Country: USA
Year: 1958
Duration: 108'
Brick Pollitt, an alcoholic and a former football player, spends his days drinking and rebuffing the advances of his wife Maggie. In the big house owned by Brick’s millionaire father, who has cancer and is on death’s doorstep, she brings back memories and secrets of the past and urges Brick to come to terms with his own repressed desires. The adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ text tones down the subversive content of the original play (in particular the protagonist’s repressed homosexuality), but conserves its spirit, thanks to the star turns by Paul Newman, magnetic and cruel as a man who hates himself, and by Elizabeth Taylor, sensual and desperately in love with a man who cannot love her.
Biography
film director
Richard Brooks
(Philadelphia, USA, 1912 – Studio City, USA, 1992), born Ruben Sax, of Russian and Jewish origin, was an American director, screenwriter, author, and film producer. Like many directors of his generation who worked during the final phase of the classic Hollywood parabola, he tried his hand at many genres. Thanks to melodramas (The Last Time I Say Paris, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth), social dramas (Blackboard Jungle, The Catered Affair), famous literary adaptations (In Cold Blood, The Brothers Karamazov), flashes of New Hollywood such as Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and collaborations with famous authors (Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Paddy Chayefsky), he became one of the most prestigious and reliable exponents of cinema of his time.
FILMOGRAFIA
Crisis (La rivolta, 1950), The Light Touch (L’immagine meravigliosa, 1951), Deadline USA (L’ultima minaccia, 1952), Battle Circus (Essi vivranno!, 1953), Take the High Ground! (Femmina contesa, 1953), Flame and the Flesh (La fiamma e la carne, 1954), The Last Time I Saw Paris (L’ultima volta che vidi Parigi, 1954), Blackboard Jungle (Il seme della violenza, 1955), The Last Hunt (L’ultima caccia, 1956), The Catered Affair (Pranzo di nozze, 1956), Something of Value (Qualcosa che vale, 1957), The Brothers Karamazov (Karamazov, 1958), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (La gatta sul tetto che scotta, 1958), Elmer Gantry (Il figlio di Giuda, 1960), Sweet Bird of Youth (La dolce ala della giovinezza, 1962), Lord Jim (1965), The Professionals (I professionisti, 1966), In Cold Blood (A sangue freddo, 1967), The Happy Ending (Lieto fine, 1969), $ (Il genio della rapina, 1971), Bite the Bullet (Stringi i denti e vai!, 1975), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (In cerca di Mr. Goodbar, 1977), Wrong Is Right (Obiettivo mortale, 1982), Fever Pitch (Febbre di gioco, 1985).
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR: Richard Brooks. STORY: from the play by Tennessee Williams. SCREENPLAY: Richard Brooks, James Poe. CINEMATOGRAPHY: William H. Daniels. EDITING: Ferris Webster. PRODUCTION DESIGN: William A. Horning, Urie McCleary. COSTUME DESIGN: Helen Rose. MUSIC: Charles Wolcott. CAST: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson, Judith Anderson, Madeleine Sherwood, Larry Gates, Vaughn Taylor. PRODUCTION: Lawrence Weingarten for Avon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
CONTACT: Park Circus www.parkcircus.com
