THE FUGITIVE KIND

US, 1959, 120 minutes, Black and white.
Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton, Victor Jory.
Directed by Sidney Lumet.

The Fugitive Kind is typical enough Tennessee Williams material. It is based on a play called Orpheus Descending which, from its title, makes all kinds of suggestions for interpretation - hero, music, myth, saviour, failure. This is all transferred to the Williams' south and its emotional volatility.

Marlon Brando is the Orpheus - Saviour- Xavier figure and offers an interesting performance of hustler-hero-saviour. He is matched by Anna Magnani (who appeared in the film version of Williams' The Rose Tattoo), the Eurydice to be saved, but who looks back into Hell and is not saved. Joanne Woodward comes out strongly as a kooky southern failure. The emotional interaction is played out against a realistic-symbolic background.

Director of this film is Sidney Lumet, who, ten years later, made another Williams’ film. Blood Kin, which tended to be strident Williams. Lumet is an interesting director of such films as Twelve Angry Men, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Group, The Hill, The Pawnbroker, Serpico. Tennessee Williams always offers questions to discuss.

1. How apt was the title? The original play was called Orpheus Descending, What are the implications of this title according to the Orpheus myth?

2. How was Val an Orpheus-saviour? How was Lady a Eurydice - needing to be rescued from Hell (she refers to her life as Hell and finally all is destroyed in flames)? How was Jake the equivalent of Hades holding Eurydice? How did she look back and fail to be saved? Why did the Orpheus figure have to be destroyed?

3. Valentine Xavier - the judge initially thinks his name is something like "Saviour". The meaning of the long prologue (its visual effect: one take in close-up with the judge's voice off-screen)? The meaning and reality of Val' reform - his previous life as a player, his sickness of life and wanting to give it up? Why did he change and want to settle down?

4. The encounter with Mrs. Talbot saving him - her response to his goodness, talking about herself, her painting, the escaped prisoner (and her grief at his death), her kindness in housing him and getting him the job. Their later meeting and talking of her painting as she saw things, the 'blue Chord - he making her realise the horrible things she had seen, and her final inability to see?

5. The encounter with Carol. What kind of woman was she - evil, persecuted? Her previous goodness, involvement and concern? Her change and wanting a good time? Her relationship with her brother? Hhy was she attracted to Val? Why did Val not want to go away with her? Why was she there to mourn him at the end? Which sequences revealed most about her?

6. The town itself, the country - what kind of place and people? Why was it Hell?

7. Lady - her encounter with Val. How complex a character was she? By reconstructing her history how can you understand her - Italian, her father's wine-garden, serving Negroes, the vigilantes and the fire, her affair with David, her pregnancy and miscarriage; disillusionment with David and his desertion of her? Her marriage to Jake and his jealousy (her sense of selling herself), his illness and her management of the store, her dream of building the confectionary? Val and her employment of him - why?

8 How strong was her need for him - morale, sexually? Her seduction of him - why? Also why, after his abuse, gambling, threatening to leave her, did he stay? catalyst? Why did the Sheriff want Val out?

9. The finale - melodramatic, inevitable? The irony of Lady's death and of Val's?

10. Val as a Saviour (Christ?) figure - his goodness, attractiveness, bringing good oat of people, helping them see more clearly, offering them self-respect? His charm, the guitar, and the background music of the film?

11.A worthwhile experience or Southern sensationalism?