BLOOD KIN

US, 1969, 106 minutes, Colour.
James Coburn, Lynn Redgrave.
Directed by Sidney Lumet.

Blood Kin is a screen version of a later Tennessee Williams' play The Seven Descents of Myrtle. The film version was called The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots for U.S. release. These changes of title transfer the attention from Myrtle to the two brothers, Jeb and Chicken. Sidney Lumet's treatment of the play is rather strident and breathless, in vivid colour that makes the film look somewhat unhealthy - as the main character is. Again, Lynn Redgrave's performance is on a high-pitched level that frequently grates although it is in keeping with the character she is portraying.

Apart from these important aspects of the treatment, the film is typical Williams, although this time with a contemporary setting. The old, decaying South is symbolised in the brothers, one white, one black, the white one mortally ill, the black ready to take over. The old mansion and property, the subject of their dispute, is about to be engulfed in a flood. At the centre of this dispute is Myrtle, a fairly dumb go-getter of the modern generation.

Lumet's film is difficult to sit through in parts but actually gives rise to a great number of discussion points.

1. Why was the film called Blood Kin? What did this title highlight? The U.S. film version was called The Last of the Mobile Hot-Shots?. What does this mean? Where does it put its emphasis? Tennessee Williams' original play was called The Seven Descents of Myrtle. What are the seven descents? Do you think Blood Kin a satisfactory alternate name for the film?

2. Tennessee Williams' plays are usually set in the South and highlight the inbreeding, isolation, physical and moral collapse and decadence. Did this film do the same thing? Most of Williams' plays are set in the early part of the century. This is contemporary. What difference did this make? Do you think this picture of the South too harsh or a caricature? Why?

3. How effective was the opening of the film with the T.V. quiz show - a
symbol of our civilisation (commercial, artificial, cued responses, people humiliating themselves for laughs, for money, forced jollity audience reaction, the marriage and the quick divorce, cynical)? How did Myrtle fit into this world, her reactions to the show? How did Jeb - his being laughed at? Why did each of them go through with the marriage?

4. How did Myrtle and Jeb begin their relation in the car away from the city? What preoccupied Myrtle - her electrical equipment, prizes, etc? What preoccupied Jeb - a son, the ownership of the property, his dying?

5. How significant was the stop at the house and Myrtle's stripping to arouse Jeb? This appeared coarse and strident. Why did the director film the sequence this way? What effects did he want?

6. Did you understand Myrtle? How intelligent was she? What genuine feelings did she have? Was she capable of real love, of deep love? Was she pleased with her career as a Mobile 'hot-shot'? Did she have a personal pride? (Was Lynn Redgrave's portrayal of Myrtle effective: as regards manners and looks, her strident voice?). Why did she stay with Jeb? What motivated her?

7. Did you understand Jeb? How did his past and his heritage drive him? Was his mortal, cancerous illness too symbolic a device for the film? What pride did he have in himself? What feelings? What love? Was he intelligent: What did he want of Myrtle?

8. Was the old house and property too symbolic - old, decaying, threatened by flood etc?

9. Were you surprised to find that Chicken was black? Did you understand Chicken? What motivated him? What drove him? How was he formed and motivated by the past, his mixed heritage and the traditions of the South? What was his relationship to Jeb? Did they like each other? How had they like each other? Why did Chicken mock the dying Jeb, especially about his capacity to have a child?

10. What was the symbolism of the threatening flood? How was it linked to the three characters' situation? Salvation could only be on the roof? (The reminiscences of the Old South.)

11. How significant was the fact that Jeb spent most of the film upstairs and Chicken downstairs and that Myrtle had to go up and down the stairs all the time?

12. How did the relationship between Jeb and Myrtle develop during the day? Did they begin to understand each other? Why did the conceiving of a child become so important? Did Myrtle develop as a person during that day?

13. How did the relationship between Chicken and Myrtle develop? Did she have any feelings towards him as a person at first? She seemed both fascinated and repelled. Why? Did she fear him - his farm - matter-of-factness and brutality? The incidents with the cats?

14. Why did Jeb become so anxious about the property and its going to Chicken? Did he hate Chicken? Why? Why did Chicken taunt him with his sickness? Why did the document assume such importance? How was Myrtle drawn into the intrigue? Did she want to become involved? Was she really greedy?

15. What was the effect on the audience of the continual going up and down the stairs by Myrtle? How did she change each time she went up and down the stairs?

16. What was the significance of Jeb's flashbacks? What did they reveal about Jeb and Chicken in the past? What did they reveal about the present? (Also to the solution of the film - Jeb and a white woman unsatisfactory together and Chicken taking a white woman - as his mother behaved?). Were the flashbacks successfully done - the garish red and the slow-motion technique?

17. What was the significance of the truth about the two men's common parent? Did you expect this? How did Myrtle's wearing the mother's dress symbolise this?

18. What was the effect on Jeb? Did it kill him? Is this what killed the old South? Was Chicken (and Myrtle) a symbol of the products of the South who .then inherit it?

19. Why did Myrtle go on to the roof? Was it Chicken taking Jeb's girl again? Was it salvation for them both? Note the destructive as well as the cleansing significance of water as a symbol.

20. What was the future of the South? Was this film optimistic or depressing? Had it been filmed and acted in lower key would it have been better? More effective?