Tennessee 100
Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 1:50PM 
Starting Monday... it's Tennessee Williams Week! The great American playwright's centennial is on March 26th and since his stage work has had such crucial impact on the big screen especially for actors, since Nicole Kidman and James Franco will soon attempt to revive Sweet Bird of Youth on Broadway, and since his writing has influenced other legendary writers or filmmakers like John Waters, Edward Albee, Tony Kushner and Pedro Almodóvar, why not a whole week?
For those of you who haven't seen any of the movies based on his work, why not rent a couple? On Wednesday night we'll celebrate A Streetcar Named Desire with "hit me with your best shot" but other films we hope to touch on include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Fugitive Kind, The Rose Tattoo, Baby Doll, Suddenly Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth and Night of the Iguana. If you have a blog, tumblr or whatnot and you do anything to honor him this week... make sure to let us know and we'll check it out.
Netflix has Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Summer and Smoke and The Glass Menagerie (TV version) available on Instant Watch. TCM is showing A Streetcar Named Desire (Tues at 3:45) though strangely they have no centennial programming this month for one of the artistic giants of the 20th century.
Reader Comments (14)
Film bitch is not gonna end??
Tennessee Williams is one of my favorite playwrights. I might write something up for his centennial.
John -- do you mean the awards? My goal is to complete in next 3 or 4 days. i obviously have to plan differently this/next year to get these things done sooner (sigh).
Would you give up Vivien for Jessica if it meant down the road Pfeiffer would've won for Barker Boys? Rerember you can't have it both ways.
/3rtfu11 - No offence to Jessica who might have been great, but, he's not that sorry Pfeiffer lost! ;)
We could also discuss The Room. That movie has the passion of Tennessee Williams
Suggestion: Tennessee Williams wrote the dialogues for Luchino Visconti's masterpiece Senso. People tend to say he translated the dialogues to English for the international version, but they forget the movie was filmed without sound, and the actors performed in English, using his script. It's his work there, too, even if it was dubbed to Italian in the version we know today.
Have you all seen Boom!? Not a popular choice but it's fantastic.
Cal -- Netflix doesn't have it. *sniffle* that's the one I wanted to write about since i haven't seen it.
So, we'll be submitting frames for HMWYBS on Wednesday?
Dimitra -- yep. every wednesday by 10 pm. (THIS WEEK'S FEATURE: "streetcar" NEXT WEEK: Psycho; following week: HEAVENLY CREATURES)
Excuse me, but no mention of This Property is Condemned? Robert Redford and Natalie Wood, dude!
Netflix also has "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" which was an unproduced screenplay by Williams.
In commemoration of the Tennessee 100, I wrote up Baby Doll at my film blog. Check it out if you have a moment. Thanks!
http://flickdomdictum.blogspot.com/2011/03/baby-doll-1956-elia-kazan.html