Reviews

I was one of those privileged to see Brando on stage in "A Streetcar Named Desire." It was an experience not to be forgotten and impossible to describe -- a searing, blue-flame performance which could not be fully realized in the film version, fine as it was. And now it has come to this! In his first appearance he looks like Buddha in clown white improbably garbed in a nun's habit. The remainder of the performance is a passable imitation of Sidney Greenstreet in "The Maltese Falcon" having a chuckle at his own expense. For some reason Brando seems to be having a jolly time displaying his monstrous corpulence in this monstrous travesty of a film. The pity! the pity! the pity! Still there is that formidable presence. Like the proverbial train-wreck it is horrible to see but impossible to look away from. As for Kilmer and Thewlis, they were present. The virtuoso work of the make-up department should be noted as a plus. They did create some truly monstrous creatures.

The film at times becomes almost incoherent due to some strange lapses in the stories continuity. For instance, for a time Kilmer seems to be the only rational person on the island (even though he wears a sarong left over from a Dorothy Lamour flick. And then without any sort of transition he is as mad as a march hare.

If you care to see a number of significant talents crash and burn this is the film for you.

I find it hard to believe that some people actually take this lurid melodrama seriously. It is so god-awful that it can be highly entertaining to a certain audience.

We see an aging Hollywood queen (Joan Crawford, aged 50[?])desperate to make a movie, any movie, even if it requires dressing up like Black Bart and dragging her heavily varnished Hollywood glamor through the grit and grime of a super hokey western and acting against a leading man (Sterling Hayden) with the talent of a fence post and a converted radio actress (MercedesMcCambridge) chewing the scenery with the ferocity of a blood-crazed shark.

If you want to know what the film is about don't ask me. The story is so convoluted that I lost track after the first thirty minutes. With Miss Crawford's cultivated MGM accent, her carefully lighted and photographed close-ups and meticulous makeup and hair style the film seems to ask the improbable question, "Can a fading female movie star find love and happiness as the proprietor of a seedy 1800's western saloon?"

I suppose it is possible to admire the scenery and vivid cinematography of the film but it is difficult with all the schlock going on in front of it. The real pleasure to be found here is a perverse one; relishing the sheer, unholy badness of it all, the puerile screen play, overwrought dialog and bad acting, ranging from way-too-little to way-too-much with La Crawford trapped in the middle of it but staunchly giving the same mannered performance that she delivered in film after film throughout most of her career.

This thing has to be seen to be believed.