If any film deserves a remake, it is \u201cBoom!\u201d 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\u2019 short story \u201cMan Bring This Up Road\u201d that was later adapted as the Broadway drama \u201cThe Milk Train Doesn\u2019t Stop Here Anymore.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 created an allegorical work where the aged Flora \u201cSissy\u201d Goforth is at the end of her life \u2013 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 \u201cAngel of Death\u201d \u2013 he has a knack of showing up at elderly wealthy women\u2019s homes shortly before their demise.<\/p>\n
Granted, this is not the best Williams work \u2013 there were two back-to-back Broadway stagings that failed to connect with audiences \u2013 but there is a seed of a great idea that could have been cultivated under the right cinematic circumstances. \u201cBoom!\u201d wasn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n
Rather than emphasize the emotional darkness of Mrs. Goforth\u2019s waning years, Losey and his production designers created a bright, spacious white villa on a Sardinian cliff \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
Most critics blame the failure of \u201cBoom!\u201d 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 \u2013 coupled with her vocal limitations \u2013 created problems when she needed to invest emotion into Williams\u2019 artsy observations such as \u201cAh, the insincere sympathy of the faraway stars\u201d and \u201cLife is all memory.\u201d And when she breaks a cinematic taboo on scatological language by yelling \u201cShit on your mother,\u201d she sounds bratty instead of fearsome \u2013 the impact is comic rather than tragic.<\/p>\n
Burton, at 42, was too old and languid for his role. It feels as if he is phoning in his performance \u2013 his line readings are so shallow that they almost sound phonetic.<\/p>\n
Adding to the confusion was having Noel Coward as the Witch of Capri \u2013 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 \u201cI have always found girls to be fragrant in any phase of the moon\u201d and \u201cIn my heart beats blood that is not my blood, but the blood of anonymous blood donors,\u201d it is delicious for the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n
A major flop when it was released, \u201cBoom!\u201d 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 \u201cBoom!\u201d as a work of unintentional humor, it is still a shame that it fell far off-course from Tennessee Williams\u2019 vision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If any film deserves a remake, it is \u201cBoom!\u201d 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\u2019 short story \u201cMan Bring This Up Road\u201d that was later adapted as the Broadway drama \u201cThe Milk Train Doesn\u2019t Stop Here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":47314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1369],"tags":[3666,1748,3667,3316,2701],"class_list":["post-47313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retro-cinema","tag-boom","tag-elizabeth-taylor","tag-noel-coward","tag-richard-burton","tag-tennessee-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47313"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47322,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47313\/revisions\/47322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}