User reviews

The film is a beautiful and enjoyable story and narrates upon a family formed by one mother and two daughters proprietaries a hotel of a small town of the United States . Film with five characters move in different interest , the mother (Kate Reid) is an egoistic person who thinks in economic interest and utilizes her daughter Alba (Natalie Wood) for the hotel business . She no interest on her daughters , neither their sentimental life.

Natalie Wood , principal protagonist , plays Alba and realizes a formidable interpretation , she is attractive and beautiful interpreting an innocent and no malice young . She is enamored of an attractive young named Owen , feeling the first love desires . Owen , Robert Redford , the ultimate character in scene comes to the town to close a company causing the anger of workers and he falls in love for Alba . Redford realizes an excellent acting . Mary Badhan is the small daughter , the role is represented in the film narration on the initiation and the final . Charles Bronson in a secondary role interprets a cold man , an unscrupulous person , he is the mother's lover and pursues to her daughter Alba . The film is based on Tenesse Williams' novel . The interesting writings by a young Francis Ford Coppola . The film was well directed by Sidney Pollack.

The movie is little known and the cinematographic value is elevated and is very agreeable for the young public who'll like the enormous sexual attractive of Natalie Wood . Rating : Very good and entertaining.

This Property is Condemned was a condemned movie from the day it was made. It didn't win critical acclaim, nobody saw it and still there are only a few people who have even heard of it. And yet it's so beautiful that you really don't need to be persuaded to watch it. From the beginning, and as the story carries us to a condemned love affair between a beautiful and proud young woman who wants the world (but all she gets is all the men around her crawling on her feet) and a man (Robert Redford) that only wants to keep her safe from her pride, we witness the changes that can be brought by just one person, either that is the impact on the small town that Alva (Natalie Wood) lives or on her heart and life. The end is some kind of divine justice that we all want to prevent but no one manages to, but at the same time a lyrical hope in the form of the left behind (and astoundingly good) Mary Badham. A song that Tennessee Williams certainly wouldn't have approved for his book but at the same time what has always stayed in heart from this wonderful film. That and the glass snowstorm.

There's a category of southern drama that has a particular feel to it. You can find it in books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and movies like this one. The plots are different, but the moods seem to come from the same place. This movie gets it just right. It was obvious there would be a sad ending and I didn't mind. I didn't mind knowing it was coming either.

Natalie Wood gets top billing in this movie, and she creates a convincing flirtatious southern belle. Robert Redford is more interesting in his role, however. I'm not sure I've seen him play cynical and laconic in any other role. Redford fans shouldn't miss this one.

Natalie Wood ,giving one of her best performances ,portrays a typical Williams heroine.Alva is an innocent sinner.She knows she's attractive,she teases every man around,but she has kept her childhood's dream,she's an immature character.she's akin to the girl of "the glass menagerie".Alva hides her dream in a convert rail car which bears her own name,like the latter dreams her life away with her frail animals.All right,Laura is a pure young girl,Alva is not,by a long shot,but it does not make a big difference.Innocence ,for Tennessee Williams is only a matter of heart.Alva might have been some kind of Blanche Du Bois too.Both are victims,both have a romantic dream,both pretend (Natalie's red dress,Blanche's schlock jewels).I think Alma's arrival in New Orleans is a tribute to Kazan's "streetcar named desire":as she gets out of the train,there's some smoke around.

The over -possessive mother is also a constant in Williams' universe.Alma's mother (a magnificent Kate Reid) recalls Mrs Venable in "suddenly last summer".If Alma does not realize she's some kind of prostitute-Redford tells her so while they are hiding behind the bushes-,her mother resembles a madam in a brothel(the boarding-house).

It's Redford's character who will spoil the party.By revealing Alma who she really is,by telling her he's got no dream,by his social status,he's a man who lives in the material world.Many users noticed it was an ambiguous character:after all he comes to lay off railroad workers in this one-horse town which Alma longs to leave for broader horizons.

The boarding-house and the tiny railway station are certainly a dead end for the heroine.And this car named "Alma" symbolizes a land where time stands still.When Alma leaves for New Orleans ,James Wong Howe's wonderful camera becomes aerial with breathtaking high angle shots on the train.

This is a rather talky movie,and it loses steam in the third part in New Orleans,but it sure did not deserve such a poor rating when so many talents are involved(outside the already mentioned people,there's also Bronson and Ford Coppola -script writer-).It's the beginning of Pollack's heyday,when he was a genuine artist who gave us such major works as "Jeremiah Johnson" and "they shoot horses don't they?".A far cry from "Tootsie" or "the firm".

I was not surprised to learn this was Natalie's favorite of all her films. I am a huge Natalie Wood fan and I can watch this film over and over. As much bad press as I've read about it, I still can't understand why so many don't appreciate this masterpiece. Very good story, great romance, great leads with incredible chemistry. Overall, the acting was wonderful and with an ensemble cast. Natalie never looked more beautiful, and that's saying a lot. There are several scenes I have to pause and rewind, it's just difficult believing anyone could be that beautiful! She is simply mesmerizing every second she is on screen in this film. One of her finest performances as well, if not the best of her career. Natalie is pure magic in this film, and regardless of her character's part in her own troubles, Natalie sucks you in and makes it impossible for you not to care about her character. Notable supporting performances from Robert Blake, Charles Bronson, and Kate Reid among others. It's definitely a southern tragedy, as only Tennesee Williams can tell....but so well done that it's worth it....check it out..

A wonderful showcase of young talent who continued on to long careers.

Natalie Woods character is somewhat the hooker with the heart of gold, aching to escape her lonely town caught in the great depression, but her domineering mother will never allow it. Very sad, and the beautiful but discarded train called Alva Starr represents her well.

Alva (Wood) is conditioned to always present things as pretty. She describes to Owen (Redford) all the beauty of the train, the seats are covered with lilac talcum, at last Owen rebuts the train is not beautiful, its junked, what she sees as talcum is just dust.

There are beautiful shots of the locomotives, good character dialogue and literary elements.

I just happened to find this movie on AMC yesterday. I am a very huge Natalie Wood fan myself and I have been dying to check out this movie a long time ago. At first, I thought it was just another romantic movie from the 1960's. But no, this movie is good--a total surprise.

At the beginning, Owen (Robert Redford) is a mysterious stranger who comes to this unknown town for work. He meets this big flirt Alva (Natalie Wood) and she seems to be very fond of him. And later they have an affair but it ends up tragically due to Alva's mother's will.

Redford and Wood have a great chemistry in this movie, which I am quite surprise of. Redford is handsome and calm, yet passion inside. And Wood is absolutely stunning. She was handling her character's transition really well. You can almost feel her agony when her mother "begged" her to stay with a wealthy, lonely old man for "just a tiny bit of time in her life". This is a good movie. A must see. Especially if you're a big fan of Redford and Wood. They are fascinating.

"This Property Is Condemned" came towards the end of Hollywood's Tennessee Williams cycle of the fifties and early sixties. By 1966 most of Williams's most famous plays- "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "The Glass Menagerie", etc.- had already been filmed, and this film was based on a much less well-known one-act play from 1946.

The story takes place during the depression era of the early thirties in the fictional Mississippi town of Dodson, a major railroad junction. The film takes the form of a frame story in which a girl named Willie Starr (her parents wanted a boy) tells the story of her older sister Alva to a friend. Alva's story is largely shown in flashback, although at the very end the film cuts back to Willie explaining what eventually happened to her sister.

Willie and Alva's mother, Hazel, runs the Starr Boarding House in Dodson, their father having deserted the family. (The film's title derives from the fact that by the end of the film the boarding house has fallen into disrepair and has been condemned by the local authorities as unfit for human habitation). Because of the depression, business is not good, and Hazel hopes to exploit the good looks of her elder daughter to improve her financial prospects. She encourages Alva to "get friendly with" (euphemism for sleep with) an older man named Mr. Johnson, one of the guests in her boarding house, who has taken a fancy to her. Johnson is already married, although he is separated from his wife, an invalid, but Hazel is not particularly worried about his domestic circumstances; all she cares about is that he pays good money for his room, and that if Alva is "friendly" to him he will want to stay longer.

The flirtatious Alva, however, is not interested in being a pawn in her mother's schemes. She is much more interested in another of her mother's guests, Owen Legate. Part of the attraction is that Owen, a railroad official, is young and handsome, and part is that he is from New Orleans, a city which to the small-town girl Alva seems a very glamorous, sophisticated place, with the same sort of allure that Moscow has to Chekhov's "Three Sisters". Owen, however, is very unpopular with the townsfolk of Dodson because his task is to lay off several railroad employees due to cutbacks made necessary by the depression.

One of the attractions of Tennessee Williams adaptations to the film stars of the period was that he created some great characters who gave those stars the chance to show off their acting skills in a way that more standard Hollywood fare did not. "This Property Is Condemned" gave Robert Redford, not the huge name in 1966 that he was to become a few years later, a chance to prove himself a serious actor, just as his friend Paul Newman had done earlier in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Sweet Bird of Youth". Redford was also to star in "The Chase", another drama with a Deep South setting, later the same year. This was Redford's second film in his long collaboration with director Sydney Pollack; the first had been "War Hunt".

Redford's style of acting was generally very different to that of his co-star Natalie Wood, he being calmer and more controlled, she often more nervous and agitated. They combine well here, however, with their different styles well-suited to their respective characters. Owen is the stronger character, emotionally in control; he finds his duties as an officer of the railroad distasteful but this does not prevent him from discharging them as efficiently as possible. Alva, beneath her flirtatious exterior, is a sensitive young woman, but one who can also be wild and impulsive. There is another particularly good acting performance from Kate Reid as the scheming, domineering and manipulative Hazel, a woman happy to prostitute her own daughter for her own financial advantage. Reid was only 36 at the time she made this film, only nine years older than her supposed daughter Wood, but nevertheless is still completely convincing. It was interesting to see Charles Bronson in something other than an action thriller, although before he became typecast as a tough guy leading man he did sometimes take supporting roles in more thoughtful dramas. ("The Sandpiper" is another example).

Like the play upon which it is based, the film, despite some big names among the cast, is also not particularly well known. Having recently seen it for the first time, however, I feel that it deserves to be better known. It is not perhaps a classic of the cinema like "A Streetcar Named Desire" or "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", but nevertheless contains some fine acting and works well as a touching human drama and love story. 7/10

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.

The cinematography of legendary JAMES WONG HOWE, excellent supporting cast: KATE REID, MARY BADHAM, CHARLES BRONSON, handsome leads: NATALIE WOOD and ROBERT REDFORD, and based on a short story by TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED is a good movie, but could have been better. The fault lies in the screenplay & dialogue.

Set in the Mississippi during the early 1930's, THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED is about Alva Starr (NATALIE WOOD) and Owen Legate (ROBERT REDFORD). Alva is the older daughter of Hazel Starr (KATE REID), who runs the local boardinghouse (for mostly railroad workmen). Mama has used beautiful Alva as the main attraction to the Starr Boardinghouse, and encourages her to be nice to Mr. Johnson, their wealthiest boarder. Mama's boyfriend J.J. (CHARLES BRONSON) clearly would like to have a piece of Alva, so would fellow boarder Sidney (ROBERT BLAKE), and all the men in town ! Enter Prince Charming in the form of Owen Legate (ROBERT REDFORD). Owen is also employed by the railroad, but his job is the unpleasant task of going town to town to cut back on employees. Obviously these two (Alva & Owen) are attracted to each other. Owen falls for Alva, he axes the jobs of most of the men staying at the Starr's, and asks her to go with him to New Orleans. Now Alva must make a choice whether to follow her heart or stay where she is.

NATALIE WOOD is very good in this movie, not as shrill as in some of her other work. She is much more reserved and in control. ROBERT REDFORD is also very good as the cynical Owen. Better performances are given by KATE REID as the calculating mother, and by MARY BADHAM as Alva younger sister. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful, mostly in subdued hazy colors. SYDNEY POLLACK'S direction is strong and thorough. The dialogue is 1 thing that could have been better. Fifteen minutes into the movie, in a night-time scene, Alva stands pensively on her porch as a train goes by and says, " Sometimes, I wish that the train would just come down off its tracks and sweep me up. Away from here." Like cut-rate INGE. The screenplay itself though clearly tries to sum up Alva in the first few minutes so that we can get to the meat of the story, and that was a mistake, because she's all summed up too fast, and mostly by her own dialogue. Another thing is that it's apparent that great efforts were taken to make sure that the actors, locations etc...were made to look like they would have in early 1930's Mississippi, so why does WOOD look like mid 60's starlet ? Aside from putting vamp straps across her pumps, she's all exaggerated eye make up, pale lips, and pageboy hair, hardly an early 30's image. This movie was generally panned at the time of its initial release, but I think that if you watch it thoroughly you'll find a very good movie here.............

I appreciate that some folks like this movie and find it entertaining but I am not one of them. It was torture to sit through this movie! I am a huge Charles Bronson fan but he was a complete miscast here. Redford performed beautifully in his standard 'pose much but say little' style but I don't much fancy looking at him while he says nothing. Natalie Wood was superb in a most annoying role as a fanciful town floozy. The only likable character in the entire movie is Mary Badham as little sister Hazel. The scenery is interesting and the performances and direction are good but the story is awful, pathetic, and boring. That is just my opinion for what it's worth.

This is one of my favorite Natalie Wood films. From watching her as Alva, you can understand what made her such a great actress. Throw in Robert Redford and a great musical score and this is one powerful movie.

A handsome young stranger arrives in a Southern town with unexplained intentions. He secures a room at a bawdy boarding house, where the landlady, Hazel Starr, furnishes room, board, and the pleasures of her daughter to the right customers. Although the daughter's thin, red-satin packaging enhances her physical charms, this is a Tennessee Williams work, and Alva Starr, Hazel's merchandise, seeks enchantment and magic that will help her escape from the seedy surroundings in which she lives. Alva sees the stranger, Owen Legate, as a hope and a way to escape the clutches of her mother and her tawdry life. Alva is a young Blanche DuBois, and the boarding house is the Flamingo Hotel by another name. At times, director Sydney Pollack underscores the parallels between the two Williams plays. Alva arrives in New Orleans by train and emerges from a cloud of steam. Although Alva's arrival occurs in mid film rather than at the beginning, the image is the same that Elia Kazan used to introduce Blanche to New Orleans in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Like Blanche, who retreats to her memories of bygone days at Belle Rive, the family plantation, Alva seeks refuge in a world of her own making. When Alva gazes into a glass snow ball, she imagines herself as part of the cool wintry scene inside.

Natalie Wood was at the height of her physical beauty when she made "This Property is Condemned," and, not long after her performances in "Splendor in the Grass" and "Love With the Proper Stranger," she had the experience and skills to infuse Alva with a depth that conveys the woman's fragility and pain. Robert Redford was solid as Owen, although the part makes no great demands on his talent. Kate Reid, however, is excellent as the amoral mother who seems to have little remorse about selling her daughter for financial gain. In the mid 1960s, the censors probably still had some say, and the proceedings, while not explicit, are clear enough. However, only once is the word "whore" used, where a more precise term might have been appropriate for Alva and another for her unrepentant mother. Mary Badham plays the younger sister, Willie, who is the observer character and anchors the framing structure of the story, which is told in flashback.

While "This Property is Condemned" is not prime Tennessee Williams, the work echoes many of his themes, and even second-tier Williams is superior to first-tier work by lesser artists. James Wong Howe captures the heat and decay of the Depression-era South in his cinematography, and, with somewhat obvious symbolism, Edith Head emphasizes red in her costuming of Natalie Wood during the rooming-house days and white in New Orleans. With Natalie Wood at her best, both physically and performance-wise, and an entertaining Tennessee Williams play as its source material, "This Property is Condemned" is irresistible for Wood and Williams aficionados. For others, the film, which only flags a bit in the second half, is generally engrossing entertainment.

To begin with, this was the first of seven films directed by Sydney Pollack and featuring Robert Redford; it’s also the eleventh cinematic adaptation I’ve watched of Tennessee Williams’ work. Pollack may seem like a surprising choice to handle this type of hot-house melodrama; however, he does a fairly good job of it – even if the end result is among the least regarded films derived from Williams (which the author himself reportedly disliked to the point of wanting to disown it!). Incidentally, the script was co-written by two film-makers in their own right – namely Francis Ford Coppola(!) and Fred Coe (whose best-regarded work, A THOUSAND CLOWNS [1965], I’ve just recorded off local Cable TV).

Typically, the plot is a tale of decadence and redemption: Natalie Wood is a Southern belle whose lascivious nature her mother (Kate Reid) doesn’t mind exploiting since it means business for the boarding-house she runs (it’s the time of The Great Depression), which is mainly populated by railway workers. In fact, clean-cut Redford turns up unexpectedly amidst this environment – and it transpires that he’s an itinerant railway agent in charge of diminishing the ranks; this obviously makes him unpopular in town, but it’s through his subsequent relationship with Wood (after the two had started off on the wrong foot) that he gets into trouble – and, as often happens to the heroes in Tennessee Williams’ work, he gets beaten up. Events get more complicated when Wood and Redford fall out anew (due to Reid’s bossiness); contemptuous of the whole atmosphere, he backs out – and, while drunk, Wood accepts the marriage proposal coming from her mother’s boyfriend (Charles Bronson)! However, she leaves soon after to join Redford in New Orleans…but even here Reid appears to make their life hell.

The narrative is recounted by Wood’s younger sister – played by Mary Badham from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) who, once again, shines as the naïve but rebellious precocious type; the supporting cast also includes Robert Blake – with whom Redford would have another face-off (more central to the plot this time around) in the well-regarded Western TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE (1969). By the way, Wood and Redford had already been paired for INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (1965); they make a very handsome couple indeed – and, incidentally, both had earlier appeared in similar exposes of sordid small-town life with SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961) and THE CHASE (1966) respectively. Interestingly, Wood would name Vivien Leigh as her favorite actress: the latter starred in two Williams adaptations herself – and, in fact, the initially overbearing quality of Wood’s character here owes a lot to Britisher Leigh’s two best-known roles (both Oscar-winning performances playing Southerners!) i.e. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) and Tennessee Williams’ own A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951). Another less felicitous trivia connected to Wood and this film is that the actress is said to have attempted suicide during its making!

While the John Houseman and Ray Stark-produced film is good-looking (with cinematography by veteran James Wong Howe – who had won an Oscar for another Williams adaptation, the monochromatic THE ROSE TATTOO [1955]), contains a pleasant score by Kenyon Hopkins (not to mention a recurring song, “Wish Me a Rainbow”, by the popular team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans) and, undeniably, a fair number of effective dramatic and tender sequences along the way, it’s basically a matter of “we’ve been here before” – so that, ultimately, what one’s getting is a succession of events that are wholly predictable and which take a needlessly long time to unfold (the piece having originated as a mere one-act play in the first place!)…

If movies were the sum of their credits, both in front of and behind the camera, then "This Property is Condemned" might have been a masterpiece. It isn't but it's a damn fine, if underrated and largely forgotten, film nevertheless. Based very loosely on a one-act play by Tennessee Williams and with a screenplay in part written by Francis Coppola, (without the Ford), it's a sweetly tough romantic drama about the relationship between a small-town dreamer of a girl, (a superb Natalie Wood), and the railroad 'fixer', (an excellent Robert Redford), who comes to stay in her mother's boarding house during the Great Depression. It's fairly conventional, predictable even, but it oozes charm, is beautifully cast, (as well as the leads there's good work from Kate Reid as Wood's less-than-wholesome mother and Mary Badham as her kid sister), superbly photographed by James Wong Howe and has a fine Kenyon Hopkins score. Of course, by 1966 movies like this were no longer in fashion. Essentially it's a throwback to the kind of films Elia Kazan was making in the previous ten years and it would sit very nicely on a double-bill with "Splendour in the Grass". So, no masterpiece then or anything close to one but a very solid, grown-up entertainment of the kind we don't see too often these days.

This is one of those dramas that is never dated. No matter how many times I watch it, it never loses its magic. Having memorized virtually every line in the movie, I continue to enjoy it more with each viewing.

The 1966 masterpiece, which takes place in a fictitious small town in Mississippi during the depression, was only released on DVD in late 2003. It should be a part of everyone's collection.

The characters and the setting are remarkable in their realism. Natalie Wood's vulnerable bimbo may be the best role of her career (and is Alva Star a perfect name, or what?). Kate Reid, as the middle aged mother who runs a shabby rooming house and quasi-brothel, delivers a rock solid performance. The younger daughter, played by child actress Mary Badham (of "To Kill a Mockingbird" fame) masterfully brings to the screen a complex blend of childlike naivete and cynical worldliness. Redford is memorable in his role as a newcomer on the scene, a temporary guest who clearly has no idea of the conflicted and tragic relationship he is destined to find with an enchanted-but-stained Natalie Wood and her wretched kin.

Indeed, the entire supporting cast in this torrid Tennessee Williams story put in star-quality performances. Collectively, they make this story unforgettable.

Little sister "Willie" is fond of calling her seductive older sister "the main attraction" - a description that could also be used to describe this amazing film.

Willie Starr (Mary Badham) is walking the train tracks next to her home in Dodson, Mississippi. It's her family's boarding house since condemned. She is befriended by Tom and she recounts the former glory days of the lively house. The beauty of her sister Alva (Natalie Wood) entrances newly arrived railway man Owen Legate (Robert Redford). Everybody wants her including mama's boyfriend J.J. Nichols (Charles Bronson). It's later revealed Owen's true purpose in town.

This was adapted from a Tennessee Williams one act play. Writers include Francis Ford Coppola and the director is Sydney Pollack. With such great beautiful stars, this really can't lose. Natalie Wood is vamping for all her worth but Redford is holding back in a cool demeanor. Mary Badham played Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. It's too bad that she couldn't succeed beyond a child star. She's loads of energy and has a very compelling screen presence. This may not be a classic but it does hold some nice stuff that movie lovers should check out. The length is a bit over-extended. When they leave the town, the movie loses a bit of intensity. It would be better to resolve the story and ride out into the sunset.

I agree with the recent user comments praising this film. It does really portray the Old South well and puts the viewer right there. If you focus on the characters as the plot develops, it does bring on some intense emotions as you root for this poor girl to get free from her Mother and all the forces pulling at her.

I disagree with the comments regarding a lack of character development in Dobson. There was no need to develop these characters further. Also, the scenes in New Orleans are integral to the whole point of the story and the film itself, I don' understand the negative feedback about the scenes filmed in New Orleans.

Natalie Wood was gorgeous as usual and I think this is one of Robert Redford's best roles. I highly recommend this classic film. I gave it a 9 out of 10.

It is hard to decide what is most outstanding: the atmospheric story and script by Tennessee Williams and Francis Ford Coppola, the gorgeous cinematography by James Wong Howe, the smooth direction by Sidney Pollack, or the dazzling performance by Natalie Wood.

Elizabeth Taylor won the Academy Award for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe," that year and certainly deserved it, but Natalie's performance was as fine as the other nominees: Lynn Redgrave in "Georgy Girl," Vanessa Redgrave in "Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment," Ida Kaminska in "The Shop on Main Street" and Anouk Aimee in "Un homme et une femme" She did receive a Golden Globe best actress nomination for the film.

Robert Redford is laid back here and it works perfectly. He just has to be charming and adorable and he is. In the four great romantic movies he did, "Barefoot in the Park" with Jane Fonda, "The Way We Were," with Barbara Streisand, "Out of Africa," with Meryl Steep, and this one, Redford basically allows his leading actresses to be the focus of every scene. He is at his best when underplaying and interacting and that is what we get here.

Mary Badham, who was nominated as a child for her performance in "To Kill a Mockingbird" shows that she was perhaps the most natural child actress of the 1960's. It is also fun watching Robert Blake and Charles Bronson is small supporting roles.

The movie is absorbing with the type of wonderfully drawn lonely, sexy, and ordinary people with grand illusions that make all of Tennessee Williams works so wonderful.

Don't miss it if you haven't seen it, and see it again if you haven't seen it in a while. It hasn't aged at all.

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.

Natalie Wood just never seemed to get a break. For an actress with an obvious talent, one that can usually carry a picture, her later career seems saddled with pictures that could have been good yet just do not come off. An excellent example is This Property is Condemned. Just a glance at the credits will convince you that the result of so many talents, (Tennessee Williams, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, Kate Reid, Francis Coppola, John Houseman, Ray Stark, James Wong Howe), the picture has got to be a classic. Unfortunately, this is far from the case. The result of so much talent ends up a mishmash of patched together themes, uneven editing and reactions that do not fit the characters.

One problem is the fleshing out of the original one act play, pulling in additional material that does not seem to match the first half of the film. Laden with long drawn out pans of Wood wandering New Orleans, the movie stumbles to a clumsy ending made only worse by the 'let's take care of all those loose ends' epilogue with Mary Badham as Wood's younger sister. What could have been a taut and emotionally devastating film results instead with the viewer wondering how could so many great talents create something so flat and lifeless? Natalie Wood however is wonderful and a joy to watch and makes the best of the poor script handed her. Equally good is Mary Badham, a special treat to watch in what I believe is the only film she made other than her amazing turn as Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird. If I had to pick just one thing that condemned the movie all together-the music. Some of the sappiest and inappropriate background soundtrack I have ever heard in my life. When the film cries out for a subtle dramatic score the viewer is presented instead with calliope tunes better suited for a circus themed comedy.