"he used love like most men used money."

what a great tag line.

Ah, tennessee williams. elvis presley was offered the lead role in the 1969 film 'sweet bird of youth', and boy, am i glad he didn't take it. much of the script revolves around the character of chance knowing exactly how good-looking he is, and, well, elvis would have added a much more sneery dimension to it than paul newman did. paul really was perfection in those days. i adore the fact that his lady love's name is heavenly, because there is a series of books by v.c. andrews starring a character named heaven leigh. heaven leigh casteel was a bit of an inbred, heavenly finleyis the daughter of a thoroughly corrupt politician. the only thing you can really say about shirley knight as heavenly, sadly, is that she is not a particularly good actress. she has the coloring to play the somewhat bland character, but that's about all she's got.

moving on, geraldine page ventures a bit too close to mommie dearest territory for my tastes. but, tennessee has a thing for 'sunset boulevard' types, so i guess it all works, except it might have worked a little better if we actually felt some sort of empathy for princess. i think my favorite character in the whole thing (yes, more favorite than paul) was madeleine sherwood, whose shrill shriek 'gooper!' resonated horribly throughout all of 'cat on a hot tin roof'. she plays dim-witted mistresses just as well as pregnant harpies. speaking of 'cat', though, they could have shifted over even more of the cast, as i would have loved to see burl ives do his big daddy all over boss finley.

so it really does just seem like a vehicle for paul newman, and paul newman alone. which is fine by me. i hate to say it, but the character of chance is not all that bright. you want him to be, on top of his having good intentions, and being in love with the girl that doesn't seem all that spectacular, but he's just not too smart. and mighty free with his sexual favors, if he thinks it might get him somewhere. he's a more subtle gigolo than the guy in 'the roman spring of mrs. stone', but a gigolo nonetheless. i was a bit confused by the apparent reticence to discuss the abortion issue for most of the film, since it was a full three years after the film version of 'suddenly, last summer', which tackled homosexuality, pedophilia, and even cannibalism pretty openly, but, sure enough, at the big political event, the whole thing blows up. i didn't actually find the film quite as enjoyable as 'suddenly, last summer' or 'cat on a hot tin roof', the story just isn't as compelling, and the secrets not quite as big. but if you're in the mood to watch newman strut around in the full bloom of his....everything, then you could certainly do worse than spend a couple of hours on 'sweet bird of youth'.