The Glass Menagerie *** (1987, Joanne Woodward, John Malkovich, Karen Allen, James Naughton) – Classic Movie Review 7565

Paul Newman expertly and sensitively directs the Tennessee Williams hothouse drama The Glass Menagerie for the big screen, showing his special affinity with the material. Newman’s wife Joanne Woodward is extremely impressive as the nagging, faded Southern belle Amanda Wingfield and John Malkovich is rock solid as her dreamer reminiscing poetic son, merchant marine officer Tom Wingfield. Also good are Karen Allen as Amanda’s shy, crippled daughter Laura Wingfield and James Naughton as the Gentleman Caller, Jim O’Connor.

Maybe this is not Williams’s best play, though it still exerts a powerful hold and indeed seems to improve with the years. The movie is a triumph of acting for Woodward and Malkovich, though the film runs to 133 minutes and would have been better 30 minutes shorter like the previous two versions with Gertrude Lawrence (1950) and Katharine Hepburn (1973).

No writer was credited as adapting Tennessee Williams’s play.

It follows the 1950 film version The Glass Menagerie and the 1973 TV movie version The Glass Menagerie.

For the record, the original Broadway play opened at New York’s  Playhouse Theatre on 31 March 1945 and ran for 563 performances.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7565

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