Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) on Netflix
Chance Wayne returns home with Alexandra Del Lago, a fading movie star he hopes will make him a screen actor. Heavenly Finley's father, Boss Finley, once drove him out of town.
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- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.1/109,388 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chance Wayne, a drifter and gigolo, comes back to his hometown of St. Cloud as the chauffeur and companion of Alexandra Del Lago, an aging film star who has just finished a picture and is thinking about retiring. Chance once waited tables at the local country club and left for New York to seek fame at the urging of Tom "Boss" Finley, the town's most powerful citizen, who wanted him away from his daughter Heavenly. Now Chance hopes Alexandra will advance his acting career, and he wants Heavenly back. Boss Finley, who displays Heavenly as a model of purity, and his son Tom Jr. want Chance gone again.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Brooks cut the play's castration ending from the film: instead of Chance being castrated by Boss Finley's hoods, Finley's son Tom Jr. clubs Chance in the face with a cane and Chance and Heavenly escape together.- Richard Brooks wanted a different ending: Chance looking for trouble and being beaten up, while Princess Kosmonopolis, Alexandra Del Lago's alias (Geraldine Page), and Lucy (Madeleine Sherwood) left town on the same ferry and saw him on a garbage scow. MGM said it would let him shoot it after previews and never did.
- Geraldine Page had played the role on Broadway, but producer Pandro Berman thought she was not glamorous enough for a movie star; Ava Gardner turned the part down, and Paul Newman asked for another screen test and appeared in it with Page.
- A condition of Richard Brooks' contract was that Tennessee Williams would have nothing to do with the screenplay, but Williams still insisted on a small role for actor Mike Steen, who assistant director Hank Moonjean says was the original inspiration for Chance Wayne.
- Assistant director Hank Moonjean says yet another alternative ending was shot at Long Beach with Geraldine Page and Madeleine Sherwood, but it was scrapped.
