THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED (1966)

MORGAN'S RATING

Sydney Pollack directs this steamy melodrama co-scripted by Francis Ford Coppola from a play by Southern Gothic maestro Tennessee Williams. Robert Redford stars as Owen Legate, a handsome railroad official who comes to Depression-era Dodson, Mississipi, to shut down the local rail yard and lay off its already struggling employees. When Legate begins a passionate affair with two flirt Alva Starr -- a small town girl with big dreams of escaping her dead-end surroundings -- the romance angers Alva's domineering mother and ignites the town's economic resentments, provoking an act of revenge against the lovers.

Natalie Wood (Alva Starr), Robert Redford (Owen Legate), Charles Bronson (J.J. Nichols), Kate Reid (Hazel Starr), Mary Badham (Willie Starr), Alan Baxter (Knopke), Robert Blake (Sidney), Dabney Coleman (Salesman), John Harding (Johnson), Ray Hemphill (Jim), Brett Pearson (Charlie), Jon Provost (Tom), Robert Random (Tiny), Quintin Sondergaard (Hank), Mike Steen (Max), Bruce Watson (Lin Tate), Nick Stuart (Railroad Conductor, uncredited).

IT'S ALL  PRIME PROPERTY!

FACTS

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

RELEASE DATE: August 3rd, 1966 (USA) DVD RELEASE DATE: December 2nd, 2003 (USA) - Natalie Wood had trouble performing the drunken bar scene, so she got drunk for real.

DIRECTOR: Sydney Pollack. WRITERS: Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe, Edith R. Sommer and David Rayfiel (uncredited), and based on the play by Tennessee Williams. PRODUCERS: John Houseman and Ray Stark. ORIGINAL MUSIC: Kenyon Hopkins. DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures.

CRITICAL COMMENTS

"Coppola had a hand in the script, but this is an overcooked melodrama that's easy on the eye and not too taxing on the brain." -- Channel 4 Film