The Films of Tennessee Williams

by Gene D. Phillips

Book by Phillips, Gene D.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Fr. Gene D. Phillips, SJ, PhD

Reviews

[David Sterritt]

Gene D. Phillips’s book “The Films of Tennessee Williams” departs from strict chronological order to consider the movies in chapters named for their directors, and in one chapter the cinematographer. It’s a slightly unusual approach that would work better if Phillips were more astute as an auteurist. And as a writer. This is certainly a thoughtful book, and it’s overloaded with reverence for Williams tempered by occasional mild criticisms of this or that artistic decision, but it’s repetitious and carelessly written. At least he fully appreciates Mankiewicz’s superb “Suddenly Last Summer,” even if he joins Tennessee in overpraising the 1961 version of “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone” and misses the flawed magnificence of “Boom!” In all, recommended with many reservations.