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Friday, October 25, 2019

TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1963)

Adding a note of Tennessee Williams style sexual hysteria (spinsterhood division) to her own specialty of iffy finances disrupting a dysfunctional Southern family, got Lillian Hellman a hit on her penultimate B’way play.* With a stellar cast (Jason Robards Jr., Irene Worth, Maureen Stapleton, all Tony nominated; Anne Revere winning) and Arthur Penn directing, it must have seemed a plum property for film adaptation, but winds up feeling labored and obvious on screen. George Roy Hill, just off a debut directing Tennessee Williams’ lightweight PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT/’62) can’t find the key to play this one in, as Dean Martin (in a last shot at a ‘serious’ role) returns home with new bride Yvette Mimieux flush with money from a secret deal he’s just put thru. Happy days for all, including older sisters Geraldine Page & Wendy Hiller, until a bad case of familial sexual jealousy wrecks havoc on all plans. Some good acting in here, Martin surprisingly strong and Wendy Hiller superb. But Mimieux’s needy panic feels under-motivated (two sentences could have covered it), and Page’s force-of-malignant-nature act too much right from the start. Her clinging neuroticism sold with the pushy false enthusiasm of a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesperson. There’s some nicely shot location stuff from lenser Joseph Biroc, and a nifty credit sequence with titles appearing like marque lights on various building facades in the Old Quarter New Orleans, but the story feels awfully thin.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *No surprise to find that James Poe, who wrote the play-to-screen adaption, also did two for Tennessee Williams: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF/’58; SUMMER AND SMOKE/’61.

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