This Property Is Condemned (1966)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

First Natalie is breathtaking to watch and I still miss her!.. her sister ,is played by the wonderful Mary Badham. The search for the right girl for " To Kill a Mockingbird" ended up with children that had no acting experience ( IN THAT AREA they filmed) in their lives(Mary played Scout )but forever became a part of our lives with their incredible performances...and she also stands out ,a bit older then" to Kill a Mockingbird" but still that feisty character that played "Scout" in Mockingbird! but Natalie steals this movie ....I just love watching her act..and Sydney Pollack directing Redford would prove a very long collaboration.I think Redford is the same in almost any movie, if they need a wild game hunter,"Out Of Africa" but costarring with Streep, they give a wonderful performance and he does the same thing as if it was in "Barefoot on the Park" nothing differs with his acting, that's my opinion but I like him in his movies...Hubbell .another name that will always go down in Film History...another point,Natalie wears ONE dress this entire movie, a thing a Hollywood actress would shun away from...but Tennessee Williams as the writer, you can't go wrong.Anytime I hear his words, as I do Truman Capote's words.."the world is AOK!" for me..WOW...Redford did "Barefoot in the Park" one year after this movie...that's interesting!revised: I just looked at it again and she wears more than one dress in the movie..sorry Natalie fans!..still just a great movie..how times were, when all you had to worry about was"train service" but T.Williams adds the fact of so many losing jobs, from the lose of that train service

A lot of you might remember Petticoat Junction where a running plot line was Charles Lane's continuing effort to close down the Hooterville Cannonball railroad from Hooterville to Pixley. The run obviously wasn't making money and a lot of the comedy revolved around the residents of Hooterville keeping that line open for their convenience.Tennessee Williams took the same situation about a small southern town in Mississippi where Robert Redford has come to close down the railroad stop in a small whistletown. In fact the main employer of the town seems to be the railroad. They probably would save a lot of money just skipping the town. That won't sit well with the employees, still Redford is charged with handing out the pink slips.A disproportionate amount of them fell on the boarders of Kate Reid's roominghouse where Redford is also staying. Reid has two daughters Mary Badham and the flirtatious and wild Natalie Wood who is a real attraction for all those railroad workers. Even Reid's boyfriend Charles Bronson has an eye on Wood.Wood's looking for Redford to take her out of this dull existence even if he is turning her little hamlet into a ghost town. He's not immune to her charms by any means. But there are a lot of angry and laid off people where they are and he's made enemies. Redford and Wood are good and they get good support from the rest of the cast. But This Property Is Condemend is second tier Tennessee Williams which is usually light years better than most writers. If Wood's character lives, she will be another Blanche Dubois in middle age.Fans of Tennessee Williams who enjoy his southern fried slices of Dixie life will like This Property Is Condemned. But they are not going to see another Streetcar Named Desire here.

this movie is so difficult to comment on. in many ways it is deeply flawed. the music is simply awful, absolutely wrong, the performances at times feel staged, and the direction too loose. and yet despite this - this is a wonderful film.i think it is simply the quality of natalie wood, not her performance which again is actually quite week. sometimes she seems to lose concentration and flits in and out of character - but this is a challenging role and one that i cannot believe another actress could play better. wow she takes your breath away - filling you with such strange sensations of warmth, pity and anger. i cant think of a performance that has moved me so much.she of course lived pretty much a tennessee Williams' story in her own right - except williams would have eschewed the melodrama and the intrigue of her death. and i think that is why she is so compelling in this, because she is simply revealing herself - and what we see is beautiful.

This was the last of the big Hollywood movies of Tennessee Williams plays, a series of masterpieces which started with 'The Glass Menagerie' (1950) and went on for 16 unforgettable years. And this is certainly one of the best. It is simply packed with talent in every department, directed by Sydney Pollack, script by Francis Ford Coppola, and Oscar-level performances from at least four members of the cast: Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Kate Reid, and Mary Badham. It is such a tragedy that Mary Badham gave up acting after this, as she was pure magic. Of all Natalie Wood's performances, this is probably the best. What an entrancing and magical creature! I never knew her but I had the great treat of sitting across from her at an adjoining dinner table in the Oak Room of the Plaza one night, and was just as dazzled as could be, and against all protocol and etiquette, simply could not take my eyes off her. She was dining with Lauren Bacall, whom I barely noticed in the penumbra of Natalie Wood's supernatural glow, and as a Bacall admirer that really does say something. Robert Redford has to portray a very quiet, contained character, so has little opportunity for 'big acting' in this film, but he triumphs at understatement, which was always one of his strengths. Another of the knockouts is Kate Reid as the most ravening, selfish, exploitative mother you can imagine. Well, I can, as I have met some like that, and believe me, she is spot on, to make your skin crawl. The Natalie Wood character is a revisiting of the girl in 'The Glass Menagerie', someone trapped, taking refuge in her dreams. She throws herself around, from man to man, basking in admiration because there seems to be nothing else. The motif of the cruelty and violence of a gang of men recurs here, reminding us of 'Suddenly, Last Summer'. This setting is a nowhere town in Mississippi, where the railroad is about to close. These are classic Tennessee Williams themes, but deeply felt and genuine, from the heart. By this time, Tennessee himself was as trapped as Natalie Wood, not in the state of Mississippi, but in another state, one of the mind. Seeing him bleary-eyed at a bar in the 1960s was a sad sight, and his gentle but tragic smalltalk as he sipped whiskey lacked focus. He was in what he knew was His Decline. But he must have been thrilled that this whopping realisation of one of his shorter plays came out just when he most needed a boost to his sagging morale. What a pity that after that, there was only television, what Newton Minnow at the time aptly called 'the Vast Wasteland'. The sadness in the Williams plays, and in the play which he himself lived, called his Life, are truly unbearable. Tennessee was a Great Soul. This film deserves to be on the list of everybody's classics, as it has something that will never die about it.