
Sidney Lumet attempts to work with Tennessee Williams’ 1957 play Orpheus Descending in 1960’s The Fugitive Kind. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but Lumet almost overwhelms in his approach to the material and the smaller emotional moments get lost in the shuffle. Still, the casting is tremendous and no fan of cinema should ever pass up an opportunity to see Marlon Brando in his prime.
Williams had written the role for Brando all along, hoping that he’d star in a Broadway version of Orpheus Descending alongside the marvellous Anna Magnani. Brando was too intimidated to star with Magnani on such a small stage, however, thinking that her performance would overshadow his own (he might have been right). With Williams’ blessing, Brando took to starring in the screen version of the piece as directed by Lumet.
Brando is a drifted named “Snakeskin” Xavier, known for playing the guitar and for wearing a snakeskin jacket. We are told he was a club singer, but he calls himself an “entertainer” and there is certainly more than a little mystery when he describes himself and his past. Xavier is forced to flee New Orleans due to trouble with the law and he finds himself in a remote town in Mississippi. After a series of events, many of them bizarre beyond explanation, Xavier finds work at a five-and-dime run by Lady Torrence (Magnani).
Torrence has a few stories of her own and lives her life filled with bitterness and rage towards men who burned down her father’s vineyard because he served blacks. She has also had a love affair and now has to take care of her sick husband, a terrible man named Jabe (Victor Jory). Tossed into the mix for Xavier’s attention is a strange alcoholic nympho named Carol (Joanne Woodward). She attempts to lure Xavier away, but his affections are set.
The Fugitive Kind is a complicated motion picture in that it is filled with multiple confusing romantic entanglements and some strange segments of dialogue. Lumet directs it well, utilizing a mesh of close-ups and unique impact shots to put us in the midst of the sweaty store, but the emotional impact of the characters is often left elsewhere due to his busy approach to the material. Things that could have merely been said (and were merely said in the stage version) are given elaborate treatments at the expense of smaller emotional connections.
That’s not to say that the performances are off because they are not. Brando is spellbinding and ultimately resourceful, giving a full set of possibilities to each moment. Watch as Torrence asks him why he “walks like that.” His response, a shrug and an “I don’t know,” is staggering in its opportunity. It is that range of emotional possibility that gives him his greatest strength here, as we are never sure what a gesture will mean or how it will evolve. Magnani is equally powerful, proving once more that she may be one of the best performers of the classic “woman scorned” archetype in Hollywood history.
Lumet does score points for keeping a lot of the monologues in the picture. The film opens with a terrific one, delivered by Brando facing us as though we are the unseen judge of his character and his overall sense of self. The judge (perhaps us?) belittles him somewhat before releasing him to the world, as though Brando’s Xavier needed to be grounded as a point of order and humanity.
The Fugitive Kind is not the best of the Williams adaptations set to the big screen (that would go to Baby Doll), but it does retain that classic scorching South feel, complete with sweaty villains and heavy, breathy, attractive women. It is more than worth seeing for Brando’s work with the tremendous Magnani, of course, and remains a celebration of one of America’s most gifted performer’s talents.
7.1/10




