Tennessee Williams Film Collection (A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 Two-Disc Special Edition / Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958 Deluxe Edition / Sweet Bird of Youth / The Night of the Iguana / Baby Doll / The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone) |  | Directors: Elia Kazan, John Huston, José Quintero, Richard Brooks
Actors: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $68.98
Buy New: $29.99
as of 3/17/2010 02:41 EDT details
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Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 8822
Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 7
Running Time: 685 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.5 x 4.3
MPN: 75064
UPC: 012569750647
EAN: 0012569750647
ASIN: B000EBD9UI
Theatrical Release Date: September 20, 1958
Release Date: May 2, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 2 days
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| Features:
| • | Streetcar Named Desire 2 Disc SE Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Deluxe Edition Sweet Bird of Youth Night of the Iguana Baby Doll Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR Age: 012569750647 UPC: 012569750647 Manufacturer No: 75064 |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Movie DVD
Amazon.com essential video
An earlier Elia Kazan film, the 1949 Pinky, now seems dated because its "scandalous" subject, miscegenation, has become a social nonissue. If anything, the reputation of this legendary 1956 romp about a child bride in the Deep South has shifted the other way; the ripe image of Carol Baker as a mentally challenged nymphet who sucks her thumb as she lures grown men into her crib (an actual crib!) would probably be hounded off the screen today. When it was originally released the film won a "condemned" rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency, but it isn't as explicit as that might suggest. Current audiences are likely to be shocked not by what's actually shown, but by the mere fact that the movie is a comedy, in effect a sex farce, adapted by Tennessee Williams from a couple of his raunchier one-act plays. Karl Malden is the divine cream puff's sad-sack husband, who has agreed to keep hands off until she turns 19; Eli Wallach is a high-stepping rival in the cotton business who harbors no such scruples. --David Chute
Amazon.com
A much-needed DVD tribute to one of the essential American playwrights, The Tennessee Williams Collection gathers six Williams titles and one vintage documentary. Taken together, it's a potent introduction to the specific terrain (geographical and emotional) of this brilliant writer. The set is anchored by Warner's deluxe two-disc treatment of A Streetcar Named Desire, which has copious extras (among them a fine 90-minute documentary about director Elia Kazan). The multi-Oscar-winning Streetcar is one of the better stage adaptations in film history, and it captures the electrifying Marlon Brando, re-creating his stage role, in the part that changed American acting: the brutish New Orleans sensualist Stanley Kowalski. Vivien Leigh won an Oscar opposite him, as the faded (except in her own mind) Southern belle Blanche DuBois, whose arrival in the Kowalski home leads to disaster. Kazan also directed Baby Doll, which Williams scripted from a couple of one-act plays. This outrageous sex comedy casts the excellent Carroll Baker as the 19-year-old wife of middle-aged Karl Malden, who anxiously awaits the day he can finally consummate his maddening marriage; immigrant cotton magnate Eli Wallach shows up at Malden's crumbling plantation house just in time to take the bloom off the rose, as it were. Famous for being condemned in 1956, Baby Doll remains a very modern (and gloriously dirty) movie. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Richard Brooks, faithfully brings three of Williams's indelible characters to the screen, even if the script discreetly changes the original stage text: the hot Maggie the Cat (Elizabeth Taylor), her reluctant husband Brick (Paul Newman), and Brick's rich Big Daddy (Burl Ives). All three performers act the lights out. Sweet Bird of Youth reunites Paul Newman with director Brooks, and also showcases Geraldine Page's performance as an aging film star tagging along with young stud Newman to his Southern home town. Some of Williams' more depraved touches are toned down, but the milieu is unmistakable and the movie is intense. The Night of the Iguana gives Richard Burton perhaps his finest hour onscreen: as Williams' dissolute defrocked priest, playing tour guide in Puerto Vallarta to tour groups of nattering biddies. The movie has director John Huston's sympathy for life's losers, as well as a trio of women built to torment Burton's reverend: Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, and Sue Lyon. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, based on Williams's novel, is not a great movie, but gives Vivien Leigh a good workout as a wounded actress dallying with Italian gigolo Warren Beatty. Tennessee Williams' South is a 1973 documentary featuring some marvelous observations from Williams, as he holds court for filmmaker Harry Rasky. It also has long scenes from his plays, enacted by good folks such as Maureen Stapleton, Colleen Dewhurst, and Burl Ives. Especially valuable is a Streetcar sequence with Jessica Tandy re-creating her original role as Blanche. Williams himself reads the narration from The Glass Menagerie, a privileged moment. This is not an exhaustive Williams set (Joseph Mankiewicz's Suddenly, Last Summer and Sidney Lumet's The Fugitive Kind are among the best Williams films), but it maps out the steamy, tortured landscape awfully well. --Robert Horton
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 42
 Poor Audio recording...Used Captioning To Distinguish Words December 16, 2009
J. Gwinn (West Virginia USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
No, I have not suffered hearing loss! Otherwise I would have rated this movie a 5 star. The poor audio reproduction grossly distracted from enjoying the movie. Yes, if you turn the volume to high you can hear 99% of script but then audio/hissing noises become an annoyance.
The setting/cast was great. Part of the scenes were shot on an actual dilapidated antebellum plantation/home(pre-civil war) in 1956...I doubt anything was altered within the house or yard but filmed "as is"..Also, the black cotton gin workers were undoubtedly locals/authentic from the accents & clothing.
The plot was pretty deep & leaves the viewer thinking about the moral of the story. There is perhaps a thread of feminist thought? Actress Carroll Baker plays the part of a Teenage Bride which has been intellectually dumbed down. At first the viewer sees her as mentally slow (you first see her sucking her thumb in a crib) but as the movie progresses it becomes apparent she is the victim of being fixated mentally as an adolescent. In the end she shows traces of adulthood/independent thinking...Many more side plots/angles to the movie.
How could they have been so careless/sloppy reproducing this movie?
 Outrageous and Entertaining November 18, 2009
Cary B. Barad (Baltimore, MD)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I don't believe that this film is can be charactrized as a "Black Comedy", as some suggest, since the humor here is actually quite cruel--with an angry, weird and threatening dimension. "High Drama" is more like it, and there are clear implications for morality and ethical thought. It was regarded as quite daring and sexually tinged for its time.
Nonetheless, the "Negroes" in this film are portrayed in a dated and stereotyped way, while other ethnic slurs abound. I believe this material is of historical value rather than a deliberate attempt to denigrate others. In any case, anything by Tennessee Williams is guaranteed to be frightening, ourageous and entertaining. Recommended.
 I was lucky October 13, 2009
Walter L. Gasper (SAN FRANCISCO, CA)
I was lucky to see this at age 15, the day it opened at the Lindsey Theater in Lubbock, Texas. My date's name was Darlene and this was the only time I paid more attention to the movie than to her. The Baptists had the film taken down the next day, but my ideas about female beauty were set for many years to come. At the end we realize that Baby Doll...well I shouldn't say because it's a spoiler for some.
"BABY DOLL" IS A FAVORITE OF MINE September 21, 2009
William Dakota (Lima, Ohio)
When this was first released, I was working in a theater that played it. It was controversial, to say the least. Really mild by today's standards. It was also condemned by the Catholic Church, which made it a "must see" film. Carroll Baker was known for her role in "GIANT." The late Karl Malden and co-star Eli Wallach are great. It is a campy film showing the deep south in early America. Very entertaining, even in black & white. I wish it was in widescreen, but it isn't. Elia Kazan (East of Eden) directed it.
tennessee williams,classic movies dvd box set September 14, 2009
William A. Ressler (PA)
This box set is a very good collection of classic films at a very reasonable price. I highly recommed this set.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 42
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