Save your money for something good and enjoyable

hyped garbage

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

holds up very well. The cast is excellent. Look for a young Robert Blake as one of Alva's admirers, of which there are many. Mary Badham shows how natural and good a child actress she truly was and that her performance in Mockingbird was not just a flash in the pan. I wish she had done more. Charles Bronson is fine as Hazel's boyfriend who is in lust with Wood's character. I think the plot is fine, not sure why so much criticism. It develops the characters and moves along just fine. Robert Redford is solid in his role. He struggles with his job and morality. That is never easy. But Natalie Wood is outstanding. Not only her screen presence is mesmerizing, but her interpretation of her role is a revelation. She is no innocent, yet she is innocent and she portrays that very well. She has never been more beautiful and to me she rivaled Elizabeth Taylor in looks. She was not nominated for an Academy Award that year, but I believe she she deserved it.

First Natalie is breathtaking to watch and I still miss her!.. her sister ,is played by the wonderful Mary Badham. The search for the right girl for " To Kill a Mockingbird" ended up with children that had no acting experience ( IN THAT AREA they filmed) in their lives(Mary played Scout )but forever became a part of our lives with their incredible performances...and she also stands out ,a bit older then" to Kill a Mockingbird" but still that feisty character that played "Scout" in Mockingbird! but Natalie steals this movie ....I just love watching her act..and Sydney Pollack directing Redford would prove a very long collaboration.I think Redford is the same in almost any movie, if they need a wild game hunter,"Out Of Africa" but costarring with Streep, they give a wonderful performance and he does the same thing as if it was in "Barefoot on the Park" nothing differs with his acting, that's my opinion but I like him in his movies...Hubbell .another name that will always go down in Film History...another point,Natalie wears ONE dress this entire movie, a thing a Hollywood actress would shun away from...but Tennessee Williams as the writer, you can't go wrong.Anytime I hear his words, as I do Truman Capote's words.."the world is AOK!" for me..WOW...Redford did "Barefoot in the Park" one year after this movie...that's interesting!revised: I just looked at it again and she wears more than one dress in the movie..sorry Natalie fans!..still just a great movie..how times were, when all you had to worry about was"train service" but T.Williams adds the fact of so many losing jobs, from the lose of that train service

Drama takes place during the Depression. Owen Legate (Robert Redford) goes to a small town in Mississippi to lay off railroad workers (the towns only source of income). There he meets wild Alva Starr (Natalie Wood) and her overbearing mother Hazel (Kate Reid). Alva wants to get out of the town and see Owen as her ticket...but her mother has other ideas. It's all ends tragically.This was based on one of Tennessee Williams' one act plays. It was adapted by THREE writers (one being the unknown Francis Coppola). When Williams saw the final result he was (understandably) horrified. It's easy to see why--this just comes across as a very bad Williams play. It moves slowly, has characters making speeches instead of talking and has sexual situations that were probably shocking in their day but are merely tame (and silly) today. Abrupt ending too. Worst of all is Redford who gives a TERRIBLE performance. Totally stone-faced throughout showing no reaction or feelings at all. This film gets a 5 because it IS well-done. It looks good and captures the feel of its era pretty convincingly. Also Reid and Wood are excellent in their roles giving this better performances than it deserves. Those two alone make this worth watching at least once. I'm giving this a marginal recommendation because of those two. Look for a very young Robert Blake and Charles Bronsan in small roles.

This was the last of the big Hollywood movies of Tennessee Williams plays, a series of masterpieces which started with 'The Glass Menagerie' (1950) and went on for 16 unforgettable years. And this is certainly one of the best. It is simply packed with talent in every department, directed by Sydney Pollack, script by Francis Ford Coppola, and Oscar-level performances from at least four members of the cast: Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Kate Reid, and Mary Badham. It is such a tragedy that Mary Badham gave up acting after this, as she was pure magic. Of all Natalie Wood's performances, this is probably the best. What an entrancing and magical creature! I never knew her but I had the great treat of sitting across from her at an adjoining dinner table in the Oak Room of the Plaza one night, and was just as dazzled as could be, and against all protocol and etiquette, simply could not take my eyes off her. She was dining with Lauren Bacall, whom I barely noticed in the penumbra of Natalie Wood's supernatural glow, and as a Bacall admirer that really does say something. Robert Redford has to portray a very quiet, contained character, so has little opportunity for 'big acting' in this film, but he triumphs at understatement, which was always one of his strengths. Another of the knockouts is Kate Reid as the most ravening, selfish, exploitative mother you can imagine. Well, I can, as I have met some like that, and believe me, she is spot on, to make your skin crawl. The Natalie Wood character is a revisiting of the girl in 'The Glass Menagerie', someone trapped, taking refuge in her dreams. She throws herself around, from man to man, basking in admiration because there seems to be nothing else. The motif of the cruelty and violence of a gang of men recurs here, reminding us of 'Suddenly, Last Summer'. This setting is a nowhere town in Mississippi, where the railroad is about to close. These are classic Tennessee Williams themes, but deeply felt and genuine, from the heart. By this time, Tennessee himself was as trapped as Natalie Wood, not in the state of Mississippi, but in another state, one of the mind. Seeing him bleary-eyed at a bar in the 1960s was a sad sight, and his gentle but tragic smalltalk as he sipped whiskey lacked focus. He was in what he knew was His Decline. But he must have been thrilled that this whopping realisation of one of his shorter plays came out just when he most needed a boost to his sagging morale. What a pity that after that, there was only television, what Newton Minnow at the time aptly called 'the Vast Wasteland'. The sadness in the Williams plays, and in the play which he himself lived, called his Life, are truly unbearable. Tennessee was a Great Soul. This film deserves to be on the list of everybody's classics, as it has something that will never die about it.