Alongside 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' (my first Tennessee Williams play and perhaps my personal favourite) and 'A Streetcar Named Desire', 'The Glass Menagerie' is one of Tennessee Williams' most famous works and all three of them deserve their high reputations. When it comes to the emotion, the most emotionally poignant in my mind has to be 'The Glass Menagerie' plus we have the complex characters and powerful realistic dialogue that Williams was known for.
While the Paul Newman film was my introduction to the filmed adaptations of 'The Glass Menagerie', and that is a great version, this 1950 film is a respectable attempt and worth seeing if not an essential. There are much better filmed (film, made for television and filmed stage productions), adaptations of Williams' work around, but there are also worse. This version of 'The Glass Menagerie' is somewhere in the middle.
'The Glass Menagerie' does have its good points. It is handsomely produced and the production values are not gone to waste, with the film being very nicely shot. Max Steiner's score, with the distinctively beautiful orchestration not underwhelming at all, captures the haunting tragedy and affecting fragility of the story and atmosphere without being too over-dramatic or overwrought. Williams' dialogue is powerful and realistic as ever and there is an admirable delicate restraint to the direction. The story does have touching moments.
Jane Wyman has been criticised for being too old, but nonetheless to me she gave a very moving performance and seemed to understand Laura and her motivations, therefore the viewer does too. Similarly admired Gertrude Lawrence toning down her mannerisms and bringing a not very subtle but complex role of Amanda to quite vivid life, maybe a rather unconventional choice for a role that would have been perfect for somebody like Bette Davis but she does admirably. Arthur Kennedy also does a good job, even if the two meaty roles belong to Wyman and Lawrence. Kirk Douglas, against type, does wonders with the least interesting character of the play and nails every necessary aspect of the role.
The action could have been opened up more, there are moments where it is but too often there is too much of a filmed stage play feel. If the camera work was not as intimate as many times that it was and if the pace was less leisurely that would have improved things.
It, the film that is, does lack the extra bit of magic and emotional power, and some of the treatment of the play here is almost too conventional, something that the play isn't. What undoes 'The Glass Menagerie' is the ending, really did not see the point of the change and it was clear that it was forced in because it feels tacked on and completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the story.
Overall, respectable if not great. 6/10
While the Paul Newman film was my introduction to the filmed adaptations of 'The Glass Menagerie', and that is a great version, this 1950 film is a respectable attempt and worth seeing if not an essential. There are much better filmed (film, made for television and filmed stage productions), adaptations of Williams' work around, but there are also worse. This version of 'The Glass Menagerie' is somewhere in the middle.
'The Glass Menagerie' does have its good points. It is handsomely produced and the production values are not gone to waste, with the film being very nicely shot. Max Steiner's score, with the distinctively beautiful orchestration not underwhelming at all, captures the haunting tragedy and affecting fragility of the story and atmosphere without being too over-dramatic or overwrought. Williams' dialogue is powerful and realistic as ever and there is an admirable delicate restraint to the direction. The story does have touching moments.
Jane Wyman has been criticised for being too old, but nonetheless to me she gave a very moving performance and seemed to understand Laura and her motivations, therefore the viewer does too. Similarly admired Gertrude Lawrence toning down her mannerisms and bringing a not very subtle but complex role of Amanda to quite vivid life, maybe a rather unconventional choice for a role that would have been perfect for somebody like Bette Davis but she does admirably. Arthur Kennedy also does a good job, even if the two meaty roles belong to Wyman and Lawrence. Kirk Douglas, against type, does wonders with the least interesting character of the play and nails every necessary aspect of the role.
The action could have been opened up more, there are moments where it is but too often there is too much of a filmed stage play feel. If the camera work was not as intimate as many times that it was and if the pace was less leisurely that would have improved things.
It, the film that is, does lack the extra bit of magic and emotional power, and some of the treatment of the play here is almost too conventional, something that the play isn't. What undoes 'The Glass Menagerie' is the ending, really did not see the point of the change and it was clear that it was forced in because it feels tacked on and completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the story.
Overall, respectable if not great. 6/10