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| Robert Redford and Natalie Wood make a gorgeous couple in This Property is Condemned, 1966. |
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| Director Sydney Pollack talks things over with stars Robert Redford and Natalie Wood, while Charles Bronson relaxes in the background. |
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| The stunningly beautiful Natalie Wood in This Property is Condemned, 1966. |
A Southern accent lets you get away with a lot. If you’re a
movie character from the South, you can be as weird and eccentric as you want,
and people will just write it off. If you acted the same way, but were from the
North, people would instantly think you’re crazy. That thought came to me as I
was watching This Property is Condemned, starring
Natalie Wood and Robert Redford. It’s based on a one-act play by Tennessee
Williams, who virtually trademarked Southern eccentrics. Early on in the movie,
Redford’s character has a short speech where he says, “Do you know there was a
cat once who fell asleep in the sun and dreamt that he was a man who fell
asleep and dreamt he was a cat. When he woke up, he didn’t know if he was a man
or a cat.” What the hell does that mean? Because that speech is delivered in
Redford’s Southern accent, it sounds vaguely poetic, as though there’s a deeper
hidden meaning in that story. Had that same speech been delivered in a Northern
accent, I would have quickly come to the conclusion that Redford’s character
was a deranged serial killer, and I would have been shouting at the TV, telling
Natalie Wood’s character to get out of his room.
This Property is
Condemned plows the same fields as much of Williams’ other work, and it’s
not one of his major works. As Gore Vidal wrote of Williams in his excellent
1976 essay, “Some Memories of the Glorious Bird and an Earlier Self,”
“Tennessee is the sort of writer who does not develop; he simply continues. By
the time he was an adolescent he had his themes. Constantly he plays and
replays the same small but brilliant set of cards.” (United States: Essays 1952-1992, p.1146) This Property is Condemned is set in a small town in Mississippi
during the Great Depression, and it focuses on Alva Starr, (the luscious
Natalie Wood) her domineering mother Hazel (Kate Reid) and Alva’s younger
sister Willie (Mary Badham). Hazel runs a boarding house, and she’s basically
pimping out the beautiful Alva for dates with men in order to make some extra
money. Ironically, Kate Reid was only 7 years older than Natalie Wood, which
shows the difference between being a leading lady and a character actress.
Things get shaken up when handsome stranger Owen Legate (the super handsome
Robert Redford) takes a room at the boardinghouse. Legate is in town to hand
out pink slips to some of the railroad men, who all seem to also live at the
boardinghouse. (Look for the always creepy Robert Blake in a small part as Sidney.)
Legate is at first dismissive of the flirtatious Alva, but he eventually
realizes his attraction to her.
Owen and Alva spend a passionate night together after he’s
beaten up by some of the angry railroad workers he laid off. (Being a super
handsome guy like Robert Redford means that you get the shit kicked out of you
a lot on screen. See also: Tom Cruise.) Alva wants to leave her annoying mother
and move to a big city, so Owen buys her a train ticket to New Orleans, where
he lives. But then he overhears Hazel telling someone about their plans to move
to Memphis with a rich older gentleman and angrily confronts Alva and leaves
town in a huff. Knowing she’s lost Owen, a drunken Alva confronts her mother,
her mother’s sleazy boyfriend J.J. (Charles Bronson) and Mr. Johnson, (John
Harding) the rich older gentleman who wants the Starrs to move to Memphis. It’s
one of the best scenes in the movie, and Wood delivers an exquisite performance
as she demolishes their hypocrisy. Unfortunately, Alva drunkenly demands that
J.J. should marry her that night if he really loves her. Her behavior doesn’t
really make much sense, as it’s been clear throughout the movie that she
despises J.J.’s attempts to flirt with her. Anyway, they get married, spend the
night together, and the next morning Alva steals his money and takes a train to
New Orleans. Fortunately, she finds Owen again, and it looks like things will
end happily for them. The movie seems to go through a tonal shift once we get
to New Orleans. It suddenly feels like the 1960’s rather than the 1930’s, as
Alva moves into Owen’s apartment and happily waits for him to come home from
work. But then Mother shows up and ruins everything. She tells Owen of Alva’s
marriage to J.J., Alva runs out into the rain, catches a cold, and dies.
The acting in This
Property is Condemned is superb, as Wood delivers an amazing performance. I
suspect that she probably identified with Alva’s situation, as Wood’s real-life
mother was basically the stage mother from hell, and closely controlled Wood’s
life as a child actress. Wood was enthusiastic about playing the role of Alva,
saying it was “probably the closest I’ll ever get to playing Blanche DuBois.” (Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, by
Suzanne Finstad, p.304) Wood is beautiful, sexy, and touching as the hopelessly
romantic Alva. Wood’s wardrobe is amazing, and the dresses that Edith Head
created for her show off her beauty very well. Wood and Redford make a
stunningly attractive screen couple, and their chemistry is obvious. Although
the film was not a hit when it was released in August, 1966, Wood was nominated
for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Drama, but she lost to
Anouk Aimee, who won for her role in A
Man and a Woman.
Wood had previously starred with Robert Redford in 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover, and during the
shooting of that film she approached him about pairing with her again in This Property is Condemned. At that
point in his career, Redford had done a lot of TV work, but he wasn’t yet a big
movie star, as his breakthrough roles came in 1967’s Barefoot in the Park and 1969’s Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Redford said yes to Wood, and he pushed for
his friend Sydney Pollack as director, even though Pollack had only directed
one movie. This Property is Condemned was
the first movie directed by Pollack that Redford starred in, and they would go
on to make seven movies together. I always like Robert Redford’s confidence on
screen. Of course, I’d be confident too if I looked like Robert Redford.
Redford seems to have that confidence in every role he plays, and it works
especially well for Owen’s character. If someone else were playing Owen, he
might seem like a real jerk.
The supporting cast is excellent as well, particularly Mary
Badham as Willie. Badham is best known for playing Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird and This Property is Condemned is one of her
only other acting roles. Pollack’s direction is very good, and he’s helped out
by the legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe, who gets to do several of his
trademark long tracking shots from helicopters. Perhaps the most impressive
tracking shot is the one as Alva is riding the train to New Orleans. The camera
starts outside the train, focusing on Natalie Wood’s face, and then pulling
back to reveal the entire train as it crosses a bridge. It’s a beautiful shot.
If you’re a fan of the beautiful and talented Natalie Wood
or the handsome and talented Robert Redford, or you just need a Tennessee
Williams fix, check out This Property is
Condemned.
