Monday, February 25, 2019

Romancefest 2019: This Property is Condemned

Directed by Sydney Pollack
Written by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe and Edith Sommer
Based on the one-act play by Tennessee Williams
Starring Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Charles Bronson and Kate Reid
U.S., 1966

In a depression-era Mississippi town dependent on the railway business, a stranger comes to town in order to lay off the railway workers. He falls in love with the daughter of the owner of a boarding house, who is desperate to get out of the small town and move to big, bustling New Orleans, and escape her scheming mother who wants to use her youth and good looks for financial gain and security.

I was looking forward to checking this movie out thanks to the huge names attached to it: Pollack, Coppola, Williams, Wood and Redford. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that great. It’s almost a parody of a Tennessee Williams-style play, with all the trappings but none of the heart or meaning. Yes, it’s hot out and everyone’s sweaty and everyone’s sexed up and pent up and so on. It’s fun to watch Wood because she’s beautiful and Redford because this made him a star, but the movie’s overly long and doesn’t have much to say, beyond being a soap opera.

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