On Blu-ray: Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Sweet Bird of Youth (1961), and Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

I recently had a personal viewing party full of dysfunction thanks to a trio of new Blu-ray releases from Warner Archive. Inside Daisy Clover, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and Sweet Bird of Youth are a messy, but fascinating trio cataloging the many ways being a human can go off the rails.

Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)

With his typical respect for the work of great novelists, director John Huston filmed friend Carson McCullers’s second novel with the plot essentially intact. This story of illicit passions and mental strife on a southern army base has drawn a few laughs over the years for its over-the-top dramatics, but I’ve always thought the high temperature of many of the performances suited the characters.

As the foursome at the center of the film, Marlon Brando, Brian Keith, Julie Harris, and Elizabeth Taylor are a well-balanced quartet of contrasting vigor and frailty. Taylor in particular seems to understand the psychology of the dim-witted, but emotionally blazing woman she plays. In a calm, nearly wordless performance, Robert Forster cools the proceedings, thought his chill is clearly only on the surface. Richard Burton, Montgomery Clift had both circled Brando’s role, but I can’t imagine anyone but him capturing the mixture of bluster and shame necessary to play an officer who craves control, but can’t even get a handle on his own desires.

One of the best features on the disc is the option of watching the film in standard color as released or with a wash of gold as Huston had originally planned. I like both versions, but the golden hue is effective in making these characters seem trapped in their uncomfortable, insular world, like fish circling a dirty bowl. The disc also includes a short film of silent behind-the-scenes footage, which documents what appears to be a pleasant, professional set in total contrast to the turmoil of the drama being portrayed.

Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

Natalie Wood was under contract to Warner Bros when she won the lead in Columbia Picture’s Inside Daisy Clover. The studio forced her to star in The Great Race (1965) in exchange for doing the film, which reinforced why playing a juvenile film actress who suffers under the control of her employers would have appealed to the actress. She also recognized Daisy’s isolation.

It’s a bleak film. Daisy Clover (Wood) rises from poverty, but doesn’t escape her suffering. Every time she thinks she has found love and affection, be it from her mother (Ruth Gordon), a lover (Robert Redford), or her employer (Christopher Plummer), it is cruelly taken away from her. Daisy needs to learn to love herself, but she’ll need to move through a lot of emotional clutter to understand that.

Wood is at her best in her scenes with Gordon and Redford. She insisted on casting her friend Gordon as her mother and their closeness comes through on screen. In the first of two movie pairings with Redford, she found one of her best costars. They relax with each other in the most delightful way, as if they are at play.

Special features on the disc include a trailer for the film and the classic cartoon War and Pieces.

Sweet Bird of Youth (1961)

Based on the Tennessee Williams play, this production is packed with the passions and power struggles typical of the playwright’s best work. It centers on Chance Wayne (Paul Newman), a never-was in Hollywood who has returned to his small Mississippi hometown with the drug-addicted, alcoholic star Alexandra del Lago (Geraldine Page), to whom he has been serving as procurer and nursemaid, among other things. He pines for his childhood sweetheart Heavenly (Shirley Knight) though her corrupt political bigwig father Boss Finley (Ed Begley) is dead set against their reunion. Rip Torn is quietly frightening as his son and reptilian fixer.

Newman, Page, and Torn performed in the Broadway production of the play, and their familiarity with the material and each other gives the film an added emotional vibrancy. They could all be caricatures, but have lived with these characters long enough to view them with humanity. Begley earned his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this performance; he’s a superficially charming, self-absorbed monster, full of rage that he cannot control the world around him and determined to bully his way to success. Knight is in an essentially thankless role, but she has a way of looking both into and through others that draws attention and gives her authority.

The play was sanitized a bit for the screen, resulting in a less-explosive ending, but it retains plenty of heat, mostly thanks to its particularly intelligent cast.

Special features on the disc include a featurette about the film, a screen test of Page and Torn, and a theatrical trailer.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing copies of the films for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

On Blu-ray: Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint in The Stalking Moon (1969)

I went into the western thriller The Stalking Moon (1969) knowing nothing about it and came out the other side feeling unsettled. It is of its time in the deep certainty it shows in its morals, which can make it a difficult watch. The film recently made its Blu-ray debut on Warner Archive.

The Stalking Moon opens with a group of Army officers shooting into the air to waken a tribe of nomadic Apaches. As the men proceed to line up the abruptly roused group like cattle, a white woman (Eva Marie Saint) in the group speaks to attract their attention. They learn that she was kidnapped a decade ago and the silent boy beside her is her son (Noland Clay).

Frightened and barely able to speak, the woman identifies herself as Sarah Carver and begs to be taken away quickly, as she fears Salvaje (Nathaniel Narcisco), the notorious warrior who has fathered her child will come to harm her and take away their son. Sam Varner (Gregory Peck), a retiring Army scout, decides to take them with him to his ranch, where she can work as his cook. While they make it to his home in safety, Sam’s longtime friend, the half-Indian Nick Tana (Robert Forster) comes to warn him that Salvaje has been tracking him and that he has left a trail of bodies behind him in his rage-infused quest to find his son.

There were things in this film I found difficult to stomach that I could accept to a degree as an accurate depiction of the times, from the way the Native people were treated in the opening scene, to the assumption among the white people that Sarah’s young son would do better with them. Salvaje, who is presented as a speechless brute, was more upsetting. All that is revealed of him is that he is a killer. There is no character development or even more than a fleeting glance at his face.

As Salvaje rolls around on the ground with Peck in the climactic battle, dressed in a long vest made of bear fur, it is clear that we are meant to view him as an animal. Even coming out of decades of films with insulting Native stereotypes, this struck me as especially unpleasant. I haven’t read the T.V. Olsen book upon which the film was based, so I don’t know how much of this perspective comes from the filmmakers, but it is definitely enforced by them. I found this hard to understand, as director Robert Mulligan and Peck had worked together so effectively on To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).

Overall, The Stalking Moon is well-crafted and solidly-acted, with stunning scenery, but ultimately it is lackluster. Some of the best thrillers have voiceless villains and protagonists, but when so many of the key characters are that way a film needs to be exceedingly well-made to work. You begin to fully understand how dull the film is when Forster appears at the halfway point adding much-needed life to the proceedings with his wisecracking and lively patter. After enjoying a scene where he playfully attempts to teach Sarah’s son how to count in English, I wished I could have seen his story instead or perhaps get some insight into that little boy with the soulful eyes once he develops his own voice.


Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.