The Glass Menagerie DVD (1973)

The Glass Menagerie

1973

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

from 321 members

David Susskind's Emmy-winning production of Tennessee Williams' play sees Katharine Hepburn cast as tough matriarch Amanda Wingfield. Set in St Louis during 1937, Amanda and her grown-up children now live in a tenement block but she is stuck in a fantasy full of her memories of pre-Depression Southern belles and gentlemen callers. Her son Tom (Sam Waterston) would give anything to escape his mother's fantasy world, but he is the breadwinner since his father abandoned them; whilst his painfully-shy sister Laura (Joanna Miles) is trying to escape her feelings of inadequacy. Looking for good-fortune and happiness, the threesome's lives are transformed one evening when, after much cajoling from his mother, Tom invites his co-worker Jim O'Connor (Michael Moriarty) to dinner in the hope that a romance may bloom between Jim and Laura.

The Glass Menagerie details

Format:	PG DVD
Starring:	Joanna Miles, Katharine Hepburn, Michael Moriarty, Sam Waterston
Director:	Anthony Harvey
Genre:	Drama
Studio:	METRODOME DISTRIBUTION

DVD 1 disc

Name	Discs
The Glass Menagerie	PG Feature

DVD Information

Run time:	1 hour 44 minutes
Rental release:	Currently unavailable
Main languages:	English

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Most helpful review The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie

By a customer from Cardiff , 08 Apr 2008

[Highly rated reviewer]

The film is let down by Katharine Hepburn's poor attempt at a Sounthern accent which is very irritating.

I love Katharine Hepburn as an actress but I couldn't sit through this one to the end.

Not worth seeing.
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Southern Gothic.

By SteveMason (58 reviews) from Nottingham , 16 Jul 2009

For me, The Glass Menagerie retains its power and resonance better than any other of Williams' plays.

This version emphasises the horror in the play. Laura and Amanda are like ghosts drifting through the early days of modernity. Laura seems not so much delicate and dumbly poetic, but more of a gothic monster.

Anyone interested might first think first of seeing the Paul Newman directed version, with great performances from John Malkovich and Joanne Woodward. A more evocative and emotional film.

But this interpretation is pretty good, and the scene between Laura and the gentleman caller, and the final soliloquy are as moving as they should be.
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The Glass Menagerie

By a customer from Cardiff , 08 Apr 2008

[Highly rated reviewer]

The film is let down by Katharine Hepburn's poor attempt at a Sounthern accent which is very irritating.

I love Katharine Hepburn as an actress but I couldn't sit through this one to the end.

Not worth seeing.
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For die hard Williams' fans only!

By a customer from Dundee, Scotland , 30 Jan 2007

An acceptable performance but definately not one of the best adaptations of Tennessee Williams' work.

Rent out 'A Streetcar Named Desire' or 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' and go see this on the stage...
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