The Glass Menagerie (1987)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Paul Newman

Writer:

Tennessee Williams (play)

Release Date:

12 May 1988 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A son longs to escape from his stifling home, where his genteel mother worries about the future prospects of his lame, shy sister. |

Plot Keywords:

Southern Belle | Dysfunctional Family | Handicap | Family Relationships | Domineering Mother

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 5 nominations

Cast

Joanne Woodward	...	Amanda Wingfield
John Malkovich	...	Tom Wingfield
Karen Allen	...	Laura Wingfield
James Naughton	...	Jim O'Connor (the gentleman caller)

Runtime:

134 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:G | Argentina:Atp | USA:PG

Company:

Cineplex-Odeon Films

Trivia:

The original Broadway stage play "The Glass Menagerie" opened at the Playhouse Theatre on Mar 31, 1945 and ran for 563 performances.

Goofs:

Continuity: As Tom is speaking with Laura in one scene, every time the camera is focused on her, his arms are at his sides in the background. When the camera focuses on him, his arms are crossed. This switches back and forth for an entire scene.

Quotes:

Tom Wingfield: Oh, I could tell you things to make you sleepless! My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They're going to blow us all sky-high some night! And will I be glad, will I be happy, and so will you be! And you'll go up, up, up! over Blue Mountain on a broomstick, with your seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly, babbling old witch!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Night Court: The Glasnost Menagerie (#7.19)" (1990)

Deeply moving--tops all previous film versions.

The depth of feeling manifested in the acting on display here easily trumps both the (wildly miscast)Gertrude Lawrence and the (vastly overrated) Katherine Hepburn versions of this celebrated play.

Though everyone involved (on both sides of the camera) does a first rate job, special accolades are due to Joanne Woodward, who is perhaps the first actress to really understand Amanda, since the role's originator--Laurette Taylor.

The pathos in Miss Woodward's delineation of the character is almost unbearable on some occasions, as in the famous jonquil soliloquy, in which she conveys, with hushed voice and beatific eyes, a sentimental recollection for lost time (and lost love) that is not only wholly personally convincing, but also manages to imprint her sentiment onto the audience with all the deja vu of Proust's madeleine.

Her Amanda is never less than fully persuasive.

And Mr. Malkovitch, in his final address to the camera, ("blow out your candles Laura") achieves effects of the same high order, with emotions so confiding, intimate, and genuine that he leaves viewers of any sensitivity as heartbroken as he is.

All told a devastating achievement not to be missed by admirers of Mr. Williams.