Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Geraldine Page created the role of aging movie star Alexandra del Lago in "Sweet Bird of Youth" on Broadway in 1959 with Paul Newman playing the fading golden boy Chance Wayne. Page and Newman recreated their roles in the 1962 movie, directed by Richard Brooks with Shirley Knight as Heavenly Finley and an Oscar-winning Ed Begley as preacher turned politico Tom "Boss" Finley (Sr.). As great an actress and formidable a dinosaur as Page was (and there is no grounds for dispute about either!), in closeup it was difficult to believe that she had been a great beauty. As an over-the-hill movie beauty, Elizabeth Taylor ca. 1989, prompted no such questioning. She didn't have to act like a legend, she was one.

The part of the celebrity in hiding (and paying for male companionship and turning fancy phrases) is more than a little autobiographical: playwright Tennessee Williams knew plenty of Chance Waynes with unrealized dreams. Mark Harmon did not bring Newman's self-loathing (which Newman also portrayed very effectively in Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Taylor). 48 when the movie was shot, Harmon could not pass for 31, and this was unnecessarily made even clearer with nude shots when Chance was supposed to be 18. Too old, too bland, not desperate enough. However, Valerie Perrine was perfect for the part of Miss Lucy, Boss Finley's mistress (Madeleine Sherwood in the earlier movie). In the reduced part of Boss Finley, the hypocritical prophet of purity (white and family), Rip Torn was blander than Begley (but for bringing resonances surpasses even Taylor in that Torn was married to Geraldine Page until her death in 1987,and played Tom Finley Jr. in the 1962 movie).

This adaptation was more faithful to the text, particularly in its ending, which had been very compromised by censors ca. 1962.

I don't know what happened to former cinematographer Nicolas Roeg, whose first four directorial efforts were astounding to look at and narratively complex (somewhere between oblique and opaque): Performance, Walkabout, Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth). The skyrocketing director who fell to earth? There is no visual bravado in "Bird," though the decors are well-chosen and the sometimes overblown (blowhard) speeches are dispatched well (even most of Harmon's are). Aunt Nonnie's part was nearly cut out, but Mildred Dunnock was not around to play it any more, so that's OK.

And though more than a little Gothic and set in the era of defending segregation as a Christian crusade, Williams's preacher turned political demagogue (and hiding the disorders of his own house) has not lost its relevance.

Despite the censoring in the 1962 version, I'd have to recommend it in preference to the 1959 one, though, obviously, it is possible to view and review both versions, as I have.

There are no DVD extras on an inexpensive ($5.99) disc.


(BTW, the previous three movies based on Tennessee Williams plays in which Elilzabeth Taylor played were
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) directed by Richard Brooks
Suddenly Last Summer (1959) directed by Joseph Mankiewicz
Boom! (1968) based on "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore", directed by Joseph Losey
She received Oscar nominations for the first two (and should have won, IMO, for her Maggie in "Cat")

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD