Sweet Bird Of Youth

Tennessee Williams' powerful drama about a film star who flees Hollywood when she realizes that her days as a glamorous young actress are over forever. Finding solace in booze and sex, she arrives in a small southern town that is dominated by a powerful and unscrupulous politician (not unlike Huey Long) in the company of a gigolo who once lived in the area. "Sweet Bird of Youth" is a perfect vehicle for the middle-aged Elizabeth Taylor, who also performed memorably in three other film versions of Williams' works, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly, Last Summer and Boom. Taylor makes the most of the role despite the fact that she is saddled with a fairly bland co-star. (She and Mark Harmon didn't like each other personally and that fact may have impacted negatively on their characters' interaction.) Much more frank than the 1962 version that starred the two original stars of the Broadway play, Paul Newman and Geraldine Page. Directed by Nicholas Roeg who also made the cult classic, Walkabout.