Sydney Pollack's tawdry potboiler, adapted from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, was rife with production problems, culminating in Williams' failed attempt to have his name removed from the credits. The story is set by a framing device as thirteen-year-old Willie Starr (Mary Badham) sits on an abandoned railroad track with her friend Tom (Jon Provost) and relates the tale of her deceased older sister Alva (Natalie Wood). Alva is a beautiful woman living in a small Mississippi town in the 1930s with her manipulative ...
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Sydney Pollack's tawdry potboiler, adapted from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, was rife with production problems, culminating in Williams' failed attempt to have his name removed from the credits. The story is set by a framing device as thirteen-year-old Willie Starr (Mary Badham) sits on an abandoned railroad track with her friend Tom (Jon Provost) and relates the tale of her deceased older sister Alva (Natalie Wood). Alva is a beautiful woman living in a small Mississippi town in the 1930s with her manipulative mother Hazel (Kate Reid), the owner of a boarding house. Hazel wants Alva to marry the well to do Mr. Johnson (John Harding), but Alva has fallen in love with a good-looking stranger from New Orleans, Owen Legate (Robert Redford), who is in Mississippi to lay off railroad workers. Hazel is opposed to their love affair and when Owen is beaten to a pulp by a gang of workers, he decides to leave town and take Alva with him. But Hazel fools Owen into thinking Alva is engaged to Mr. Johnson. In retaliation, Alva marries Hazel's loutish lover J.J. (Charles Bronson). The next day, she abandons J.J. to meet Owen in New Orleans. Her mother, incensed at Alva's betrayal, sets out to ruin her daughter's reputation by exposing her marriage to J.J. to the world. Paul Brenner, Rovi
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Add this copy of This Property is Condemned [Dvd] to cart. $3.90, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Movies rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Paramount.
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Natalie Wood, Kate Reid, Ray Hemphill, Robert Redford, John Harding, Robert Blake, Dabney Coleman, Charles Bronson, Brett... Very good. Run time: 110. Providing great media since 1972. All used discs are inspected and guaranteed. Digital copy/codes may be expired or not included. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned [Dvd] to cart. $3.90, fair condition, Sold by Goodwill rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brooklyn Park, MN, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Paramount.
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Fair. Disc(s) and case show moderate signs of wear and tear. If applicable, digital code may not be useable/ included. May be missing booklet/inserts. If applicable, cardboard slipcover may not be included.
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned [Dvd] to cart. $3.92, fair condition, Sold by Goodwill of Colorado rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Paramount.
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Fair. All our items come in the original case with artwork, though manuals and slipcovers are not always guaranteed to be included as these items are donated goods and will show some wear and tear from normal use. Jewel cases will be included but may be damaged and/or cracked. We typically resurface discs that are visibly scratched prior to shipping, but we do not test disc(s). Digital codes may not be included and have not been tested to be redeemable and/or active. Thank you for shopping with Goodwill Colorado! Orders shipped Monday through Friday. Safe and Secure Bubble Mailer! Your purchase helps put people to work and learn life skills to reach their full potential. Thank you!
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned [Dvd] to cart. $4.74, good condition, Sold by Goodwill Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hillsboro, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Paramount.
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Good. May have very light or no surface scratches. Case and cover artwork are included but may show minimal signs of wear. If applicable: Digital copy or ultraviolet codes may be expired or not included. Slipcover may not be included.
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned [Dvd] to cart. $5.00, very good condition, Sold by Book Alley rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Pasadena, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Paramount.
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Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Charles Bronson, Kate Reid, Mary Badham, Alan Baxter, Robert Blake, Dabney Coleman, John... Run time: 110. Case, disc and booklet are all in very good or better condition.
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned [Dvd] to cart. $5.49, very good condition, Sold by St. Vinnie's Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Eugene, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Paramount.
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Very Good. Dvd 100% of proceeds go to charity! Complete item with limited signs of use and wear. May have minor scuffs and flaws but is in very good working condition.
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned to cart. $7.89, very good condition, Sold by Wonder Book - Member ABAA/ILAB rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Frederick, MD, UNITED STATES.
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned to cart. $8.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Movies rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Paramount (Pmt).
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Very good. 1966 Run time: 110. Providing great media since 1972. All used discs are inspected and guaranteed. Digital copy/codes may be expired or not included. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned [Dvd] to cart. $9.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Movies rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2003 by Paramount.
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Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Charles Bronson, Kate Reid, Mary Badham, Alan Baxter, Robert Blake, Dabney Coleman, John... Very good. Run time: 110. Providing great media since 1972. All used discs are inspected and guaranteed. Digital copy/codes may be expired or not included. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of This Property is Condemned to cart. $10.05, new condition, Sold by Lexington Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Idaho Falls, ID, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Warner Bros. Digital Dist.
This 1966 movie, "This Property is Condemned" is based loosely on a short, early Tennessee Williams play published in 1946 in a volume of one-act plays titled "Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton." I became interested in seeing this film by reading Williams. The film credits state that the movie was "suggested" by Williams' play, indicating a substantial divergence between the two. Indeed, Williams was displeased with the film and tried to have has name removed entirely from the credits. Especially for a short play of only a few pages, film and live theater are two different genres. Each should be enjoyed on its own terms.
The opening and closing scenes of the film are closely related to the play, which includes only two characters, a young girl, Willie, 13, and a boy, Tom, 16. The two meet while walking along the railroad tracks in a shabby Mississippi town during the Depression. Willie gradually tells her story to Tom. She lives alone in an old house along the tracks that served as a rooming house for railroad workers. The house has been condemned. Willie tells how both her mother and her father had run off and her older sister Alva had supported the family by sleeping with the transient railroad workers. Alva has died from consumption and young Willie is following her sister's path by likewise providing entertainment to the railroaders.
Alva never appears in the play but she becomes the lead character of the film which turns Williams' play into a romance. Natalie Wood plays the beautiful and doomed Alva and her beau is a young, handsome Robert Redford playing a character called Owen Legate. The film is set in a fictitious, dusty Mississippi town called Dotson. Alma does indeed sleep around as her hard, gimlet-eyed mother Hazel Starr (Kate Reid) encourages her older daughter to sell her services where they will do the most good and not to worry about love and romance.
When Legate appears to fire many of the local railroad workers in the Depression-plagued community, an instant chemistry develops between him and Alma. Legate is a tough-minded rising worker who does what he needs to do in his job. For all his ambition, he and the beautiful Alma fall in love. Alma's mother, however, has other plans for her daughter. The love affair develops through many twists and turns until Alma meets her tubercular fate, as in Williams' play. Legate, the love affair, and Alma's mother are not characters in Williams' play. (The mother is mentioned in passing. But she runs off first, leaving Alma and Willie in the custody of the father.)
The Alma-Legate story has little of Williams and a good deal of Hollywood. Even so, Natalie Wood is stunning in this movie and a treat to watch as she falls in love with Redford and struggles to find her own path in life. The movie was filmed in a small Mississippi town with realistic scenes of the rural deep South that include the rooming house itself and the main street of the town. The scenes of the tracks -- and all sides of these tracks are wrong -- of the railroad yards, and of the steam trains roaring by through the poor town all capture well the small-town Depression era South. The character of Willie (Mary Badham) sings a little song, "Wish Me a Rainbow" that is emblematic of both movie and film and that has become a small standard.
The movie largely works in its own right, particularly with Natalie Wood, Redford, and the railroads even though it is thematically different from Williams' play. Admirers of Tennessee Williams or Natalie Wood, or those interested in Southern stories will enjoy this film.
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