Chance Wayne (Paul Newman) is a young drifter who may or may not dabble as an escort. His most consistent client is Alexandra del Lago (Geraldine Page), an ageing actress who yearns for her glory days as a young, desirable starlet. She spends her days engaged in various vices, whether feeding her alcoholism or satiating her growing dependency on drugs, whose exotic nature she sees as a remnant of her time in the spotlight. They find their way down to the quaint hamlet of St. Cloud, in Mississippi, which just so happens to be where Chance grew up. The lovable southern town may appear pleasant, but actually harbours some dark secrets, nearly all of them being traced back to the local magnate and town politician, Tom “Boss” Finley (Ed Begley), who relishes in the power he holds over the residents, being their de facto leader, even when he doesn’t hold any legitimate office. His daughter, Heavenly (Shirley Knight) is the reason Chance is back in town since the two of them were childhood sweethearts that had to be separated when her father decided that Chance was not nearly the kind of man she should be associating with. His return to St. Cloud provokes some strong reactions from the townsfolk, some of which are delighted at the arrival of the prodigal son, others not being quite as enamoured by his presence, as his reputation does unfortunately preceded him, with many of the people who carry more traditional values being vehemently against his presence there. However, Chance is not someone who buckles easily to the pressure of those convincing him to leave, and he insists on staking his claim, even if it means he is going to be at odds with the most powerful man in town, who would like nothing more than to see Chance utterly annihilated, and whose wrath resounds with every decision he makes to drive the drifter away from the area.

Tennessee Williams wrote some unimpeachable classics that have been performed on the stage for nearly a century, stretching back to the 1930s, when Williams made his debut. One of his most distinct works is Sweet Bird of Youth, which was adapted into a film by Richard Brooks, who worked alongside the studio to create a version of this story that took away some of the more harrowing, controversial material in favour of more acceptable fare, which may have been the biggest mistake of the film overall, since instead of receiving the daring, haunting Southern Gothic drama, we instead receive an innocuous, uncomfortable piece of overwrought filmmaking that really doesn’t pay tribute to any of the many subjects that constitute it – its a flimsy adaptation of Williams’ work, a waste of a talented cast and a generally mediocre experience that does hit a few high points throughout, but not nearly enough to be considered anything close to the masterpiece it could’ve been, had more care been taken to translate this story to the screen in the way Williams would’ve intended. This version of Sweet Bird of Youth doesn’t inspire hatred as much as it does just evoke pure ambivalence, a kind of blandness that comes from making a film that just doesn’t feel all that compelling, a by-the-numbers adaptation that may take some artistic liberties in opening up the world of the play (one of the more substantial merits of this film), but which falters where it really matters, which is a major reason why there really just isn’t all that much to this film, other than a few minor merits that make it serviceable, and not much else.

To its credit, Sweet Bird of Youth does have some decent performances, but also a few that may not work particularly well. In terms of the stronger characters, Paul Newman and Geraldine Page were both very good but were sadly victims of an approach to the material that didn’t give them much to work with, especially through the changes Brooks and the studio made to the story. Newman was still a matinee idol at this point, an actor whose main appeal were his dashing good looks, rugged masculinity and wry charm, which drew audiences towards him with a magnetism that essentially defined him as an actor (and which would be an aspect of his talents that would be quite prominent in subsequent years, when he’d playfully manipulate his image). The character of Chance isn’t one that wasn’t well within the actor’s capabilities, so its hardly surprising he gives a strong performance, albeit one that really isn’t all that revolutionary. Geraldine Page, on the other hand, was an actress who was always willing to go to any lengths to give an interesting performance – so the fact that she was cast as Alexandra del Lago, one of Williams’ most interesting characters, presented us with a unique opportunity. However, Page (while very good), doesn’t come out of this film particularly well – being only a year older than Newman, she is postured as this over-the-hill actress who has lost all aspects of desirability, which conflicts with Page’s performance, which is brimming with energy – it isn’t that she’s miscast, but that the film itself doesn’t quite care enough about her to develop her beyond the basic confines of the role, which barely do her any service as a performer, instead relying on her star quality to carry the film, which seems entirely misguided. In terms of the supporting cast, Ed Begley and Shirley Knight seem to be in an entirely different film, neither bringing much to the roles, with Begley being a rather limp villain that doesn’t possess the malice needed to make Boss Finley an interesting character. It is a shame that Rip Torn and Mildred Dunnock are relegated to more thankless roles, as they are the actors in the cast that seem to come closest to capturing the spirit of Williams’ play, with Newman and Page being very good as well, but standing as victims of the censor-inspired butchering that went into the making of the film.

Brooks was a screenwriter and director who did have a tendency for producing some magnificent work but also becoming too concerned with making his projects meet the requirements of the populace that they lost some of their charms. Sweet Bird of Youth is certainly amongst these, and the main reason for its relative failure has to do with the censorship – an attempt to make this story more palatable for wider audiences had the opposite effect since while it need meet the crippling standards that are often asserted onto mainstream films, it loses a lot of what the impact that is carried in the original work. The film filters out most of the more controversial material, and instead replaces them with more socially-acceptable ideas – Chance is no longer a hustler, but simply an aimless drifter whose relationship with the older actress is shown to be merely playful, with most mentions of his actual line of work being restricted to mere allusion and implication, which is perfectly adequate when done well, but not nearly good enough in the context of the film, where these changes are clearly done as a result of socially-mediated expectations, rather than anything artistic. Getting into the thorny details of everything that Sweet Bird of Youth is rather pointless since it often comes down to the smallest details – the decision to change the horrifying ending to simply a bit of roughhousing with no long-lasting implications may have made sense at the time but removes so much of the raw power that underpinned Williams’ work. Brooks doesn’t even attempt to compensate for these changes by actually doing anything interesting in return – instead, he takes the bare-bones of the story and turns it into just another rigid theatrical adaptation that doesn’t go anywhere compelling. It’s not very strong filmmaking, nor is it an honourable adaptation of a great work of American theatre.

Ultimately, Sweet Bird of Youth is what it is – it isn’t nearly as good as some of the other theatrical adaptations being produced around this time (it already pales in comparison to two other films of similar origin in its year of release, The Miracle Worker and Long Day’s Journey Into Night), and whether we attribute this to the tampering of the censor, or Brooks’ lacklustre direction that caused the brilliance of the source material to get lost in the shuffle, this isn’t a particularly compelling work. It may not be dreadful and does indeed have some exceptional aspects that make it quite enjoyable at parts, but for the most part, it is something of a chore, as it doesn’t feel like a work of artistic necessity, but rather a work made to capitalize on the popularity of Tennessee Williams adaptations (as well as to be another attempt on the part of the director to adapt the playwright’s work, as he had previously done more successfully a few years earlier with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), which means that, in addition to butchering some of the play’s more interesting insights into the human condition, it also doesn’t carry the integrity one normally needs when taking a particular work to a different medium. Sweet Bird of Youth seems to be continuously building to a crescendo that it simply never meets, instead being a rather bland adaptation that feels inauthentic, incomplete and ineffective, which is even more disappointing when you take into account that there were several opportunities for this film to strike brilliance, but instead it settles for mere mediocrity, which is unfortunately a quality that persists throughout films that are borne from attempts at replicating past successes, rather than building their own.