THE FUGITIVE KIND (1959)

THE FUGITIVE KIND, based on the Tennessee Williams play, takes patience to get through the often molasses-slow pacing and soliloquy-tinged dialogue. But the high-calibre of acting rewards your patience. Drifter Val(entine) 'Snakeskin' Xavier (Brando) lands in a hick country town where the sadistic sheriff (R.G. Armstrong) takes an instant dislike to him upon learning that his wife (Maureen Stapleton) has helped the stranger get a job. Val’s new boss lady is Lady Torrance (Anna Magnani), who is tending the general goods store while her tyrannical husband Jabe (Victor Jory) lies dying upstairs. Town tramp (Joanne Woodward) lusts for virile Val, but rejects her in favor of lonely Lady, who then becomes pregnant. The outcome of all this is, to say the least, quite unpleasant. Never was there a better cast. Brando. At 35, was starting to show a bit of the extra weight that would eventually get out of control. But if he wasn't quite so lean as he had been in his film debut 10 years earlier in THE MEN, in no way does this detract from his weighty performance as the sexy, sultry, moody, macho Val. Woodward, as the wayward woman, delivers an incredibly sensual performance without ever taking off a stitch! Jory plays the snake to a tee. And Stapelton, the original Lady on Broadway, is touching in the less flashy part of the sheriff's bedraggled wife. Only Magnani, magnificent actor as she is, is a problem. Her gravy-thick Italian accent is difficult to understand, and in fact, sometimes sounds looped. Fortunately, her expressive face tells us all we need to know.