Come Back, Little Sheba **** (1952, Shirley Booth, Burt Lancaster, Terry Moore) – Classic Movie Review 6445

In her film debut, Shirley Booth won the 1953 Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe for her extraordinary performance (repeating her Tony award-winning stage role) in director Mann’s 1952 film version of William Inge’s famous play Come Back, Little Sheba.

It centres on the sloppy, middle-aged wife Lola Delaney, stuck with a boozy husband Doc Delaney (Burt Lancaster, superbly subtle) and retreating into fantasies.

Terry Moore was Oscar nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Marie Buckholder, their attractive young lodger upon whom Doc Delaney dotes.

Director Mann turns up the emotional heat in this pitiful portrait of a sad and desperate marriage from hell, and hands in a riveting film version of the play that doesn’t get or need any opening out.

Also in the cast are Richard Jaeckel, Philip Ober, Edwin Max, Lisa Golm and Walter Kelley.

The screenplay is by Ketti Frings, Come Back, Little Sheba is shot in black and white by James Wong Howe, is produced by Hal B Wallis and is scored by Franz Waxman.

Terry Moore (born Helen Luella Koford on 7 January 1929) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). She was still filming at age 90 in 2019.

Elia Kazan cast Moore in the female lead for Man on a Tightrope (1953). Then 20th Century Fox gave her a contract and the female lead in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953), followed by King of the Khyber Rifles (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Shack Out on 101 (1955), Portrait of Alison (1955), Between Heaven and Hell (1956), Bernardine (1957), Peyton Place (1957), A Private’s Affair (1959) and Cast a Long Shadow (1959).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6445

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