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I had high expectation before viewing it. However, I regreted that the directer changed the arrangment of the play. The setting of this tv version is TOO REALISTIC, outcrowding the poetric imagination of audience induced by the spacious, dreamy, superrealistic setting of theatre versions.

Wonderful! Now I can get the version I've wanted all the time. (not the c**p containing John Malkovich) Now if they would only release the Ann Margaret version of "Streetcar"....

I just received this yesterday, and immediately settled down, with the cats fed and strict orders of silence, to watch it. What a wonderful, lost jewel. This made for t.v. film was produced the year I graduated from high school, and, the life I then lived in the apartment next to a city train trestle, that I dismally shared with my mother and my dear little sister, was probably a little too similar to Tennessee Williams beautiful play to be of much interest to me then. That this play is based upon his early years is now well known, and, though she denied it most of her life, "Amanda", the suffocating mother played by Katherine Hepburn, is undoubtedly Edwina Williams, Tennessee Williams mother. Though she is the focal point, this "memory play" is as much about Williams beloved sister Rose, whose tragic mental illness and subsequent lobotomy froze her in time. The crippled "Laura" inhabits another world, as did Rose. Williams remained devoted to his institutionalized sister, who outlived him, for his entire lifetime, and always proclaimed her his lifelong love. "Tom", the brother and narrator of the play, dreams of a life filled with adventure, outside of the despised warehouse where he performs his menial work, and free of the unwanted obligations to his abandoned mother and sister. Tom was Tennessee Williams real name, and there is much of him in the fictional Tom. When this play was first produced in the 1940's, Williams career was very young. He considered himself a failure, and, the play was not initially well received. Starring as "Amanda" was Laurette Taylor, formerly a renowned theatre actress, now a Broadway has-been, whose downfall to drink was well known in the theatre world. Upon seeing her in the first early rehearsals of this play, the financial backer screamed to the producer..."HOW could you do this to me?" Williams was also sure he had a failure on his hands, and the play produced modest crowds upon opening, and readied for closing. However, two local Chicago critics sang its praises, and, it subsequently received immense critical acclaim and major awards. As did Laurette Taylor, whose performance went down in theatre history, and was her "comeback" (she died the following year.) Katherine Hepburn, who saw the original production, is wonderful in this role. How lucky we are that The Theatre Archive has preserved her performance. There are close-ups and little bits of business here that make one realize just how rare and skilled an actress she was. What a joy she is to watch. She perfectly conveys "Amanda's" suffocating behavior, all in the name of love for her children, of course. With her at times false joy, and, at other times, her eyes brimming with tears, she repeatedly relives the memories of her bygone youth, beaus of past, and her faded promise, to the all too familiar resignation of her claustrophobic children. You may find her incessent instructions to them on how to breath, eat, stand, etc...exasperating, but this is her controlling nature. Having been abandoned 16 years earlier by her husband, she is determined to make her children "winners", saving them and herself from the obvious fact that they are not. Her grown children are wonderfully and convincingly played by Sam Waterston and Joanna Miles, and Michael Moriarty is equally moving as "The Gentleman Caller." A touchingly beautiful version of a classic, and a total pleasure from a gentler, simpler time. Tennessee now lies next to his beloved Rose, whose gravestone is inscribed...."Blow out your candles, Laura..."

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5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent and Spellbinding!
Thank the theatre gods for releasing this absolutely spellbinding and majestic version originally produced for television in 1973. Read more

Published on July 16 2003 by J. Remington

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