What Gets Me Hot: The Fugitive Kind (1960)

Synopsis

Four Oscar–winning actors—Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, and Maureen Stapleton—sink their teeth into this enthralling film, which brings together the legendary talents of director Sidney Lumet and writer Tennessee Williams. A smoldering, snakeskin-jacketed Brando is Val Xavier, a drifter trying to go straight. He finds work and solace in a southern small-town variety store run by the married, sexually frustrated Lady Torrance (Magnani), who proves as much a temptation for Val as local wild child Carol Cutrere (Woodward). Lumet captures the intense, fearless performances and Williams’s hot-blooded storytelling and social critique with his customary restraint, resulting in a drama of uncommon sophistication and craft.

Cast

Valentine “Snakeskin” Xavier	Marlon Brando
Lady Torrance	Anna Magnani
Carol Cutrere	Joanne Woodward
Jabe Torrance	Victor Jory
Vee Talbot	Maureen Stapleton
Sheriff Jordan Talbot	R. G. Armstrong
David Cutrere	John Baragrey
Uncle Pleasant	Emory Richardson

Credits

Director	Sidney Lumet
Producer	Richard Shepherd and Martin Jurow
Cinematography	Boris Kaufman
Screenplay	Tennessee Williams and Meade Roberts
Based on the play Orpheus Descending by	Tennessee Williams
Music	Kenyon Hopkins
Art direction	Richard Sylbert
Editing	Carl Lerner
Associate producer	George Justin
Assistant director	Charles H. Maguire
Sound	James Gleason
Costume designer	Frank L. Thompson

Disc Features

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DVD SET

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Sidney Lumet
New video interview with Lumet
Three Plays by Tennessee Williams, an hour-long television presentation of one-act plays, directed by Lumet in 1958, with Ben Gazarra and Lee Grant, among others
New video program discussing the playwright’s work in Hollywood and The Fugitive Kind
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Thomson

From the Current

A Conversation with
Richard Shepherd

by Sam Wasson Apr 27, 2010 From left: Marlon Brando, Maureen Stapleton, Tennessee Williams, and producer Richard Shepherd, on the set of The Fugitive Kind. It was Jules Stein, head and founder of MCA, who plucked Richard Shepherd out of Stanford and made him into a real New York agent of the fifties, a gentleman . . .

The Fugitive Kind:
When Sidney Went to Tennessee

by David Thomson Apr 26, 2010 In the late 1940s, driven by the opening-night ovations for A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams embarked on more than a decade of immense success. During this period, he wrote at a furious pace: Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending . . .