hyped garbage

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

You can't go home again, as life goes on without you and the small minded people, once your friends, secretly resent you or envy you angrily for having the strength and courage to move on. That's what reckless bad boy Paul Newman finds out as he stops through with his alcoholic movie star benefactor (Geraldine Page), finding that nothing has changed but the date and the decrease in the size of the small minds. Town boss Ed Begley may act all cordial at first meeting, but he has a score to settle with Newman in regards to his daughter Shirley Knight. This outstanding film version of Tennessee Williams' great play is fraught with drama, sexual violence and power struggles, and one of the greatest ensembles ever assembled. It's a reunion for Williams, Newman, Madeline Sherwood (as you've never seen him before!), producer Pandro S. Berman and director Richard Brooks from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". This isn't polished family drama, but a soap opera epic of how one man in control (Begley) of a small community can be a dangerous thing, and how all the yes men around him obviously long for his downfall.In one of the greatest years for leading ladies, Geraldine Page is simply outstanding and her faded movie star shows her off to be a versatile and glamorous actress, combining character actress in her characterization in playing someone obviously older than she was at the time. It is said she was based on various faded movie stars (particularly Joan Crawford) but Page makes her very multi-faceted in spite of the character being a destructive lush. Newman is sexy as always, and instills his bad boy with subtle heart. Knight, who could have gone onto play the type of roles Page was excelling in, and makes her ingenue quite more interesting than the namby pamby bubblehead she could have been.Sweet Mildred Dunnock, the original Big Mama in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", takes a small part and adds a halo around it as Knight's spinster aunt. Sherwood, as Begley's abused mistress, is simply divine: gorgeous, sultry and tragic. You won't see any of "Sister Woman" or "Reverand Mother" here, making me want to see more of her. Begley, outwardly boisterous and charming, is a truly evil character, and his Oscar for this part was deeply deserved. I absolutely despised on every level his arrogant character, but if I were to have seen him in the play, I would have given him a standing ovation. Flashbacks to previous incidents don't distract from the current material, and a few fantasy sequences add interesting elements in the dreams of the disillusioned characters who seemingly have no hope. Great drama keeps you involved. Great theater will have you overjoyed. Outstanding theater and film may have you weep.

Richard Brooks' "Sweet Bird of Youth" is an excellent movie based on Tennessee Williams's play of the same name. The movie stars Paul Newman as a drifter named Chance Wayne (who is the central character to this movie) who is trying to get back into his relationship with a girl named Heavenly Finley (played by Shirley Knight in an Oscar nominated performance)but he knows that she wants the same thing to happen but both have a complication that won't let it happen which is Heavenly's father who is a corrupt politician named "Boss" Finley (played by Ed Begley in an Oscar winning performance). Brooks directed this movie the best way he possibly could which is what a director is supposed to do with a movie but what I wanted to know more about the movie was why did the separation happen otherwise there was other excellent qualities to the film, for example Milton Krasner's great cinematography, the art direction was fabulous especially for Florida weather, and costumes were top notch, and especially the acting was excellent, and while Wayne is going through this tough time he has a total stranger to him keeping him company which is an obscure film star named Alexandra Del Lago (played by Geraldine Page in an Oscar nominated performance).But in the end watching this movie was worth my time just by watching even though it isn't in my list for 1962's best movies but to me it is an honorable mention. I'm totally looking forward to seeing more of Richard Brooks's movies within the foreseeable future.

"Sweet Bird of Youth" flying away … deserting our lives ... leaving us with the painful scars of lost memories … vanishing in the air ... erasing our last hopes, and painting our future with a mark that gets more and more indelible ... as time goes by … Richard Brooks' film, adapted from a successful Tennessee Williams' play echoes one of our deepest fears : losing it … losing what? Simply that little something you can't really put your finger on during the biggest part of your life, and can only perceive it while it has definitely deserted it and became a vulgar souvenir, in a word : youth. Youth like an invisible crown on young people's heads and that only older people can see … youth, like a ticket for success … It's ironic that the title resonates as another famous one, "Sweet Smell of Success", both bears the same resonance, the same power in their symbolism, as if one couldn't go without the other … indeed, this bird of youth has a sweet smell, and one thing is certain, we can smell its absence all through the film. The movie is a eulogy to the youth that physically left the glorious and decadent Alexandra Del Lago, Geraldine Page, or that killed the inner idealism of Chance Wayne, Paul Newman … two characters portrayed with such a natural authenticity that I wonder if those parts weren't self-reflexive ... don't get me wrong, they were both great, but we never know when reality outshines the fiction … Geraldine Page had the magnetism of a has-been diva like Norma Desmond with the realistic touch of fragility from Vivien Leigh's Blanche Dubois … or wait a minute, this was from 1962, right? In fact, she had Bette Davis's constantly bitter nostalgic attitude toward the past glory in "Baby Jane Hudson", with the delicateness of Lee Remick from "Days of Wine and Roses" … this was a great year for female alcoholic roles, and I'm still torn about which performance would have deserved the Oscar, but let's not spoil the review by these random cinematic considerations …The film is about the haunting feeling of youth's volatility and therefore its inner preciousness … it's about a time we spend building dreams, told from the view of people aware of that. Indeed, there's a stressing and disturbing feeling of emergency as if all the characters in this film were trying to fulfill their dreams by any means. The worst or let's say, the most tormented of all is of course, Paul Newman, at the pinnacle of his sex-appeal, as a man who tries to take advantage from the fading reputation of her "hostage", Alexandra Del Lago … to blackmail her so she can obtain him a screening with a famous director. Newman as Chance Wayne, if that is his real name, is the wanna-be star, getting off his waiter condition to conquer the governor's daughter, Heavenly, to prove his value, influenced or corrupted by the very ideas of the governor, the Big Finley, played by Ed Begley, believable as the reminiscent of the bigot-minded juror #10, with his sneaky son, a young unrecognizable Rip Torn.In fact, the whole subplot is quite secondary when you consider the real heart of the film, where it's all about the indecent dichotomy between youth and success. It's in fact highlighting the personal fear of Tennessee Williams himself, who after the successes of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" doubted on his own ability to keep up that level of greatness. A legitimate fear that inspired one thrilling journey into the souls of insecure people, one star who thinks herself as an old relic, and a young gigolo who'd sell his soul just to become someone, forgetting that if you're eager to sell your soul, it still proves that you have one. Chance is a good guy but spoils every of his actions by believing he should be better than what he is, and his self-loathing obsession will be his doom.But the film is less an invitation to accept our own condition than to contemplate the devastating effect of confidence, whether it's lacking or overworking. And in the case of Chance, the man who carries this name with a particular irony, you realize how unlucky he was, as he wasn't able to domesticate his own fear of the future. This encouraged him to leave his girl, to achieve his dreams, but life gives you one chance, Chance, never more … the second miss was fatal as this lead to a miscarriage for his love, and the cruel reputation of a degenerate undesirable human being in his hometown. The whole dilemma will end up to be whether to follow Alexandra or Heavenly, heart or ambition, both the epitomes of youth that can not be separated, and it's not like he didn't try.The conclusion would disappoint the purists as they would expect a darker epilogue for a movie that covers so many dark and taboo undertones, especially when they know about the content of the original play, but I agree that it would have been too dark regarding the general mood of the film. The ending didn't need to be that happy but the symbolism is still powerful as it allowed Chance to be redeemed. It's Hollywood ending, but the movie efficiently made the point that success or happiness can also be a matter of good or bad luck, and through Chance Wayne, Tennessee Williams gives us a self-approach of what he could've been if he wasn't successful or as a matter of fact, what Newman could've been … Thanks God, this is only a movie

Playwright Tennessee Williams has said he slept through the 1960s. He's still awake here, though maybe a bit groggy."Sweet Bird of Youth" is full of juicy parts and vicious scenes. Paul Newman is a young man who has been traveling around -- New York, Hollywood -- seeking to cash in on his good looks, so far without success. This vision of mortal splendor was imparted to him by Boss Finley, Ed Begley. Finley is not called "Boss" for nothing. He's insinuated himself into one powerful political office after another in this Southern state and now runs it as his personal fiefdom. The state police serve as his body servants.Years ago, love was growing between Newman's character, Wayne Chance, and Begley's daughter Heavenly, played by succulent blond Shirley Knight. Love is a fine thing and all that, but to Begley it was an irritant because Heavenly was a débutante whereas Newman was some kind of BUSBOY at the local hotel. You and Heavenly want to get married and that's great, Begley tells him, but you got to go out and conquer the world first so's to be worthy of her. Hollywood and New York, that's the ticket. Speaking of tickets, here's a one-way to New York and a hundred dollars to go with it. Now seek your fortune, and good luck to ya. You come back now, sometime in the distant future, you hear?Dumb Newman accepts the bribe and is off on a quest for the Holy Chalice. He returns to St. Claire once in a while to see Heavenly on the sly and during one of these visits he impregnates her before leaving to continue his pursuit of fame, which by now has acquired functional autonomy. Like Duddy Kravitz, he still believes he's doing it for someone else but he's mistaken.Basically, this film is the story of his final visit. Everyone in town warns him to stay away from Heavenly and get out of town. Never mind that he's dragged the famous but aging movie star Alexandra Del Lago, Geraldine Page, into St. Claire with him, along with her Cadillac and her money. We feel sorry for her because she's on the run from her latest movie, which she believes to have been a failure, and Newman is exploiting the hell out of her, but she's exploitative and narcissistic herself and exploits him back. This raises an interesting question. If a woman orders a man to make love, and he's ashamed of himself, can he still do it? I always could but, I mean, how about Newman's character? The plot get pretty complicated and I don't want to get into it in any detail. Besides, it's been modified to suit a more general audience. I remember seeing the theater marquis in New York with Newman playing the same part on the stage. I didn't get to see a performance but I read about it. Gee, that was a long time ago. I feel antediluvian.The film's writer and director, Richard Brooks, is sometimes thought of as a man who castrated Tennessee Williams for the movie audience, what with the homosexual theme of "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" being further submerged, and then this one, in which the world "castration" is particularly apt. But then, in the 50s, you could only push the envelope so far.Boss Finley's goons bash Newman's face in so he'll never be beautiful again. But does it matter? You bet it doesn't. Newman and Knight run off happily together. Geraldine Page discovers her latest movie wasn't a disaster at all but the greatest hit in the history of the entire planet and she skids off in her Cadillac, happy as only a vicious lover of self can be. Word of some skeletons in the Finley closet are made public and the voters and higher authorities reject him and Begley winds up ruined. This is what is known as a "happy ending" in the trade.Newman is something of a bastard in this film and the part is within his range, just as "The Hustler" and "Hud" were, but it's still one of his more lackluster performances. Geraldine Page's character is over ripe and she makes the most of it. The hysteria is delicious. Shirley Knight is just adequate. But Ed Begley is great -- toothy, overbearing, treacherous, sadistic, barking out orders to massacre people in between the hollow and flagrantly phony greetings. His girl friend, Madeleine Sherwood as "Miss Lucy," matches him in her determine spite.