The Fugitive Kind

The Fugitive Kind is a 1960 American drama film starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani, and directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Meade Roberts and Tennessee Williams was based on the latters 1957 play Orpheus Descending, itself a revision of his unproduced 1940 work Battle of Angels.

Valentine Snakeskin Xavier, a guitarplaying drifter, flees New Orleans in order to avoid arrest. He finds work in a smalltown fiveanddime owned by an embittered older woman known as Lady Torrance, whose vicious husband Jabe lies on his deathbed in their apartment above the store. Both alcoholic nymphomaniac Carol Cutrere and simple housewife Vee Talbott set their sights on the newcomer, but Val succumbs to the charms of Lady, who plans to set him up with a refreshment bar. Sheriff Talbott, a friend of Jabe, threatens to kill Val if he remains in town, but he chooses to stay when he discovers Lady is pregnant. His decision sparks Jabes jealousy and leads to tragic consequences.In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther described the film as a piercing account of loneliness and disappointment in a crass and tyrannical world . . . Sidney Lumets plainly perceptive understanding of the deeprunning skills of the two stars, his daring with faces in closeup and his outright audacity in pacing his film at a morbid tempo that lets time drag and passions slowly shape are responsible for much of the insistence and the mesmeric quality that emerge . . . Mr. Brando and Miss Magnani . . . being fine and intelligent performers . . . play upon deep emotional chords . . . Miss Woodward is perhaps a bit too florid for full credibility . . . But Miss Stapletons housewife is touching and Victor Jory is simply superb as the inhuman, sadistic husband . . . An excellent musical score by Kenyon Hopkins, laced with crystalline sounds and guitar strains, enhances the mood of sadness in this sensitive film. ........

Source: Wikipedia