If any film deserves a remake, it is “Boom!” Not a scene-for-scene remake of the infamously ghastly 1968 Joseph Losey film, but in a production that is aligned with the source material, Tennessee Williams’ short story “Man Bring This Up Road” that was later adapted as the Broadway drama “The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.”
Williams’ created an allegorical work where the aged Flora “Sissy” Goforth is at the end of her life – and what a life it was, with five millionaire husbands and a sixth spouse who was a penniless poet, the one true love of her life. Self-exiled in her Italian villa with a small retinue catering to multiple needs ranging from the transcription of her memoirs to drug injections when her body goes into painful convulsions, her life is interrupted by a young poet and sculptor named Chris who intrudes on her property. A local gossip known as the Witch of Capri informs Mrs. Goforth that Chris has a reputation of being the “Angel of Death” – he has a knack of showing up at elderly wealthy women’s homes shortly before their demise.
Granted, this is not the best Williams work – there were two back-to-back Broadway stagings that failed to connect with audiences – but there is a seed of a great idea that could have been cultivated under the right cinematic circumstances. “Boom!” wasn’t it.
Rather than emphasize the emotional darkness of Mrs. Goforth’s waning years, Losey and his production designers created a bright, spacious white villa on a Sardinian cliff – the effect is visually at odd with the claustrophobic tone of the work. The grounds of the villa also include several Easter Island-style moai statues, but they add a touch of the ridiculous to the proceedings.
Most critics blame the failure of “Boom!” in the casting of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the leading roles. Taylor was a robust 35 years old when the film was shot, and she is clearly too young and feisty for the part. Indeed, her youth – coupled with her vocal limitations – created problems when she needed to invest emotion into Williams’ artsy observations such as “Ah, the insincere sympathy of the faraway stars” and “Life is all memory.” And when she breaks a cinematic taboo on scatological language by yelling “Shit on your mother,” she sounds bratty instead of fearsome – the impact is comic rather than tragic.
Burton, at 42, was too old and languid for his role. It feels as if he is phoning in his performance – his line readings are so shallow that they almost sound phonetic.
Adding to the confusion was having Noel Coward as the Witch of Capri – the role was written for a woman, but Coward plays it with the arched campiness of his Las Vegas revue persona. When he delivers lines such as “I have always found girls to be fragrant in any phase of the moon” and “In my heart beats blood that is not my blood, but the blood of anonymous blood donors,” it is delicious for the wrong reasons.
A major flop when it was released, “Boom!” has been advocated by John Waters as a camp classic, and over the years it gained a small cult following that enjoys its misplaced excesses and misguided posturing. And while some fun can be found in “Boom!” as a work of unintentional humor, it is still a shame that it fell far off-course from Tennessee Williams’ vision.