Sweet Bird of Youth

Four years after Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Richard Brooks and Paul Newman reteamed to bring another Tennessee Williams play to the screen, Sweet Bird of Youth. As with the earlier adaptation, Sweet Bird is full of inflamed Southern passions and sexual innuendo, but it's a pale copy. I consider the play second-tier Williams, in which he recycles many of the themes from his early, better plays, and given the production code, the film couldn't fairly represent all the nastiness from the play.

Newman plays Chance Wayne, a wannabe actor who is really a gigolo. While working working as a cabana boy in Palm Beach he has latched onto a fading film star, played by Geraldine Page. She is an alcohol and drug addict, and he got her to sign a contract that stipulates she will produce a film starring him. He piles her comatose form into a convertible and heads to his hometown on the Gulf of Mexico (presumably Mississippi) to win back the sweetheart of his youth, who he was separated from through the machinations of her father, who is the political boss of the state.

The boss is played by Ed Begley, who won an Oscar for it. He's something of a caricature, though, a Huey Long type with absolutely no scruples. His son, who is dumb and vicious, is played by Rip Torn, and his daughter, Newman's girl, is played by Shirley Knight. She is still in love with him, but reluctant to go against the will of her father.

Over the course of the action Newman will but heads with Begley and family to get at Knight. He learns that the last time he was there he got her pregnant, which led to an illegal abortion. This is a change from the play, where the Newman character gave the girl a venereal disease which led to a hysterectomy. It's interesting that abortion was more palatable to the censor than V.D. This information is used against Begley by his political opponents. When Torn and his henchmen catch up with Newman, Torn breaks his nose, suggesting that he will no longer be good looking and his career as a gigolo is over. This is a by-far kinder punishment than what is in the play--castration.

The second story running through the film is that of Page's. She is on the lam from what she perceives as a failed comeback. She is a very good actress, but the faded film diva is a character that is so familiar that it's hard to focus one's interest on her. When she sobers up she's a more interesting character, but it rings hollow. In the DVD extras, we're told that Williams based her character on himself.