This Property is Condemned

Based on a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, This Property is Condemned uses a screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola to tell a steamy story about lust and romance in Mississippi. The Williams input here is minimal, as the film splits the play in two and uses it as the prologue and epilogue. The long flashback, which forms the majority of the movie, is built from bits of dialogue in Williams’ play.

Williams, notorious for his non-involvement in many film adaptations of his work, had originally offered This Property is Condemned to Richard Burton with hopes of using Elizabeth Taylor, Burton’s wife, in the lead role. That didn’t pan out as planned, of course, and the project found its way to Paramount where it was scooped as a vehicle for the one and only Natalie Wood. And it is Wood who makes this movie sizzle, without a doubt, as she plays the girl everybody wants.

The story is framed by a young girl named Willie (Mary Badham) telling a story to a young boy as she walks along the train tracks. She tells the young boy about her sister, Alva (Wood), and we’re taken on a flashback tour of what life was like for Willie, Alva and their mother (Kate Reid) as they own and operate a boarding house in the small town of Dodson in Mississippi.

Owen (Robert Redford) arrives in town and ends up staying at the boarding house, taking in all of the strange characters and meeting Alva. Alva has many potential suitors, most of whom are heavily promoted by her mother as rich options to help boost the profile of the whole family. Alva, clearly being used by her mother as a potential road to fortune, resents this fact quietly at first and pines for Owen curiously.

The temperature rises when it is discovered that Owen is in town to lay off many of the railroad workers. The problem is that the railroad workers comprise the majority of the town’s economy and the boarding house’s residents. With Alva wanting to flee her existence as a plaything for the town’s men and Owen leaving after he finishes the round of layoffs, the two decide to be with one another but their plans turn out to take more effort than originally realized after a host of complications get in the way.

This Property is Condemned, directed by Sydney Pollack, is a steamy and sensual motion picture. Wood is beautiful as Alva and it’s easy to see why she is the object of desire for so many men. She puts in a good performance here, of course, and comes across as the perfect mix of naïve female power and raw animalistic sexuality. A particularly notable scene involves her character cooling off using an ice cube.

As far as Tennessee Williams film adaptations go, this one is pretty middle-of-the-road. It’s worth seeing for the chemistry between Wood and Redford, but nothing ever reaches the fever pitch of other pictures like Baby Doll or Streetcar. Of particular note is Mary Badham, as she puts in a terrific performance as the inevitable result of all of the lust and peculiarity of her mother and sister. That she isn’t more screwed up is a divine miracle.

Overall, This Property is Condemned is a decent picture. It lacks emotional connection but manages to tell a decent story about people who become the products of their environments. There really is no other way for a girl like Alva to grow up given her circumstances and, as such, there’s no other way for things to end either. It’s a tragic romance, spiced by the sensuality and heat of life in a Mississippi boarding house.