old railroad car. One of the last cars painted by her father, she goes there to dream. It is a well pre- 159

served but faded and dusty old car. Instead of riding on a real train, Alva spends time imagining what it would be like. When, near the end, she actually rides a real train, she is shocked. Not at all like the genteel old car of her dreams, everything and everyone is dirty and impoverished. The final scene in the screenplay, which was cut in the film, shows Alva back at the Dodson train station. She attempts to pick up a young salesman. Being at the train station symbolizes how she has reverted to her old dreams. Having rejected her chance at the real world, she is once again dreaming from a position of secu rity. Back in Dodson and her old way of life, Alva need never face the real world again. Trains, in this way, can take you away but they can also bring you back.

New Orleans New Orleans is the town Alva constantly refers to in the film. To her, it represents an escape from her current situation. She dreams of designing her own costume for Mardi Gras. However, New Orleans is af fected, like the rest of the country, by the Depression. When Alva arrives in the Crescent City, it is not the city of her dreams. There are a lot of poor people and closed businesses. A man preaching at the curb cries out that it is "too late, brothers .•• too late." Another constant reference concerns the burying of the dead in New Orleans. Due to the flooding 160

(.l •

of the Mississippi River, before the levees were construc ted, the dead were buried above ground. This subject seemed to fascinate Alva. In comparing it to a regualr burial, she says that the "worst part of being buried under the ground is not being able to breathe." In the final scene, cut from the film, she tries to pick up a traveling salesman. When she learns that he is from New Orleans, she tells him that New Orleans is "where the dead are never ... quite buried." The dead, in this instance, may represent her past. Never able to bury her past to tally, it haunts her relationship with Owen. In not letting the past remain in the past, she reverts to her old ways.

Storm The weather, on the last day Alva and Owen have together, is stormy. It, like the climax, has been building. Hazel's arrival in New Orleans accompanys the storm. The storm began to threaten early in the day. While taking clothes down from the clothesline, Alva is scared by the thunder. Later, knowing she is frightened by thunder, Owen tries to comfort her. With the arrival of Hazel and the truth, the storm is transformed from a threat to an act of cleansing. After Hazel tells Owen the truth, Alva runs out into the rain followed by Owen. In the film, this is Alva's final scene. Although the film cuts back to Willie telling Tom about· 161

Alva's death, it is not known what happens to Alva between when she runs out into the storm and her death. Alva's final scene in the film script shows her back in Dodson. The actual film provides Alva with an ambiguous end. It is never clear, despite her death, whether she is cleansed by the storm.

Movies Movies are constantly referred to in both the one-act and film. Film, during the Depression, kept a financially and emotionally starved nation entertained. Willie reveres Alva like a matinee idol. She describes Alva as "The Main Attraction. Beautiful? Jesus, she looked like a movie Star!" Although Alva's death "wasn't like death in the movies" because "when somebody dies in the movies they play violins," Willie is no less star struck. Willie compares Alva's disease to Greta Garbo's in Camille. They both died of "lung affection." Alva, in the film, enjoys the movies but wishes, upon a second viewing, that the endings would change. Once, she and Owen view the 1932 film One-Way Passage starring a fatally ill Kay Francis who has a ship board romance with William Powell. Alva says, of the heroine, that it would be nice next time "if folks did like her and she didn't die?" This parallels her own situation. She would like to start over with a clean slate. It also provides some clues as to Alva's ultimate end. J.O.C:

Milky White Sky

A main component of the one-act is t~e sky which is described as being "milky white." Willie states that it "looks like everything had been swept off with a broom," Unlike the lifestyle that Alva once led and Willie now leads, the sky is "perfectly white." Willie compares the milky sky to a "clean piece of paper." In the film, Alva also comments on the whiteness of the sky. She, like Willie, sees the sky as a piece of paper upon which she can sketch her fantasies.

Light There are several references to light in the film. Alva objects to bright light. While on the porch with Mr. Johnson, she tells him to turn off the light because "that light attracts all kinds of things ... moths ... bugs .•. bats ... " Light, to Alva, illuminates too much un- wanted reality. Dreams, associated with darkness, do not always bear up under intense scrutiny. Another use of light is seen near the end. While Alva and Owen are together in New Orleans, Owen dis- cusses their future. During this time, candles are used which are "almost golden." Something that is golden is considered to be valuable, joyful, and flourishing. The term "almost golden" refers to Alva and Owen's relation ship. Together briefly, they will soon face the truth which Alva has kept hidden. A symbol used to illuminate both Alva and Willie's future predicament is the light bug. At the be ginning of the film, Willie nips the phosphorescent tail off of a light bug. She puts it on her finger to make a diamond ring. Having witnessed her actions, Willie tells Owen how "you gotta snip off his tail when he's lighnin' then he' 11 go on shinin' for a while anyhow." Like the tail of the light bug, both Alva and Willie will shine brightly for a brief period of time.

Changes from Stage to Screen: Theme Willie, in the one-act, sums up the theme while balancing on the railroad tracks. Wobbly, she refuses Tom's aid and tells him "it's no fair helping. You've got to do it--all--by yourself!" The railroad tracks repre sent life which will continue no matter what happens. Willie's balancing act is something everyone must experi ence. To everyone, and certainly Willie, life is not easy. She cries out "God, I'm wobbling! I don't know what's made me so nervous! " Since Alva's death, Willie's life has taken a new turn. Alva's beaux, who began returning after her death, are now Willie's. This particular journey on the tracks, like her new lifestyle, is the farthest she has ever gone "without once--falling off." Or, as she says, "it will be --if I can manage to stick on--to the next--telephone pole!" However, she is unable to continue and shouts 164

"Here I go!" as she falls. This shows that Willie, like Alva, is doomed. The central issue is not that Willie is doomed but that she faces life with dignity. Tennessee Williams does not think of his "little people as damned--not as long as they keep courage and gallantry." 1 He goes on to say that "these are very important Southern qualities, bred in the bones of the people I write about."2 A dominate idea is that of loneliness. As stated before, Willie tells Tom she will not dance naked for him as she did for his friend because "I was lonesome then an' I'm not lonesome now." This idea of loneliness comes through on film. Despite her mistreatment by the men, Alva would rather have their company than none.

Influence of the Director As a director, Sydney Pollack stated that "I do not understand why I have done any particular film, or what I have done with the material involved."J Wondering why, despite a good family life, the majority of his films do not have happy endings, Mr. Pollack remarked, "Maybe my unconscious is at work. Perhaps I am more pessimistic than I think I am." 4 This pessimistic view of Mr. Pollack's tends to center around "man's inability to cope and find meaning in an impersonal world."5 Furthermore, along with man's futile search for meaning, Sydney Pollack expands this to cover the fragile thread that exists in the various relationships between people. Concerning his second film This Property is Con demned, a recurring idea of Pollack's is examined. This deals with the concept that people do not learn from their mistakes. Neither are they able to understand the impact of their actions. Alva and Willie are two good examples. Seen at the beginning cavorting with a variety of railroad men, Alva returns to her doomed lifestyle thereby passing up her one chance at happiness. As the younger sister, Willie witnessess Alva's fate yet is seen repeating Alva's mistakes. Despite Willie's description of Alva and her "gentlemen callers," Pollack basically felt and treated Alva as a whore. Setting is another area through which Pollack re flects the character's inner self. This can be seen in the New Orlean's graveyard. The burial above ground reflects her own inner turmoil about her past and her inability to let it stay buried. Pollack also painstakingly recreated numerous props and set pieces from the decade of the thir ties. The sets and costumes were historically accurate. Mr. Pollack's propensity for multiple endings is seen in the script but, due to pressure by the producer John Houseman, was cut from the final film. The original ending had Alva, once again in Dodson, Mississippi, trying to pick up a traveling salesman. Mr. Houseman insisted it be cut because there were too many endings. 166

Conclusion The general consensus of This Property is Condemned is that too little was spread too far. Tennessee Williams' original one-act was utilized as a framing device. The full length film, with its stereotypical characters, was considered to "surely be a Hollywood bred child" by Bosley Crowther in his New York Times review.? Onere viewer went so far as to say that the film and one-act "provide an unforgettable lesson in the difference between a poetaster and a poet, a hack and a dramatist." 8 Com menting on the work, Tennessee Williams said that it was "a vastly expanded and hardly related film with the title taken from a very delicate one-act."9 He goes on to say that "it was hardly deserving of the talents of Robert Redford and Natalie Wood. ~~ 10 The controversy about this film concerned Tennessee Williams' screen credit. Tennessee Williams felt that the film version elaborated his one-act way beyond its original concept. He asked that his name be removed from the credits. Eventually, a compromise was reached whereby the credits would read "Suggested by Tennessee Williams' one act play" as opposed to "Based on Tennessee Williams' one act play." This distinction is the basis for the inherent problems with the film. Instead of further developing the film script by adhering closely to the original work, the small one-act was used merely as a springboard. Although screen credit is given to three principal 167

writers, there were at least another dozen contributors. These writers tried to employ certain elements of Tennessee Williams'. For example, Moon Lake Casino, a favorite of Williams' in other works, is used in the film. Another comparison can be found in Alva and Willie's parents. Hazel, except for her mean-spiritedness, is similar to Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie. Both, deserted by their husbands, are left to look after their children. The fathers deserted their families and, despite this, are admired for adventurousness by their children. However, even with the implementation of these stock pieces, the poetic flavor and uniqueness of Tennessee Williams' dia logue, character, and plot is missing. 168

ENDNOTES

1. Gene D. Phillips, The Films of Tennessee Williams (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1980), p. 12. 2. Ibid. J. Vicki Piekarski, "Sydney Pollack," Close-Up: The Contemporary Director (The Scarecrow Press, 1981), pp. 15-16. 4. Ibid. s. Ibid. , p. 26. 6. Ibid., pp. 18-19. ?. Bosley Crowther, "This Property is Condemned," New York Times, 4 August 1966. --- 8. "Boardinghouse Reach," review of This Pro;erty is Condemned, Newsweek, 1 August 196 , pp. BJ-84. 9. Phillips, p. 130. 10. Ibid. The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore/

Chris: Oh, no, you're nobody's fool, but you're a fool Mrs. Goforth, if you don't know that finally, sooner or later, you need somebody or some thing to mean God to you, even if it's a cow on the streets of Bombay, or carved rock on the Easter Islands or-- Mrs. Goforth: You came here to bring me God didn't you? Chris: I didn't say God, I said someone or something to-- Mrs. Goforth: I heard what you said, you said GOD. My eyes are out of focus but not my ears! Well, bring Him, I'm ready to lay out a red carpet for Him, but how do you bring Him? Whistle? Ring a bell for Him? Huh? How? What? Chris: I've failed, I've disappointed some people in what they wanted or thought they wanted from me, Mrs. Goforth, but sometimes, once in a while, I've given them what they needed even if they didn't know what it was. CHAPTER 7

THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE/ BOOM

Background of the Play

The play, The Milk Train Doesn't Sto~ Here Any

~' is based on the short story, "Man Bring This Up Road," published in 1959. An early dramatization of the full-length play appeared at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy in July of 1962. Featuring Hermione Baddely and Paul Roebling, the play, directed by Herbert Machiz, was well received. For the first Broadway production, the two leading performers were retained. Successful performances were staged in Boston and Philadelphia before arriving in New York. Coinciding with the company's arrival on Broadway, New York was experiencing a newspaper strike. This doomed production opened January 10, 1963 and closed sixty-nine performances later. A second production opened on Broadway the follow ing January. This new production, starring Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter and directed by Tony Richardson, was not appreciated. The revised version lasted only five performances.

170 171

Synopsis and Main Characters The device employed in the play to move it one step from realism is a pair of stage assistants. They serve as scene shifters masking and unmasking the various playing areas. Dressed in a Japanese Kabuki style, they announce that the action will cover Mrs. Goforth's final days. The action revolves around the dying Mrs. Goforth who spends her remaining days dictating her memoirs. A woman in her late sixties with enormous wealth generated by four husbands, she has withdrawn from society. Located high on an island in the Mediterranean, Mrs. Goforth is surrounded by Blackie, her secretary, Rudy, her bodyguard, her doctor, and a variety of servants. By the time the play opens, she subsists on pills and brandy. When the doctor rolls a portable x-ray machine onto the terrace, she pushes it off. Stumbling up the mountain and onto the scene is Christopher Flanders. After ascending the hill, by way of the goat path, and being attacked by the guard dogs, he calls out for Mrs. Goforth. He has brought her two pre sents. The first, a book of his poems titled Meanings Known and Unknown, he hands to a servant. The second, a mobile he has made and titled "The Earth is a Wheel in a Great Big Gambling Casino," he hands to Blackie. At this time, Mrs. Goforth refuses to acknowledge his calls but watches him through binoculars. She orders Blackie to interrogate him and then 172

place him in the pink villino. Tired and hungry, Chris falls asleep after disclosing to Blackie that he has had a lot of experience with dying old ladies. He confesses that he has found it possible to offer them something closer to what they need than what they think they want. With Chris secreted in the pink villino, Mrs. Goforth invites The Witch of Capri, an elderly and equally tenacious matron, for dinner. It is through the Witch that she learns how Chris earned the nickname "Angel of Death." Well known among their social set, Chris gained his nick name by visiting many ladies immediately before their demise. They look in on the sleeping Chris and Mrs. Goforth removes a tray of food sent down by Blackie. Waking up hungry in the middle of the night, Chris wanders onto the terrace where he is beaten by Rudy and saved by Blackie. She takes him to her blue villino to talk but they are interrupted by Mrs. Goforth on the inter com. Mrs. Goforth has suddenly decided it is time to re cord the story of her first husband's death. As she re cites the story of how Harlan Goforth died while making love to her, she staggers onto the terrace, becomes dizzy, and almost falls over the railing. Blackie comes to her aid and prevents her from falling. Chris joins Mrs. Goforth, for the first time, the next morning. She still refuses to give him anything to eat. It is during this long conversation that both pre sent their opinions. Chris relates his desire to have 173

someone to care for while Mrs. Goforth keeps a little grass hut on the beach where she puts people to be forgotten. After attempting to proposition him, she suffers a serious coughing and bleeding attack. That night, Mrs. Goforth, wearing her best jewels, calls Chris into her room. Clinging tenaciously to life, she fears that her possessions will be stolen by the ser vants who have already begun taking valuables. In another attempt to seduce Chris, she undresses. For the first time, Chris properly hangs the mobile he brought for her and prepares to leave. Trying to encourage him to stay, she orders him some food but he refuses. He states his in tention was only to bring something that would mean "God" to her. To help her accept the inevitable. In anger, she states that she will go through what she has to alone. Moments later she asks Chris to help her into bed and not to leave. During her last moments, Chris removes the rings from her fingers. After she dies, he places them under her pillow while the stage assistants lower the flag and play reveille.

Changes from Stage to Screen: Character Mrs. Goforth The main motivational force behind this commentary on death, Mrs. Goforth remains basically the same in both the play and film. Her transformation from stage to celluloid was handled well by Tennessee Williams, 174 (.\ .

the screenwriter. As for her beginning, she states, in the play, that she was born between "a swamp and the wrong side of the tracks in One Street, Georgia." Her origins in the film are more vague. As she says, "I think it's safe to assume that I originated in the womb of my mother, with some assistance from a father unknown, on a day unknown, of a year unknown." The summer, which both the play and film cover, is Mrs. Goforth's last. She has traveled to her isolated island on the pretext of writing her memoirs. Her memoirs consist of her career as a "great international beauty" and the numerous husbands she has acquired. Al though she would never admit defeat to the grim reaper, she, nonetheless, senses the urgency of the .summer. How ever, she reassures herself that she could not possibly expire before meeting the publisher's deadline for her memoirs. Mrs. Goforth's impending death is prevalent throughout the piece. In the play, she thinks of herself as a race horse whose been "entered in just one race too many, even for me." She finds herself "wondering if I' 11- wake up the next day." Death, in the film, is represented by the continuous presence of the doctor who is constantly giving the gravely ill woman injections. On one occasion, after a severe attack, he hooks her up to some medical machinery. Despite her weakened physical condition, 175

Mrs. Goforth rallies against death. While hooked to the aforementioned machine, she decks herself out with an eye mask, ear plugs, and chin strap. Maybe in this way she can see no death, hear no death, and speak no death. It is also around this time that she pushes the portable x-ray machine over the cliff. As she says, "some awful thing has crawled up the mountain, this summer, and I've got to shove it off." Even her choice of the island fortress rep resents the ferociousness with which she clings to life. She has chosen to isolate herself on a rocky, barren island that has no warm welcome for any visitor, especially death. On her island, there is a flag. In the flag, a golden griffin appears on a black field. Mrs. Goforth has taken this figure for her emblem. The griffin is a mythical ani mal with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. This creature represents the power and tenacity in Mrs. Goforth. As stated in the play, the griffin is "a force in life that is almost stronger than death." Death is an old acquaintance of Mrs. Goforth's. She has, in her own words, escorted several husbands to the "eternal threshold." The most harrowing experience for her was the death of Harlan Goforth, her first husband. Although she was not unhappy with his de mise, the terror she witnessed in his eyes has remained with her throughout the years. In fact, her fear grew with the passing years and her degenerating health. More 176

recently, she has been unnerved by the deaths of three friends who went "like firecrackers going off, right to gether almost." In contrast to Harlan's death, she felt a great loss for Alex, the love of her life. Her last hus band, he was a young poet who had "a passion for altitudes far above sea-level." A mountain climber, even his death was poetic. He fell "five thousand feet down to his death ·n a field of snow." Chris, being a young poet and with an in tensity for life, reminds Mrs. Goforth of Alex. She gives Chris the samurai robe which Alex used to wear. Mrs. Goforth relates to the Witch how Alex used to dress up in the samurai robe and sword while she "would be as naked as Eve with a pearlhandled revolver." It is this desire which she attempts to recapture in her final scene with Chris. The war waged between Mrs. Goforth and Chris concerns the battle for life or, in other words, the acceptance of death. Mrs. Goforth wants desperately to retain her life but she will not be allowed to. The quan tity of life she senses in Chris angers her. She says that "for the first time in my life I saw more life in a person than I felt in myself." When Chris rejects Mrs. Goforth physically, she is even angrier. She cannot stand the de generation of her body due to ill health and old age. Chris asks how, surrounded by beauty, she can be a devil. In response, she tells him how "devils can be driven out of 177

the heart by the touch of a hand on a hand, or a mouth on a mouth." The irony in Mrs. Goforth's situation re volves around her disgust of pretension. She chooses to come to the island each summer in order to throw off all "social conventions and shams." However, it is Mrs. Goforth who uses every device or excuse to avoid the in evitable. She surrounds herself with an armed guard and watchdogs. She even worries more about the servants stealing her belongings. As Blackie sums it up, she is "more afraid of being robbed of her jewelry than her life." Her relationship to Chris is tinged with pretense. Excusing herself from a meeting with Chris, she sprays herself with perfume while informing Rudy to have an armed guard watch Chris at all times. After telling Rudy that Chris has been eagerly eyeing her jewels, she picks up her revolver and goes back to where Chris is waiting. The costumes worn by Mrs. Goforth reflect her present predicament. For most of the film, she is either seen in one of two colors. They are, of course, black and white. The only other color she is seen in is purple. Early in the piece, the tragicomic elements of her situation are shown. Outfitted with a bikini, beach robe, and a pair of harlequin sunglasses, she struggles to set up her sunbathing equipment. Of her death, Mrs. Goforth initially in- 178

forms Chris that she wants "to go forth alone." She be lieves that he "counted on touching my heart because you'd heard I was dying." Furthermore, she states that, in her case, he miscalculated because "the milk train doesn't stop here anymore." However, as death closes in on her, she re lents and asks Chris not to leave. As he slowly eases her into her final sleep, he gently removes the rings from her fingers. An admission of her acceptance, she allows him to continue.

Christopher Flanders In the screenplay, Tennessee Williams de scribes the character of Christopher Flanders as a "cross between a sincere (very off-beat) saint and a sincere con man." He arrives at Mrs. Goforth's fortress via the goat path. The film shows him rising from the sea, where he was thrown by the reporter, and struggling up the hill. A poet, with only one book to his credit, he has spent most of his time with old dying ladies. The name Christopher Flanders has a twofold symbolism of its own. Christopher can be shortened to Christ, a figure who offers salvation through faith and acceptance. Not perfect like Christ, Christopher, nonethe less, tries to bring to Mrs. Goforth what Christ attempted with humanity. The second half of Christopher's name rep resents death. It is based on the W.W. I poem "In Flanders Fields" by Lieut. -Col. John McCrae. Part of the 179

poem goes as follows:

"We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields."

Chris' name, therefore, represents both life and death. In the play, Mrs. Goforth refers to Chris as a :cat who will "purr at you one minute and scratch your eyes out the next." This comparison changes, in the film, to a race horse. She remembers once touching the "steaming hide of a race horse who had just won a race and was so hot that it stung my hand, the, the--tips of my fingers." To her, Chris has "the s arne animal warmth. " Chris is also referred to, in both the play and film, as "Mr. Trojan Horse" quest. Just like the Trojan Horse of classical legend, Chris infiltrates and weakens Mrs. Goforth's de- fenses--both physically and emotionally. Chris is associated, more so in the film than play, with water. At the beginning, he is seen to emerge from the sea. Thrown overboard, he loses all his luggage except the essential book of poems and mobile. Chris' next association with water comes in his scenes with the Witch. During their conversation, Chris places his head under a fountain. As his face drips and glistens, he rejects the Witch's offer to journey with him to Capri. Later,. with Mrs. Goforth, Chris runs into the sea and returns wet and gleaming to her side. It is in this image 180

that Mrs. Goforth notices his vitality. In the final scene, after Mrs. Goforth's death, he places her rings in his empty goblet. He then throws it all over the cliff and into the water. The only other liquid associated with Chris is milk. This is the first nourishment he receives since his entrance on Mrs. Goforth's island. Blackie places the milk in his sack and he drinks it "with passion." As he devours the milk, he dribbles some and eagerly licks it off his fingers. The milk provides Chris with sustenance. As he tells Mrs. Goforth, "you knew I was famished. What was it you offered? It was black coffee or else, and the else was nothing, was nothing else." Chris arrives at Mrs. Goforth's door tired and haggard. Mrs. Goforth tells him that his nerves are probably "gone through like your list of suckers." She does not want to be his next sucker. He tries to make her understand how some people get "panicky when they're not cared for by somebody" but that he gets "panicky when I have nobody to care for." Snooping, Mrs. Goforth goes through his meager belongings and comes up with an address book full of women who have died. When questioned, he states that he is "a man who has lost--many friends." Sitting by her bed while she dies, he re lates the story of the old man. While on his way to visit a Swami, he stopped at an isolated beach. There he met an old man who called out to him for help. He thought the 181

man was drowning but discovered that the man needed help to reach deeper water. He could tell that the old gentleman was in pain so he led him out in the water. After helping him overcome his panic, Chris said the "tide took him as light as a leaf." Before going, the old man gave Chris money. Chris turned over the money to the old Hindu. This experience showed him his true vocation. Although Chris deals with death and dying, his sense of self-preservation is powerful. Mrs. Goforth first notices this when he swims in the sea. She informs him that "you have more warmth in your body than most men have." Feeling herself weakening physically, she is envi ous of him. The quality he has "burns through the sleeve of your robe like radiation ... Yes, and your voice it vi brates in my ears, it's not so much like a voice, a sound, as it is a sensation."

Blackie Frances Black, better known as Blackie, changes from a lonely secretary to an "attractive and desperately lonely" secretary. In the play, she believes that "places go mad, it's catching, people catch it!" Personally, she feels she is "not dead but not living!" The film provides her with a "bit of a love story, one that has no future." The scene in which Blackie takes Chris, after Rudy's attack, to her room is expanded. The audi- 182

ence is shown a picture of her dead husband and her bottle of sleeping pills. After his entrance, Chris puts these items away and begins to brush her hair. For the first time, she begins to relax. It is a short respite because Mrs. Goforth buzzes her on the intercom. In this ill fated relationship, Chris tries to bring her the same thing as Mrs. Goforth--a relief from suffering. Blackie realizes, when he tells both she and Mrs. Goforth that each is the "kindest person he has ever known," that she is not unique. At least not in what would be considered a normal love relationship. Chris says he often says "the same thing to different people." So, in the film, Chris not only comes to help Mrs. Goforth but Blackie as well.

The Witch of Capri Of all the characters in the film, the Witch of Capri succumbs to the most drastic change. Female in the play, the Witch is transformed into a male on screen. Other than a sex change, the character basically remains intact. Mrs. Goforth summons the Witch's presence in her quest for information about Chris. It is through this character that Mrs. Goforth learns about Chris' past and nickname. As in the play, the Witch invites Chris to Capri. To Chris, the Witch is "the heart of a world that has no heart." The Witch is not afraid of Chris' reputa- 18)

tion because his heart, as he says, "pumps blood that isn't my own blood, it's the blood of anonymous blood donors." In fact, he wants to give Chris a party and take the curse off of him.

The bodyguard, in the play, wears a "semi military costume." Blackie alternates between calling him a "gangster's bodyguard" and a "drunk gorilla." It is Rudy who lets the "wild" dogs loose on Chris as he strug gled to climb the hill. Later that night, a drunk Rudy enjoys hitting and taunting Chris, who has staggered onto the terrace in search of food. This hulking presence is transferred, on film, into a "little person." A dwarf is cast as Rudy, the bodyguard. Of course, the emphasis on the physical aspects of his character are diminished. It is ironic that a wealthy woman who depends on a bodyguard to protect her isolation would choose someone of small stature.

Villagers The role and intensity of the villagers is expanded in the film. There is a great distance between Mrs. Goforth, in her fortress, and the poverty stricken village below. In adding to the role of the villagers, the isolated and fearful condition of Mrs. Goforth can be seen more clearly. 184

Mrs. Goforth is actually confronted by a group of townspeople. They insist that she provide money for the widow of a young fisherman. She refuses and de clares that the young man was attempting to rob her. Mrs. Goforth and Blackie are forced to close the library doors and "lock them as if fearful of an assault," Near the end, it is revealed that the young man Mrs. Goforth claimed to have killed in self-defense was actually invited in. Prob ably killed when he rejected her, Mrs. Goforth refuses to admit the truth. None of this is broached in the play.

The Rest Miscellaneous characters found in the film include the servants and reporter and cameraman. The ser vants play a role in both play and film. According to Joseph Losey, they are to "convey the luxury of the total service, as anonymous as pieces of furniture." The reporter and cameraman are two char acters which do not appear in the play. They are included to show the impenetrableness of Mrs. Goforth's fortress. They also serve to ferry Chris from the mainland to the island. When they discover that he, in fact, does not know Mrs. Goforth, they throw him overboard. It is with this inauspicious beginning that the character of Chris is first announced. 185

Changes from Stage to Screen: Symbolism Sea The setting is a villa in the Mediterra nean. In the play, Chris states that the Mediterranean sea is

"where the whole show started, it's the oldest sea in the Western world ... the Mediter ranean sea, which means the middle of the earth, was the cradle, of life, not the grave, but the cradle of pagan and Christian civilizations."

As opposed to the stage version, the film shows the island to be not only inaccessible but strewn with rocks and cactus. The beach Chris first steps foot onto is black.

Water~ the sea, is an ever present force. Chris is tossed off the reporter's boat into the sea. Everything but his sack, with the mobile and book of poems, sinks. He is left with only the essentials. The sea represents life. When Chris and Mrs. Goforth journey to the Oubliette, Chris dashes into the sea and returns to her "wet and gleaming." It is in this scene that Mrs. Goforth recognizes the intense life in Chris. A different perspective on the sea is seen from the villa above. Although the sound of the waves can be heard constantly, the view of the sea is deceptive. As Chris tells Mrs. Goforth, "when a wave breaks down there it looks like a fan, a white lace fan, but I bet if it hit 186

you--It would smash you against the rocks and break your bones." The sea, like life, can be hard and unpredictable.

Wind and its effects are also important to the action. This natural phenomenon occurs throughout the play and film. It is what powers Chris' mobiles, especial ly the one about the gambling wheel in a casino. The sea, and life which it represents, is also motivated by the wind. Wind, according to the dictionary, is a "natural movement of air parallel to the earth's surface." Figura tively, wind can be considered a bearer of information, such as an indication of future events. Imagery in the film is full of billowing curtains, dresses, robes, and the flag.

Earthquake Another addition to the film, which is not found in the play, is the damage resulting from an earth quake. Early on, Mrs. Goforth shows Chris where the bal ustrade was broken the week before. A symbol of her in evitable end, she is afraid of a "cliff with no balus trade." Chris tries to reassure her that "it wouldn't scare you a bit with me beside you." She refuses to place her trust in him. As they talk, in a later scene, Chris jumps up on the balustrade and balances like a tightrope 187

walker. This incident terrifies Mrs. Goforth. As her end is near, she allows Chris to lead her closer to the broken balustrade. Before reaching the end of the balustrade, she breaks away from him and falls. He carries her back to safety and away from the railing.

The sun has a greater role in the film. To the stage's Mrs. Goforth, the sun is "just a big fireball that toughens the skin, including the skin of the heart." Sun, in the film, is a force to be sought. Close to the end, she searches but cannot find the sun. Chris explains that the day is darker due to an eclipse. She seeks the light of the sun which is no longer on the terrace. In addition, Chris informs her that there is "no lower terrace to go to." The fading sun is used throughout the film to represent Mrs. Goforth's weakening condition. In the play, fog was employed to serve the same function. With the fog, Mrs. Goforth was the only one able to witness its approach.

Pink Villino The pink villino, in which Chris is placed upon his arrival, is filled with cherubs. In addition to the cherubs, there is a painting on the ceiling of Aphro dite. Aphrodite, set amidst a fair summer sky with billow- 188

ing white clouds tinged in pink and gold, is represented by a young and naked Mrs. Goforth. Blackie informs the sur prised Chris not to be "afraid of anything in the pink villa, or you're lost." The villino is the essence of Mrs. Goforth. It is soft but overpowering.

Oubliette The dictionary defines an oubliette as "a concealed dungeon having a trap door in the ceiling as its only opening." An oubliette is a place where people are put to be forgotten. Mrs. Goforth's oubliette is a pleas ant Polynesian hut by the beach. Far from being a con cealed dungeon, it is important in both the play and film. Chris, in the film, actually enters the building. Upon first entering, he looks around for skel etons. On finding none, he asks Mrs. Goforth if he could stay in her Polynesian hut for awhile. Later, he wonders how long he could stay in the hut without being evicted. He would like to live on shellfish and work on his "Boom" mobile.

Roman A familiar motif, seen throughout the film, refers to the ancient Romans. As in the play, Mrs. Goforth is outfitted in a peignoir that "suggests the robe of a Roman Empress." Later, in a scene not found in the play, she and Chris walk down a paved walk with busts of 189

Roman Caesars. They have been broken and eroded by the centuries. The Roman design is appropriate for Mrs. Goforth. She, like the Roman empire, was once a great and powerful entity. Despite the long reign of both, an end is inevitable. In both cases, the end is one of slow decay from within.

Oriental The Oriental mood is also prevalent in the piece. For her dinner with the Witch, Mrs. Goforth dons a Kabuki outfit and wig. Kabuki, or popular classical drama of Japan, depends first on the art and skill of the actor. The play takes second place. In Kabuki, the actor's tech nique follows a pattern of strict convention whereby the audience is well aware of every move about to be made. The actor earns praise and appreciation for the individual style brought to the time honored role. Kabuki drama is characterized by a good deal of formal posing and ges turing. It is appropriate that Mrs. Goforth wears a Kabuki robe for her dinner with the Witch. At this meeting, she learns about Chris' reputation as the "Angel of Death." The time honored drama she now plays out deals with her awareness that death has come. She must go through all the well known emotions which range from de nial to acceptance. The other Oriental symbol seen in the work 190

concerns Chris. After the assault by the dogs, Mrs. Goforth provides him with a samurai robe and sword. Sam urai were members, in feudal Japan, of a military class. They consisted of retainers to the great nobles. On giving Chris the sword, Mrs. Goforth says, "a man should be given the chance to defend himself if he wants to." Later, and nearer her end, Mrs. Goforth makes Chris take off the sword. She replaces it with a scarf. In his role, Chris must battle Mrs. Goforth. He fights to bring her acceptance of the inevi table but she, in taking away the sword, tries to remove his power. In replacing it with a scarf, she is attempting to negate his influence. It is appropriate that Chris is given the outfit of a warrior. Unlike Hannah, with the Oriental robe and soothing poppyseed tea, the Oriental in fluence of Chris is that of a fighter.

Monkey The monkey is a creation which does not appear in the play. Chris first meets the chattering mon key when he survives the assault by the dogs. He finds the monkey, straining at its chain to reach a pool of goldfish, in an agitated state. When Chris gives some water to the animal, it is quieted. The monkey's predicament parallels Chris'. Both are dependent on Mrs. Goforth's charity. She not only declines but refuses to provide Chris (and the monkey) with 191

food. Surprised that he did not grab a plate of food earlier, she tells him to "grab, fight, or go hungry! No thing else works in this world!" She also taunts him, like the monkey, with what she knows he wants. When he asks for a cigar, she baits him by saying that he must kiss her for it. He turns away and she appears next to him smoking a small cigar. She seems to enjoy tempting him and then stepping back to watch him struggle.

Games The house, in the film, is equipped with "every conceivable kind of game." These games, which do not appear in the play, represent the competition and sparring between Chris and Mrs. Goforth. Each one observes and estimates the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Even Blackie notices this propensity for game playing in Chris when she says, "everything you say or do is like you're playing a game." He responds that "games can be honestly played."

Mobiles The mobile Chris brings for Mrs. Goforth is titled "The Earth is a Wheel in a Great Big Gambling Casino." Mobiles, which aim to depict movement, represent the continual flow of life. As seen in the mobile, life is a game of chance and luck. In this situation, Mrs. 192

Go~orth's luck has run out. She has no more chances le~t. Chris is already considering his next mobile which he would call "Boom." As the waves crash on the rocks below, he calls out "Boom." Boom is the "shock

o~ each moment o~ still being alive."

Changes ~rom Stage to Screen: Theme The play is Tennessee Williams most protracted

commentary on the subject o~ death. This same ~eeling

comes through on screen. Mrs. Go~orth represents those

who ~ear and ~ight against death. Chris, on the other hand, aids the dying in accepting their situation. The

play and ~ilm do not revolve around the actual act o~

dying but rather the ~ierce struggle to come to terms

with the unavoidable. As Mrs. Go~orth puts it, "what's human or inhuman is not for human decision." During the course of events, Mrs. Goforth searches

for the meaning of' life. She realizes that "li~e is all memory except for each present moment that goes by so

quick you hardly catch it going," Furthermore, li~e con

sists of' going from "one goddarn ~rantic distraction to

another, till finally one too many ~rantic distractions leads to disaster and blackout." Although she has almost reached her "blackout," Mrs. Goforth still clings to what little life there is left. Accepting death is not only an acceptance of the inevitable but also an acceptance of the unknown. The main - 193

reason people are terrified of death is due to their fear of the unknown. The actual second of death is brief. Chris tries to allay Mrs. Goforth's fears by stating that "death is one moment--and life so many of them."

Influence of the Director With a background in theatre and film, Joseph Losey succinctly summed up his opinion on the subject--"I like theatre, I like films, these two things are my life, and almost entirely my life."1 Losey believes entertain ment to be anything that is so

"engrossing, so involves an audience singly or enmasse that their lives for that moment are totally arrested,· and they are made to think and feel in areas and categories and intensities which aren't part of their normal life." 2

In filmmaking, it is Losey's view that reality must be selective. Therefore, anything that does not have a specific purpose should be removed. By this process, mere observation becomes "illuminated" observation. Being a visual medium, objects must be carefully chosen for lack of redundancy and to present the viewer with more than what they could have seen for themselves. Losey took Williams' text to heart. In the film, he coordinated the camera movements to match the wind and waves, thereby communicating the feeling of nature. The 194 il .

house on the island he represented as a fortress while the crashing sea, billowing curtains, and terrace symbolized its isolation. As a resident of that domain, Losey decided Mrs. Goforth should generally wear white, as a bride, sometimes black, as death, and once purple. Losey had always liked Tennessee Williams as a writer. However, he considered the original play to be "very sprawled, undisciplined, and uncinematic."3 He felt Williams was concentrating more on a feeling about life and death as opposed to a specific point of view. In adapting for the screen, it was important to Losey to create images to match or supplement Williams' words. All in all, the film, for its director, was about "emotion, a film about music--the music of the sea, the music of words, and the musJ.c. o f J.mages." . 4 Losey originally wanted to cast Simone Signoret, Sean Connery, and Katherine Hepburn as the Witch of Capri. The producer, John Heyman, was persistent about Elizabeth Taylor who wanted to do something by Tennessee Williams. At first, Losey felt she was too young for the part of Mrs. Goforth but soon decided it would be more interesting if she was not old. Of his collaboration with the Burtons, Losey stated that, although they got along well, "the public that wanted to see my films didn't want to see the Burtons and the public who wanted to see the Burtons didn't want to see my kind of film ... 5 Conclusion Few changes take place in the adaptation, from I stage to screen, of Tennessee Williams' work. Essentially, the characters, symbols, and theme remain the same. De spite its lack of alteration, the film received no more critical success than did the play. Although following Tennessee Williams' original intent, it did not garner any attention. However, the film was successful in that it captured the essence of the play. This may be due to the fact that the playwright, as screenwriter, was closely involved in the production. The one area that weakened the intensity of the film was casting. Elizabeth Taylor, as the dying Mrs. Goforth, is much too young and healthy. Vincent Canby said that Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs. Goforth is "so plumply ripe and healthy looking, it seems only that she must be dying of some dread plot device."6 This youth works against the character of Mrs. Goforth. It robs her of intensity. Rather than having to accept the inevitable, a youthful Mrs. Goforth would fight about the unfairness of death at such an early age. The play revolves around the struggle of an old woman who has seen everyone else die and knows it is her turn. The opposite can be said of Richard Burton. Tennessee Williams summed up the problem by saying that "the female star was too young and too beautiful" while "the :r.1ale star was much too old and overweight."? Despite these few difficulties, the film is adapted 196

almost exactly from the play. In that Joseph Losey was able to transfer the characters, symbols, and theme to the big screen, the film can be considered a success. The lack of critical success may also stem from the fact that the subject matter dealt with was death. Mr. Losey found that "some people didn't like Boom! because it dealt with death, 8 a subject many of us don't like to confront." The di rector also felt that, because death is a recurring theme in Williams work, it is being overlooked. 197

ENDNOTES

1. James Leahy, The Cinema of Joseph Losey (New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1967), p. 11. 2. Ibid. J, Michel Ciment, Conversations with Losey (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1985), p. 276. 4. Ibid. , p . 2 78. 5. Ibid., p. 276. 6. Vincent Canby, "Boom," New York Times, 27 May 1968. 7. Gene D. Phillips, The Films of Tennessee Williams (Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press, 1980), p. 309. 8. Ibid. 198

Kingdom o£ Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle)/ The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots

Chicken: I guess you think that I'm hard. Well, I got to be hard. A man and his life both got to be equally hard. Made out of the same hard thing. Man, rock. Life, rock. Otherwise one will break and the one that breaks won't be life. The one that breaks is the soft one and that's never life. If one is the soft one, the soft one that breaks will be man, not life, no, no, not li£e!--that's rock ... yep--rock! Solid rock ... CHAPTER 8

KINGDOM OF EARTH (THE SEVEN DESCENTS OF MYRTLE)/ THE LAST OF THE MOBILE HOT-SHOTS

Background of the Play The play began as a 1954 short story titled "The Kingdom of Earth." The next stage in its evolution was a one-act, of the same name, published in 1967. Expanded and under the new title of The Seven Descents of Myrtle, the full length play opened March 27, 1968. The New York Production, under Jose Quintero's direction, opened to mixed reviews. The cast consisted of Estelle Parsons, Harry Guardino as Chicken, and Brian Bedford as Lot. Most of the critics felt the characteri zation of Myrtle to be the major interest of the play.

Synopsis and Main Characters The plot revolves around Chicken, his half-brother Lot, and Lot's new wife Myrtle. Occupying the kitchen, Chicken, the dark skinned older brother, works the farm. In contrast, Lot, the effeminate, bleached blond sibling who is dying of consumption, remains in his mother's bed room upstairs. Continually going up and down the stairs between the two brothers is Myrtle, the crude but warm wife of Lot. The story opens with an impending flood. Against

199 200

this backdrop, Lot and his new bride Myrtle return horne. They met after Myrtle stumbled onto a television stage and became "Queen-for-a-Day." Later, Lot, who was in the audi ence, introduced himself and they were married on tele vision the next day. Lot's intention in marrying Myrtle was to keep the farm from going to Chicken after his death. Earlier, after the death of his mother, Lot found himself incapable of running the place. He lured Chicken, who had originally been run off by Lot's mother because he was one-eighth black, back by signing a legal paper willing him the place. During the play, Lot senses that he will die that night and sends Myrtle to get Chicken drunk in order to retrieve the legal paper. Myrtle entered her marriage not knowing about Chicken's existence or Lot's illness. Try ing to carry out Lot's request, Myrtle becomes more and more attracted to Chicken. In her conversion from Lot to Chicken, Myrtle re ceives salvation. This salvation is in the form of sur vival from the flood. Chicken has survived a previous flood. He received his name when he was stranded on the roof and survived by biting the heads off of chickens and drinking their blood. Finally, Chicken and Myrtle become intimate. It is not until afterwards that Chicken tells her he has colored blood. She is surprised but accepts his invitation to stay after Lot dies. This coincides with her dream of 201

wanting to settle down with a man she's strongly attracted to. While Chicken and Myrtle are becoming closer, Lot dresses himself in his mother's clothes, a blond wig, and hat. For the first time since returning home, he descends the stairs to the parlor. It is here that he crumples to the floor and dies. After seeing and confirming Lot's death, Chicken takes Myrtle and ascends to the roof as the flood approaches.

Changes from Stage to Screen: Characters Lot Lot Ravenstock suffers the most changes of any character in Tennessee Williams' last four adaptations. In the play, he is described as "a frail, delicately--you might say exotically.pretty youth of about twenty." Ten years younger than Chicken and Myrtle, Myrtle says that he has "skin, eyes, hair any girl would be jealous of. A mouth like a flower." He brings out the maternal in stincts in her and she calls him "baby." Dying of tuber culosis, Lot has made, by marrying Myrtle, one last attempt to wrest the property from Chicken. Earlier, after his mother's death, Lot needed his half-brother Chicken's help to run the old plantation. In exchange for his help, Chicken made Lot deed the property to him after his death. In the play, Lot is obsessed with his mother. He bleaches his hair blond like she taught him to 202

and uses her cigarette holder. Upon his arrival at the old homestead, Lot secrets himself in his mother's bedroom. Having gotten sick a month after his mother's death, he senses that he will not make it through the night. He be gins the transformation from himself to his mother by sitting in her rocker. It is a wicker rocker that "they have, or used to have, on verandahs of old-fashioned summer hotels in the South." At the end, he descends the stairs to his mother's little parlor dressed in a "gauzy white dress to conjure an image of his mother in summer." Smiling "as if on a social occasion," he crumples to the floor and dies. Obsessed by his mother and the past, Lot, in recreating his mother, gradually begins to lose his own identity. By the end, he has become his mother. James Coburn, who portrayed the character in the film, refused to play a transvestite. Worried about how it would affect his image as a masculine hero, he chose to emphasize the character's impotence. That way, Coburn f e lt th e c h arac t er h a d "more s1.gn1.. . f.1.cance." 1 However, by altering the character's predilection for wearing his mother's clothes, the significance of his actions is dimin ished. In the film, he has Myrtle wear one of his mother's old Mardi Gras dresses while he outfits himself in a Con- federate officer's coat. That is as close as he comes to being obsessed with his mother. In the play, Lot is so obsessed with his mother that he actually loses his grip on reality. Far from being young and ill, the film char- 203

acter's only outward appearance of frailty is his use of a wheelchair instead of a rocker. The name Lot Ravenstock has its own sym bolism. The dictionary states that a "lot" can refer to one's "portion in life" or to "a parcel of land in the cemetery." As a character, Lot has not had either a full or long life. Most of his time has been spent being ob sessed with his mother, Miss Lottie. However, due to his illness, Lot is not long for this world. He will soon take up residence in the family plot. Lot's name also has religious connotations. A nephew of Abraham, the Old Testament's Lot was a good man despite the fact that he lived in Sodom. When God decided to torch Sodom and Gomorrah, he sent two angels, disguised as travelers, to help Lot and his family escape. While fleeing, Lot's wife, disobeying the angel's command, looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Later, Lot's two daughters, through their father, repopulate their corner of the world. The stage's Lot, unlike the Biblical Lot, does not survive. It is he, and not his wife Myrtle, who looks back to the old way of life and is lost. Cleansed by flood and not fire, Chicken and Myrtle are left to repopulate their little corner of the world. Ravenstock has some symbolism of its own. The characteristics of a raven, according to the diction ary, are "to devour greedily" and "to search for prey and plunder." ·Diametrically opposed to this, Lot abhors ani- 204

malistic human behavior. Lot says that his father "had the taste of a hawg, who ate with his hands and wiped them on his trousers." He is no more like that than he is the Biblical Lot. All of this was cancelled, in the film, when Lot's name was changed to Jeb Thorington. In an ef fort to provide the character with a southern name, im portant symbolism was lost. The character is far from being like the flashy Confederate calvaryman Jeb Stuart. Wanting to refurbish the house "to look just the way it did in 1840," Jeb is obsessed with the grace and style of the antebellum period. This changes the character's original motivation. Lot is not as concerned about restoring the house to the antebellum style as much as he. is to the per iod when his mother was alive. In the play, Lot marries Myrtle in a last ditch effort to deprive Chicken of the property. He hopes to accomplish this by either producing an heir or by leaving a grieving widow. Lot was in the television audi ence the day Myrtle, telling her woes to the world, was accidentally made "Queen-for-a-Day." He asked for her autograph and made a date for that evening. On the date, he told her that he had been bitten by the "love bug" and asked her to marry her. They were married on television the very next day. Ill, Lot does not have any time to waste. He does not inform Myrtle about Chicken or his ill ness because, as he tells her later, "you might not've 205

come down here and I couldn't come down here alone." The film has Jeb and Myrtle marry on tele vision after a week. They meet while waiting in line for a television show (The Happy Couple) and become partners in a volleyball game on stage. The purpose of the game was to determine the couples who would have a chance to be married on the air the following week. An added incentive for Jeb was the $J,500 check that went along with his tele vision marriage. No mention of money is made in the play. In changing the time of the marriage from the next day to the next week, the nature of their relationship is al tered. They spend a whole week together before actually being married yet Jeb does not seem concerned about his failing health. He also does not worry that Myrtle might find out about Chicken and his illness and, consequently, change her mind. In contrast to Jeb, Lot, who considers himself to be a member of the social elite, would not be caught dead playing volleyball, especially on a mud court. Besides these areas, Lot also has his dark roots and, un like Jeb, motherly obsession to cover up. After securing Myrtle in matrimony and bringing her home, Lot does not have anything else to do with his new bride. He ascends the stairs to his mother's bedroom and remains there until the end. However, he does try to solicit Myrtle's help in retrieving the piece of paper in which he willed Chicken the property. Before he dies, Lot wants Myrtle to get Chicken drunk so that she can 206

snatch the paper. Or, as he says, "if you can't make him pass out to get that paper, knock him out with a hammer that's in the drawer of the kitchen table and don't come up here again without that paper." Apparently, all did not run smoothly on Lot and-Myrtle's wedding night and Myrtle, undaunted, in f'orms him that "a man is twice as nervous as a woman and you are twice as nervous as a man." This is because she considers him to be "superior to a man." Lot wants Myrtle to tell Chicken, if' he asks, that he is a strong lover. This has more to do with pride than with prowess. A trans vestite, Lot is not interested in sex. He tells Myrtle, after they have arrived, that "you've married someone to whom no kind of sex relation was ever as important as f'ighting sickness and trying with his mother to make, to create, a little elegance in a corner of the earth we 1 i ved in that wasn't f'avorable to it." Jeb's impotence is stressed in the film. As opposed to Lot, sexual prowess is shown to be very important to Jeb. When he is no longer able to function, his anger and humiliation increase. The feud, in the f'ilm, between the two brothers centers around their sex ual ability. As Jeb's ability declined, the rift between them widened. Actually, the relationship between Lot and Chicken was never close and, according to Lot's views on caste and class, could never have been. However, the re lationship developed on screen shows the brothers, in a 207

series of flashbacks, as enlisted men in the Army. They are seen to enjoy many women. Unfortunately, Jeb is re duced to watching Chicken with a garish looking blond. She laughs at Jeb as he stands in the corner observing the pair. The character, on both stage and screen, loses Myrtle to Chicken. On screen this emphasizes the character's impotent state while on stage it symbolizes his death. Chicken tells Myrtle that "Lot baby bleeds. He bleeds like a chicken with its head chopped off, I'm Chicken, he's headless Chicken." In the film, as opposed to the play, Jeb also loses his mother to Chicken. It is revealed, in a strange plot twist, that Jeb's mother is Chicken's as well. In fact, she wanted Chicken to have a chance at the property which belonged to her and not her husband. To accomplish this, she stipulated in her will that, upon Jeb's death, the property would go to her next of kin--namely Chicken. Shocked at the revelation, Jeb is overcome by a coughing fit and dies. This mother is far removed from Miss Lottie who ordered Chicken, after the death of his father, off of the property. Jeb's death is related to this shocking turn of events rather than by losing his grip on reality. Even in Jeb's death, the sig nificance of Lot's character is diminished. All in all, the screen character is hardly recognizable as the Tennessee Williams original. Lot is young, frail, pretty, snobbish, and has a mother complex. 208 0 .

None of these characteristics are clearly seen on film. They may be hinted at but none are elaborated. For exam ple, Jeb is shown to avoid life's unpleasantness by simply donning tinted glasses. Also, the film shows Jeb's mother complex to stem from childhood when he was nursed by a black woman. It indicates that his mother was domineering and distant. Jeb, as opposed to Lot, is also seen to drink and, in fact, is tossed out of a bar. Drunk, he rolls around on the sidewalk. Dignity and pride, of which Jeb is not too concerned, are very important to Lot.

Myrtle Myrtle is characterized as "a rather fleshy young woman, amiably loud voiced" who "is a good natured thing--almost ridiculously so. She has nothing else to meet the world with but good nature." Although not a steady churchgoer, she never fails, when perplexed or con cerned, "to appeal to my Savior and, knock on wood, He has never let me down." Myrtle is a survivor and, luckily, she is not bitter. About herself, she says that "in my life I've taken the sweets with the sours, and it's been smooth as silk in my experience and other times rough as a cob." Despite the hard times, she proudly claims to have kept her "haid" above water and "rowed" her own boat. She is amazed at the good fortune which landed her the titles, all in two days, of "Queen-for-a-Day" and Mrs. Lot Raven stock. 209

While sitting in Miss Lottie's parlor, Myrtle recounts her show business days. Once a member of a group titled "The Four Hot Shots from 1\:obile," Myrtle is the only one left. The rest all experienced a tragic end. One, "The Statuesque Beauty," was mutilated and murdered, the second, "The Gulf Coast Blaze," died after an illegal abortion, and the third, "The Texas Explosion," killed her self by devouring a bottle of sleeping pills. An earlier member, "The Midnight Storm," became hooked on drugs and was asked to leave the group. Myrtle was billed as "The Petite Personality Kid" and, as she says, "it's my person ality that I sell to the public--mainly." Although her luck came "mighty close to petering out once or twice," she claims that what saved her was "character." Myrtle is fascinated by Lot who. is "the first, the most, the only refined man in my life." To her, he is pretty and, therefore, she treats him as her "baby." She informs him that he "touched the deepest chord in my nature which is the maternal chord." When Myrtle finds out about Lot's illness, she vows to "devote myself to you like a religion, mystery as you are." It is also her in tention to exorcise his mother complex. She tells him how she is "gonna get that out of you, Lot, cause I'm not just your wife, I'm also your mother, and I'm not daid, I'm livin' . " Rushing into marriage, Myrtle does not realize until later what problems Lot has. After finding out that he is only using her in his war with Chicken, she is mad. 210

Myrtle tries to make Lot understand that "there's not just you, there's me. The selfish streak in your nature is wide as the river--flooding!" Myrtle, in both the play and film, is naturally drawn to Chicken. Their desire for life is of equal intensity. In the past, Myrtle resorted to pills. She tells Chicken how she is a "warm-natured woman. You might say passionate, even. A Memphis doctor prescribed me a bottle of pills to keep down the heat of my nature, but those pills are worthless." Myrtle dreams of settling down with a man she is strongly attracted to and Chicken fills the bill. Their relationship is aptly summed up by Myrtle when she says that she has "always been weak corn pared to men, to a man. I think that's natural." She is willing to follow Chicken's lead. On one of her numerous trips down the stairs, Myrtle says that she should not "go down there after the way he mocked me but I smell fried potatoes which is something I cain't resist." To this statement, Lot replies "if you didn't smell fried potatoes you'd smell chicken." Before long, she realizes that Chicken, and not her husband, is her only hope for sur vival. Her husband is not concerned with her survival anymore then he is his own. At first, Myrtle thinks that Chicken, with all his doom and gloom information about the flood, is attempting to frighten her. When Chicken learns that Myrtle is afraid of water, he constantly teases about 211

leaving her behind. In the beginning, she does not take him seriously but, as the play progresses, she becomes slightly unnerved. As she tells Chicken, "this has been a day an' a night that would make any girl nervous with or without nerves in her." What, in the play, was intended as teasing is transformed, on screen, into a serious threat. Instead of using the teasing to determine Myrtle's character and stamina, Chicken is serious and Myrtle is seriously worried. The stage repartee between Myrtle and Chicken determines the roles they will play in their future life together. A light touch is needed to illumin ate their budding relationship. In summation, Myrtle, like Chicken, is a survivor. Although Lot's wife, she will not be caught looking back and becoming the proverbial pillar of salt. When Lot tells her that it is the end of the world, she lashes out saying "don't talk to me about the end of the world, I haven't come to it yet and don't intend to." Myrtle also survives the adaptation with only a few alter ations. First of all, Myrtle, to satiate her new hus band's obsession, agrees to wear one of his mother's old dresses. In the play, she is not trying to take his mother's place in his heart but she does want to rid him of his mother complex. Second, in casting a black actor as Chicken, it rules out the question, of whether Chicken is black, which has been ongoing in the play. The stage's Myrtle is unsure of Chicken's origins but she succumbs to 212

him anyway. Afterwards, Chicken tells her about his black mother and Myrtle reacts with the "typical southern lower class dread and awe of Negroes." If Chicken is obviously black, it takes some of the impact out of their relation ship. In the film, Myrtle knows what Chicken is from the beginning. On stage, she must decide if she is willing to stay with him regardless of his background.

Chicken Chicken, like his younger brother, under goes a few major changes. He is described, in the play, as "a strange looking young man but also remarkable good looking with his very light eyes, darker than olive skin, and the power and male grace of his body." . Physically and emotionally, he is everything that his brother is not- strong. Chicken "seems a suitable antagonist to a flood ing river" and, while Lot ignores the impending disaster_, he welcomes the deluge. Not afraid of the flood, he looks on the positive side. Floods make the land richer and, consequently, more valuable. Chicken is concerned about the condition o~ the property he will soon inherit. Be sides, Chicken has survived floods before. He earned his name after one such flood when, ·stranded on the roof, he survived by drinking the blood of chickens. Chicken sees what Lot is attempting to do by marrying Myrtle. But, he uses the impending disaster as a tool to bring Myrtle over to his side. When Myrtle 21.3

asks Lot if' the house were "flooded, both floors, could you get me up on the roof'?," he knows that he has lost. He answers her by saying "Aw, Chicken has offered to get you up on the roof'." The feud between the brothers has been going on for many years. If it were not for the fact that he was incapable of running the farm, Lot would never have asked Chicken to come back. What further goads Lot is the fact that Chicken, whom he considers to be of a lower class, has all the attributes that he lacks. In Chicken, Lot sees strength, health, mental stability, con fidence, and defiance. As opposed to this, the film pro ceeds under the assumption that Chicken and Jeb have had a previous friendship. They are seen to have palled around as enlisted men and, at one time or another, shared vari ous women. Jeb's impotence is the only reason for the rift which has occurred between the two men. As for himself', Chicken tells Myrtle that he was "what they call saved, but it didn't last much longer than a cold in the head." He finds a "good deal of truth in the statement, the saying, that either you're 'saved or you ain't, and the best thing to do is find out which and stick to it." It is not Chicken's goal to de prive himself' of' what he wants most because it is useless to strain and struggle for "what they call salvation when it's something you're just not cut out for." When Myrtle tries to be sympathetic, he tells her to "Keep it, shove it, forget it. I don't want it. When you want sympathy, 214

then is when you're in trouble." In the play, Chicken and Lot share the same ~ather. Like ~ather like son, both Chicken and his

~ather are seen to have chosen the kitchen as their ~avor ite room. In addition, neither are they pretentious. This relationship, through some strange plot twist, is com pletely stricken ~rom the ~ilm. Instead, it is revealed that Chicken is actually the product o~ a union between

Jeb's mother and a black man. Conceived on the roo~top during a previous ~load, only Chicken knows the truth. It is this truth which, revealed at the end, leads to Jeb's ultimate demise. The purpose o~ this shi~t in plot is un known. It negates the hereditary in~luence o~ Chicken's

~ather and, there~ore, his choice o~ the kitchen as his residence.

In support o~ the plot changes, a black actor was cast in the role o~ Chicken. This casting can cels the issues and questions which were raised in the play. The reason ~or the question about Chicken's mother, in the play, concerns Chicken and Myrtle's burgeoning relationship. At ~irst, it is not clearly stated whether Chicken is part black or not. Still, Myrtle is drawn to him and he purposely waits until a~ter she has submitted hersel~ be~ore revealing the truth. He tells her that his mother "had colored blood in her. She wasn't black but she wasn't white neither, and that's why I'm dark com plected with ~reckled eyes." In this way, Myrtle has to 215 either accept him £or who he is or reject him based on the circumstances o£ his birth. None of this comes through on screen. In the film, when Myrtle accepts Chicken, she accepts him based on the fact that he is black. The ques tion, o£ whether she will choose to remain with Chicken, is still there but its social significance is lessened con siderably. After all, Chicken's father, in the play, lived with Chicken's mother £or ten years without the ben e£it o£ marriage. Consequently, Chicken is illegitimate. On the other hand, he married Miss Lottie, who had no negro blood, and produced one legal heir. Another change made in Chicken's character involves his popularity. Shunned by £olks for what colored blood he has or for what they think he has, Chicken says that he lives the "life of a dawg nobody owns and owns nothing." To Myrtle, he relates an incident in which he once politely invited a woman, whose date had gotten drunk and passed out, to join him at his table. Her response was "Nigger, stay in your place." To Chicken, life is full of "talk, suspicion, insult." When Miss Lottie kicked him o££ o£ the property, she told him she did not want her son "to be known as half brother to a nigra." This ostracism is not as noticeable in the £ilm. In £act, the opposite is true. Chicken is the one who is successful with women. The £lashbacks indicate that, although Jeb's function is faltering, Chicken has no problem with the ladies. This is a far cry £rom the play in which Chicken tells Myrtle 216

that he wants her to "produce a child for me ... I've always wanted a child from an all-white woman."

Changes from Stage to Screen: Symbolism The Flood The flood, around which the action takes place, is the same in the play as well as the film. Of course, at the conclusion of the film, Myrtle and Chicken are actually seen on the roof. From the beginning, the flood is a threat. Reminiscent of the Biblical flood, this one is also intended as a cleansing agent. However, in stead of covering the entire world, this fictional flood will only drench one region. Also, this flood, unlike its Biblical counterpart, is not a one time event. In the play, it is revealed that the house has already survived five previous floods. While man made objects, such as houses, do not fair well under water, mother nature reaps the rewards. Although flooding can be viewed as an act of cleansing, it can also be considered an act of nourishment and revitilization for the earth. Chicken says that floods "make the land richer." The purpose of the Biblical flood was to rid the earth of the wicked. Although Lot is not neces sarily evil, he does have a dark side which would not be accepted as "normal." What the screen's flood covers up is the old and decaying past. Jeb's obsession with the past is not so much "abnormal" as it is intense. In both 217

versions, however, the character dies before the deluge hits. In contrast, Chicken, having survived before, will survive this flood with no problem. The flood is used, on both stage and screen, to draw Myrtle and Chicken together while further separating the newlyweds. Like Noah, his family, and the animals who were allowed to enter the ark two by two, Chicken and Mrytle will bide their time on the roof. Once the water recedes, they will begin life anew.

The Estate The house and grounds undergo a name change in the transition from stage to screen. Originally called Raven's Roost, it becomes Waverly. Owned by Ravenstocks in the play, the name Raven's Roost is appropriate. Chicken and Lot's father was a down to earth man with no delusions ~f grandeur. Taking after his father, Chicken is more concerned about the grounds than the house. It is· Miss Lottie, with her chandelier and little gold chairs, who wants to impose "civilization" on her husband. The change to Waverly symbolizes the inconsistency in the film plot. Like the house, it wavers from one idea to another with no clear cut emphasis. Besides the name, the film also alters the physical condition of the house and grounds. It is shown to be in total disrepair. This is totally opposite to the play in which Lot needs Chicken's help to run the place. In exchange, Lot agrees to will Chicken the land. If 218 everything were in such terrible shape, there would be no need for Lot to have signed the paper because Chicken would not be doing what he agreed to. Having the house run down seems to be another physical example of Jeb's internal wretchedness. Instead of allowing the character to act out his own inner turmoil, the film tries to show that there is some external reason for his behavior.

The Parlor The little parlor has significance of its own. It is, in the play, the essence of Miss Lottie and also the place Lot chooses for his death. At the begin ning of the play, Lot takes Myrtle into the parlor but re fuses to let her sit on one of the little gold chairs. She is only allowed on the sofa. The lights are off, due to the flooding, so Lot opens the drapes "gently as if they had feeling." Myrtle's first reaction is one of awe. She calls it an "elegant little parlor" which "with gold chairs is--like a dream!" Dusty and unused, Myrtle vows to "get out that ole stepladder and wash those whatcha-ma call-ems and make them shine like the chandelier in Loew's State on Main Street in Memphis." The parlor is an example of the quality which Miss Lottie tried to introduce to the area. Myrtle informs Chicken that "we're sittin' here in this elegant little parlor under a crystal glass chandelier and Lot feels and I feel, too, that we should all talk and act 219

like gentlemen an'--ladiesl" On film, the parlor, like the house, is shown to be a wreck. Also, with Jeb's lack of motherly obsession, there is no need to emphasize the parlor.

Kitchen versus Bedroom Besides the parlor, the kitchen and bed room are the two other sections of the house which are highlighted. On both stage and screen, the kitchen remains the domain of Chicken while his younger half-brother in habits the upstairs bedroom. As opposed to the bedroom, the kitchen is warm and earthy. In the play, Chicken's residence in the kitchen symbolizes the inherent relation ship he shared with his father. His father was "a man that like to sit in a kitchen" and who refused to allow Lot's mother to add a dining room onto the house. With the change, on screen, of Chicken's paternity, the signif icance of the kitchen is lost. There is no reason for Chicken to be attached to the kitchen other than that he is a survivor and more down to earth in his views and expectations. The bedroom, like the parlor, once be longed to Lot's mother. Since her death, Lot has taken them over. The room is described as having the "aura of its former female occupant." She was a lady "who liked violets and lace and mother-of-pearl and decorative fringes on things." Once again, with Jeb's emphasis on 220

I impotence as opposed to his mother, the importance of the \ room in the work and on its current occupants is altered.

Changes from Stege to Screen: Theme Originally titled The Kingdom of Earth, Tennessee Williams' work, in its stage and screen versions, promotes life. The theme is summed up by Chicken when he says that "life just plain don't care for the weak. Or the soft. A man and his life. Like I said, a man and his life both got to be made out of the same stuff or one or the other will break and the one that breaks won't be life." Chicken is the Kingdom of Earth. Death, the opposite of life, is represented by Lot. Lot believes that life is funny because, a£ter all, "a bad dream can be funny." It is Myrtle, journeying up and down the stairs, who must decide between life with Chicken or death with Lot. This

comparison can be seen as Chicken resides in the kitche~ while Lot secrets himself in the upstairs bedroom. Each is well suited to their chosen room. At first, Lot's fragile beauty, like life, is deceiving. Only later does the audience discover he is dying and that his actions are a facade behind which he tries to hide the truth. All in all, the struggle for and triumph of life is what this work deals with. Like most of the other areas in the film, the thematic intensity has been reduced due to the adaptive process. Jeb has only one wretched side with which to 221

face the world. One of the first scenes in the movie shows him staggering around drunk. From the beginning, there is not much shading in character and, consequently, it is obvious who is intended to be good and who is in tended to be bad. As opposed to this, neither brother, in the play, is all good or bad. It is not so much a matter of good and bad as it is winning and losing. However, sympathy and understanding can be extended to cover all three characters. Despite the rough times, life is pref erable to what Lot/Jeb face. It is also shown to weed out the weak and sickly. In the work, death is only able to claim those who are not strong enough to fight back. Thus, Chicken and Myrtle's survival represents a victory over death.

Influence of the Director Like the other directors in this study, Sidney Lumet has a background as an actor in theatre and a direc tor of television. These areas have had a major impact on his choice of material which consists of both theatrical and novel adaptations. Lumet, probably more than any other contemporary director, has been prolific in the area of adaptations. In his directing career, Sidney Lumet has accepted responsibility for the success as well as failure of his films. As he sums it up, "only one person can say print and only one vision can really emerge in a work."2 Almost from the beginning, Lumet has been able to make only 222 ,, .

the £ilms he has wanted and with nearly complete independ ence. As £or the motivation behind his choices, he states "I have a £eeling o£ wanting to be moved by what I am working on. Wanting to be deeply emotionally involved, wanting it to mean something to me."3 The central characters Lumet examines are strong willed men who are able to manipulate and influence others. Generally, they are unlikable individuals isolated by their obsessions and unable to live in contemporary society. Al though Lumet treats women less frequently, when he does, they are also strong and determined but usually fare no better than the men. Of the hal£-brothers in the film, Chicken is the stronger of the two. It is he who is able to motivate Myrtle over to his side. However, both brothers are obsessed loners. Jeb with restoring Waverly to its £ormer glory, while trying to keep Chicken £rom in heriting, and Chicken with establishing his birthright by attaining the old plantation. Myrtle is obsessed by her passionate nature and the eventual choice she must make between li£e with Chicken or death with Jeb. Lumet is attracted to themes which concern characters who are unable to transcend their egotism as well as those who attempt to create a new life for themselves. These areas correspond to Jeb and Chicken in The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots. Jeb is unable to accept Chicken whom he believes to be inferior while Chicken seeks a new beginning a£ter the flood. Another area which receives 22.3

Lumet's special attention is that of the media and its effects. In the film, Jeb and Myrtle are married on the Happy Couple Time show. Often Sidney Lumet's films end ambiguously or with death and despair. Although Jeb dies, it is not clear if Chicken and Myrtle, who survive the flood, will find happiness with each other. Lumet admits that, although he is not a dour person by nature, "there is something in me that lets me know that there are no such things as happy endings. When I read a script with a happy ending, I tend not to believe the whole story."4 One of the problems Mr. Lumet had with this film was its comic aspects. Not as sure of himself when dealing with humor, Lumet interpreted the script too literally. In an interview given after the release of The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots, Lumet pointed to an earlier film of his titled Bye, Bye, Braverman. This film's serio-comic flavor, according to its director, was "off just enough to spoil it."5 He admitted that it was his fault. This same problem also affected The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots.

Conclusion Tennessee Williams' reason for selling The Seven Descents of Myrtle to filmmakers was to give the play a second chance. Dubbed his "funny melodrama," he hoped that its comic nature would be highlighted. Ironically, it was directed by a man whose treatment of comedy was unsure and 224

unsatisfactory. The reviews were scathing. One termed the film "not so much a version as a perversion."6 Another reviewer called it a "slapstick tragi-comedy that looks and sounds and plays very much like cruel parody--of Tennessee Williams."? Tennessee Williams felt that the whole episode was "perfectly disastrous." 8 Annoyed by Gore Vidal, his friend who wrote the screenplay, Tennessee Williams said "Baby, with friends like that ... "9 However, one critic aptly summed up the problem when writing that the "real tragedy," or failure of the film, comes "not from the text, flawed as it is, but from the ignoble adap tation." 10 A major problem to confront the film was the rating it received from the MPAA Code Administration. The film received an X-rating at the time due to the scene in which Chicken seduces a willing Myrtle. This scene fades out with Myrtle kneeling before him. What it implies and what it actually shows are two different things. However, the industry rating system had been started only two years earlier and the Commission tended to zealously interpret the MPAA Code. Another film equally affected was Midnight Cowboy. Its X-rating was later rescinded to an R. The same should have been done to The Last of the Mobile Hot- Shots. By then, the film, which had already been released commercially, had failed to receive any good notices. Critical failure, along with the X-rating, succeeded in tabling the film on a permanent basis. 11 225

All in all, it is somewhat of a surprise that the film was ever made. It had a director who could not direct comedy, an actor who refused to play the part the way it was originally written, a rating distinction that did not match the film's content, and, once produced, a slue of criticism. The problems encountered are symbol ized by the work's various name changes. Originally titled The Kingdom of Earth, Tennessee Williams did not want it to be altered. By the time it reached the stage, the name had been changed to The Seven Descents of Myrtle. Conflict arose when the audience became preoccupied with counting the number of trips Myrtle made down the stairs. Of course, the number did not add up to seven. For the film version, the name was once more changed. Another title considered, before The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots, was Blood Kin. 12 This confusion over titles is indicative of the work's problems. 226

ENDNOTES

1. Gene D. Phillips, The Films of Tennessee Williams (Philadelphis: Art Alliance Press, 1980), p. 218. 2. Stephan E. Bowles, Sidnex Lumet: A Guide to Refer ences and Resources (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1979), p. 62. J. Ibid. 4. Ibid., pp. 44-45. 5. Phillips, p. 225. 6. "Menagerie a Trois," review of The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots, Time, 19 January 1970, p. 67.

7. Vin~ent Canby, "The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots," New York Times, 11 January 1970. 8. Rex Reed, "Tennessee Williams Turns Sixty," Esquire, September 1971, p. 223. 9. Ibid. 10. "Menagerie a Trois," p. 67. 11. Phillips, p. 224. 12. Canby. CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

As stated in Part II of this thesis, the main diff erences between film and theatre center around the tech niques available to the filmmaker. Film, with is variety of complex and unusual camera angles, excites and enter tains its audience. In the beginning, audiences were amazed at what appeared on the screen. With each new tech nical achievement, filmmakers raced to outdo one another. A visual medium, movies began to grow in power and popu larity. During the Depression, movies were a form of cheap, escapist entertainment. With the advent of tele vision, the film industry, for the first time, began to face competition. A variety of techniques, such as 3-D and wide screen formats, were developed. As production began to cost more, producers preferred casting established actors. The tendency was to stick with a proven formula which, more often than not, consisted of a happy ending. Like the western, detective, or horror film, adap tation can be considered a genre. Rules for its develop ment depend on each individual work to be adapted. As opposed to this, there are certain stock characters, dia logue, and action which occur in the three aforementioned genre. In general, the stage play depends on dialogue to

227 228

relate the story and, within the confined space, more characters can be analyzed. Dependent on the visual, films must rely on continual movement. Unfortunately, in the search for the exciting and visually appealing, dialogue is left behind. Along with dialogue, an indepth study of character can also be forfeited. In an attempt to keep a film audience's attention, the pace is heightened by such things as car chases, fist fights, sex, and an up close and bloody look at death. The camera provides views which a theatre audience could never see. The choices made by filmmakers depend, in part, on certain constraints. As a competitive business, the film industry's need for considerable financial backing may limit a filmmaker's independence. With an ample amount of money invested, it is hoped that a movie will be a success at the box-office. Only in this way can a movie pay off its debts. This need for financial success is part of a never ending cycle. Backers attempt to guarantee the success of their expensive product by bringing in big name, and consequently, high priced stars. In turn, these actors are cast whether they fit the role or not and, like as not, the essence of the original work is lost behind all the glitter and glamour. It would seem better to pro duce a small budgeted show, with the right actors, and remain true to the artistic intent of the work. However, certain problems arise. First, the smaller, more "artistic" film may not be booked in as many 229

theatres. With no big stars, its initial audience is smaller and theatre owners may choose not to take the risk. As opposed to this, productions with expensive sets, ef fects, and stars may gain momentary, but not long lasting, notariety. In addition, the audience who carne expecting to see their favorite actor may end up being disappointed. This disappointment includes not only the actor's role but the work as well. Therefore, it is the work that ends up being injured. To conclude, this writer believes that the prob lems which surround the use of adapted material stem from the process of adaptation and the filmmakers themselves. Of course, there is no one reason why adaptations fail. First, a work undergoing the adaptive process is being re examined. This leaves room for the addition of the adapt or's views and ideas. These views may not always fit or correspond with the author's intent. Secondly, the film's potential audience is considered. In order to sell a pro duct on a large scale, as most film is intended, the item must be made as palatable, or inoffensive, as possible. In this way, the majority of people can be reached. To accomplish this, the characters may be softened, the cen tral theme or idea may be toned down, the problems may be easily solved within the time frame of the film, and an otherwise dour ending may be transformed into a happy, or at least ambiguous, one. Thirdly, in a constant search for financial support, the producer may insist •on the cast- 230

ing of certain actors as well as plot and character changes. Fourthly, the director may not be familiar with or have an interest in the original creator and his body of work. In addition, the director may not be comfortable with the style, whether it be comedy or drama, of the piece. It is hard to look at a film adaptation and be able to state exactly why certain changes were made. One can only look at the results in an attempt to understand the filmmaker's reasoning. Whatever problems arise when employing adaptive material, it is, or should be, the filmmaker's responsibility to protect the work. As exem plified by these final four film adaptations of Tennessee Williams, sometimes the changes work and other times they do not. Although looking at the adaptive process, this thesis has specifically examined the final four film adap tations of Tennessee Williams. It has addressed the char acters, symbols, and themes which are essential elements in any Williams' drama. Produced between 1964 and 1970, they complete the list of Williams' plays which were adapted for the screen. Of the films, The Night of the Iguana and Boom followed the original work more closely than the other two. In addition, they were also slightly more well-received and popular. This Property is Con demned was bloated far beyond the little one-act upon which it was based. The various screenwriters at least 2.31

made an effort to include certain Williams' characteris tics. Of the four films, The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots suffered the most in the process of adaptation. In con trast to the play, the plot and characters, especially Lot/Jeb, were hardly recognizable. The MPAA rating dealt another blow to an already beleaguered production. With the respect of the director and a loyalty to the original work, Williams' characters, symbols, and themes come across well on screen. This can be seen in The Night of the Iguana and B.Q£!!!. Both John Huston and Joseph Losey had an admiration for Williams' works and were willing to include him in the filmmaking process. In fact, Williams wrote the screenplay for Boom as well as some additional dialogue for The Night of the Iguana. As opposed to this, This Property is Condemned and The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots were directed by men who had little knowledge or affinity for Williams' work. There fore, the characters, symbols, and themes were not as rich and full as originally written. To Sydney Pollack, Alva Starr, the main character of This Property is Con demned, was nothing more than a whore. It is no wonder, with this sentiment, that her character has little depth. In the case of The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots, a single actor was allowed, based on a personal whim, to alter the essence of the work. Also, it was unfortunate that the director was unable to handle the comic elements in Williams' play. 232

The process of adaptation requires careful thought and study. A piece is chosen for a specific reason. This reason may be to capitalize on an author's name or to pro ject a certain idea or theme. Either way, what is impor tant is the work itself. It seems pointless, therefore, to needlessly destroy and rebuild the characters, symbols, theme, and basic plot structure from scratch. If a whole new work is being developed which bears little, if any, resemblance to the original, what need is there to buy the rights? This Property is Condemned and The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots can be used as reference once more. Blown all out of proportion, the film, This Property is Condemned, does not closely resemble the brief one-act. To the many writers who tinkered with the script, a cer tain appreciation can be extended. With the exception of

Owen Legate, they did at least attempt to follow Willi~'s narrative. They also included a number of Williams' stock references such a Moon Lake Casino. However, no such effort was made for The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots. The characters and storyline were altered for no apparent reason other than the whim of an actor and the failure of the director to direct comedy. Williams' works apparently merited attention from Hollywood. Otherwise, fifteen plays would not have been adapted. Compared to other authors, this number can be considered impressive. Not always pleased with the re- 233

sults, Williams kept hoping and trying. During these turbulent years, Williams was assaulted on all sides by the press and his own failing health. In an effort to give these last works, especially The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore and The Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle), a second chance, he turned to film. As with his plays and personal life, these films were not all well-received. Despite this, these screen adaptations represent an important time in the career of a remarkable playwright and are, therefore, worthy of study.

I ' I BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Boardinghouse Reach," review of This Property is Con demned. Newsweek, 1 August 1966. Bowles, Stephan E. Sidney Lumet: A Guide to References and Resources. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1979. Bronfeld, Stewart. Writing for Film and Television. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1981. Canby, Vincent. ''Boom." New York Times, 27 May 1968. Canby, Vincent. "The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots." New York Times, 11 January 1970. Ciment, Michel. Conversations with Losey. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd. , 19"85. Crowther, Bosley. "The Night of the Iguana." New York Times, 1 July 1964. Crowther, Bosley. "This Property is Condemned." New York Times, 4 August 1966. Day, Christine R., and Woods, Bob, eds. Where I I,ive: Selected Essays. New York: New D1rect1ons Pub lishing Co., 1978. Dmytryk, Edward. On Screen Writing. Boston: Focal Press, 1985. Houghton, Norris. The Exploding Stage: An Introduction to Twentieth Century Drama. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1971. Kaminsky, Stuart. John Huston: Maker of Magic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1978. Leahy, James. The Cinema of Joseph Losey. New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1967. Mainiero, Lina, gen. ed. World Dramatists. New York: Frederick Ungar Publ1shing Co., 1979. Tennessee Williams, by Felicia Hardison Londre. Manvell, Roger. Theatre and Film: A Comparative Studt of the Two Forms of Dramatic Art and of the Prop ems

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of Adaptation of Stage Plays into Films. London: Associated University Presses, 1979. "Menagerie a Trois," review of The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots. Time, 19 January 1970. Nicoll, Allardyce. Film and Theatre. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1936. Oliver, Edith. "Let My Iguana Go," review of The Night of the Iguana. The New Yorker, 15 August 1964. Phillips, Gene D. The Films of Tennessee Williams. Phila delphia: Art Alliance Press, 1980. Piekarski, Vicki. "Sydney Pollack," Close-Up: The Con temporary Director. The Scarecrow Press, 1981. Pratley, Gerald. The Cinema of John Huston. Cranbury, New Jersey: A. S. Barnes and Co. Inc., 1977. Reed, Rex. "Tennessee Williams Turns Sixty." Esquire, September 1971. Tischler, Nancy M. Tennessee Williams: Rebellious Puritan. New York: The Citadel Press, 1961. "Tropical Blooms," review of The Night of the Iguana. Newsweek, 13 July 1964. Williams, Tennessee. Memoirs. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975. ------Tennessee Williams: Four Plays. New York: New American Library, 1976. Wright, Edward A. A Primer for Playgoers: An Introduction to the Understanding and Appreciation of Cinema - Stage -Television. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1958. 236

APPENDIXES APPENDIX A THE WORKS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

FULL-LENGTH PLAYS Battle of Angels - 1940 You Touched Me! - 1945 The Glass Menagerie - 1945 A Streetcar Named Desire - 1947 Summer and Smoke - 1948 The Rose Tattoo - 1951 Camino Real - 1953 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - 1955 Orpheus Descending - 1957 Suddenly Last Summer - 1958 Sweet Bird of Youth - 1959 Period of Adjustment - 1960 The Night of the Iguana - 1961 Eccentricities of a Nightingale - 1964 The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore - 1964 Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle) - 1968 Small Craft Warnings - 1972 Out Cry - 1973 The Two-Character Play - 1975 The Red Devil Battery Sign - 1975 This Is (An Entertainment) - 1976 Vieux Carre - 1977 Tiger Tail - 1978 A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur - 1979 Clothes for a Summer Hotel - 1981

ONE-ACTS Twenty-seven Wagons Full of Cotton and Other One Act Plays - 1946 The Purification The Lady of Larkspur Lotion The Last of My Solid Gold Watches Portrait of a Madonna Auto-Da-Fe Lord Byron's Love Letter The Strangest Kind of Romance The Long Goodbye Hello from Bertha

237 238

This Property is Condemned Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen Something Unspoken American Blues - 1948 The Dark Room - 1948 The Case of the Crushed Petunias - 1948 The Unsatisfactory Supper - 1948 Moony's Kid Don't Cry - 1940 Ten Blocks on the Camino Real - 1948 At Liberty - 1941 The Enemy Time - 1959 Dragon Country - 1970 In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel - 1969 I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix - 1951 The Mutilated - 1965 I Can't Imagine Tomorrow - 1966 The Frosted Glass Coffin - 1970 The Gnadiges Fraulein - 1967 A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot - 1958 Confessional - 1970 The Demolition Downtown - 1971

COLLECTED SHORT STORIES One Arm and Other Stories - 1948 One Arm - 1945 The Malediction - 1945 The Poet - 1948 Chronicle of a Demise - 1948 Desire and the Black Masseur - 1946 Portrait of a Girl in Glass - 1943 The Important Thing - 1945 The Angel in the Alcove - 1943 The Field of Blue Children - 1937 Night of the Iguana - 1948 The Yellow Bird - 1947 Hard Candy and Other Stories - 1954 Three Players of a Summer Game - 1952 Two on a Party - 1954 The Resemblence between a violin case and a coffin - 1949 Hard Candy - 1954 Rubio y Morena - 1948 The Mattress by the Tomato Patch - 1953 The Coming of Something to the Widow Holly - 1953 The Vine - 1944 The Mysteries of the Joy Rio - 1941 The Knightly Quest and Other Stories - 1966 The Knightly Quest - 1965 Mama's Old Stucco House - 1965 239

Man Bring This up Road - 1959 The Kingdom of Earth - 1954 "Grand" - 1964 Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed - 1974 Happy August the Tenth - 1971 The Inventory at Fontana Bella - 1973 Miss Coynte of Greene - 1973 Sabbatha and Solitude - 1973 Completed - 1973 Oriflamme - 1944

UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES The Vengeance of Nitocris - 1928 A Lady's Beaded Bag - 1930 Something by Tolstoi - 1930/1931 Big Black: A Mississippi Idyll - 1931/1932 The Accent of a Coming Foot - 1935 Twenty-seven Wagons Full of Cotton - 1935 Ten Minute Stop - 1936 Sand - 1936 Gift of an Apple - 1936 The Man in the overstuffed Chair - 1940 In Memory of an Aristocrat - 1940 The Dark Room - 1940 The Interval - 1945 Tent Worms - 1945 Something about Him - 1946 A Recluse and His Guest - 1970 The Killer Chicken and the Closet Queen - 1977 Mother Yaws - 1977 Das Wasser Ist Kal t - 1973/1979

POETRY Androgyne, Mon Amour - 1944 In the Winter of Cities - 1956

SCREENPLAYS Baby Doll - 1956 Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays - 1984 All Gaul Is Divided - 1978 The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond - 1980 One Arm - 1972 Stopped Rocking - 1977 240

NOVELLAS The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone - 1950 Moise and the World of Reason - 1975 It Happened the Day the Sun Rose - 1981

DRAMATIC READING Steps Must Be Gentle: A Dramatic Reading - 1980

LETTERS Tennessee Williams' Letters to Donald Windham 1940- 1965 - 1976

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES Memoirs - 1975 Where I Live: Selected Essays - 1978 APPENDIX B THE FILMS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

ADAPTATION The Glass Menagerie - 1950 Directed by: Irving Rapper Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams Produced by: Jerry Wald and Charles K. Feldman Starring: Jane Wyman ..•••••...... •Laura Kirk Douglas ...... ••. Jim Gertrude Lawrence •.....• Amanda Arthur Kennedy ..•...•.•• Tom

A Streetcar Named Desire - 1951 Directed by: Elia Kazan Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams Produced by: Charles K. Feldman Starring: Vivien Leigh .•....•..... Blanch duBois Marlon Branda ...... • stanley Kowalski Kim Hunter .•....•.....•. Stella Kowalski Karl Malden •.•....•.•...Mitch

The Rose Tattoo - 1955 D1rected by: Daniel Nann Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams Produced by: Hal Wallis starring: Anna Magnani ...... •.•. Serafina Delle Rose Burt Lancaster .•.•...••. A. Mangiacavalio Marisa Pavin ..•...••.... Rosa Delle Rose Ben Cooper ..••...•..•••• Jack Hunter Virginia Grey .•....•..•. E. Hohengarten Jo Van Fleet ...... Bessie

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - 1958 D1rected by: Richard Brooks Screenplay by: Richard Brooks Produced by: Lawrence Weingarten

241 242

Starring: Elizabeth Taylor ...... Margaret Pollitt Paul Newman ...... •.... Brick Pollitt Burl Ives ...... Big Daddy Pollitt Jack Carson ...... •.... Gooper Pollitt Judith Anderson .....•... Big Mama Pollitt Madeleine Sherwood ...•..Mae Pollitt

Suddenly Last Summer - 1959 Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal Produced by: Sam Spiegel Starring: Elizabeth Taylor ...... catherine Holly Katherine Hepburn ...... Mrs. Venable Montgomery Clift .•...... Dr. Dukrowicz Albert Dekker .•..•...... Dr. Hockstader Mercedes McCambridge ....Mrs. Holly Gary Raymond ...... George Holly

The Fugitive Kind - 1960 D~rectea by: Sidney Lumet Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams and Meade Roberts Produced by: Martin Jurow and Richard Shephard Starring: Marlon Brando ...... • Val Xavier Anna Magnani ...... •..••.Lady Torrance Joanne Woodward ...... • Carol Cutrere Maureen Stapleton •...... Vee Talbott Victor Jory ...•••.•..... Jabe Torrance

Summer and Smoke - 1961 (November) Directed by: Peter Glenville Screenplay by: James Poe and Meade Roberts Produced by: Hal Wallis Starring: Geraldine Page ...... Alma Winemiller Laurence Harvey ...... John Buchanan Una Merkel .••...... •••.Mrs. Winemiller Malcolm Atterbury ..••... Rev. Winemiller John Mcintire ..•.•.••... Dr. Buchanan Rita Moreno ..•.....•.•.. Rosa Zacharias 243

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone - 1961 (December) Directed by: Jose Quintero Screenplay by: Gavin Lambert Produced by: Louis de Rochemont Starring: Vivien Leigh ...... Karen Stone Warren Beatty .•...... Paolo Coral Browne ...... •.....Meg Lotte Lenya ...... Contessa Jill St. John ...... Barbara

Sweet Bird of Youth - 1962 (March) D~rected by: Richard Brooks Screenplay by: Richard Brooks Produced by: Pandro S. Berman Starring: Paul Newman ...•....••... Chance Wayne Geraldine Page .•...... Alexandra Del Lago Shirley Knight ...... Heavenly Finley Ed Begley .•...... Boss Finley Rip Torn .•...... Thomas J. Finley Jr. Mildred Dunnock ...... • Aunt Nonnie Madeleine Sherwood ...... Miss Lucy

Period of Adjustment - 1962 (November) Directed by: George Roy Hill Screenplay by: Isobel Lennart Produced by: Lawrence Weingarten Starring: Tony Franciosa .•.••••••• Ralph Baitz Jane Fonda ...... •...• Isabel Haverstick Jim Hutton •..•...... •.. George Haverstick Lois Nettleton ...... Dorothea Baitz

The Ni~ht of the Iguana - 1964 D~rected by: John Huston Screenplay by: John Huston and Anthony Veiller Produced by: Ray Stark starring: Richard Burton ....•..... Rev. T. L. Shannon Ava Gardner ..•...•••....Maxine Faulk Deborah Kerr ...... •...Hannah Jelkes Sue Lyon,, .•.•..•••.•... Charlotte Goodall Cyril Delevanti ..••...•. Nonno Grayson Hall ...... •. Judith Fellowes James Ward ...•.....•...•Hank 244

This Property is Condemned - 1966 Directed by: Sydney Pollack Screenplay by: Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe, and Edith Sommer Produced by: John Houseman Starring: Natalie Wood ...... Alva Starr Robert Redford ...... owen Legate Charles Bronson ...... J. J. Nichols Kate Reid ...... Hazel Starr Mary Badham ...... Willie Starr

Boom - 1968 ---- Directed by: Joseph Losey Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams Produced by: John Herman and Norman Priggen Starring: Elizabeth Taylor .•...... Mrs. Goforth Richard Burton ...... Chris Flanders Noel Coward ...••...... The Witch of Capri Joanna Shimkus ...... Blackie

The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots - 1970 Directed by: Sidney Lumet Screenplay by: Gore Vidal Produced by: Sidney Lumet Starring: James Coburn ....•...... Jeb Lynn Redgrave ....•..••..Myrtle Robert Hooks ...•...... Chicken

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Baby Doll - 1956 Directed by: Elia Kazan Screenplay by: Tennessee Williams Produced by: Newtown Productions Starring: Karl Malden ...•...... Archie Carroll Baker .•...... Baby Doll Eli Wallach .....•...... Silva Vacarro Mildred Dunnock ...... Aunt Rose