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Come Back, Little ShebaRating:
Release Date: 31 August, 2004 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: |
Come Back, Little Sheba Reviews
Powerful drama.
This is a powerful drama. Lancaster plays a sort of Jeckyll and Hyde character named "Doc": calm and refined when sober, angry and dangerous when drunk. The scene in which, drunk, he attacks his wife, Lola, is harrowing. I've seen few scenes to beat it in terms of intensity and believability. Doc buries his disappointments in drink and harbors a deep suspicion of women's sexuality. Indeed, he is obsessed with female purity; thus the fact that Lola was pregnant before their marriage weighs heavily on him, and Doc, like Lola's father, never forgives her for this sexual "mistake." Booth, as Lola, is heartbreakingly poignant. The dominant symbol in the film, Lola's lost dog, Sheba, represents Lola's lost self: her youth and her dreams. Because she has no where to go when Doc becomes "sick" again, she is forced to resign herself to being a housewife who whitewashes her problems just like she gives her wooden ice box a fresh coat of paint.
"You're all I have," Lola says to Doc at the end of the film. "You're all I ever had." Booth's genius in that scene is most evident. I once read that Inge, the author of the play on which this film is based, was an alcoholic himself and believed that each woman should always stand by her man. But one look at Booth's performance makes it clear that Booth didn't think so. Booth's Lola is desolate at the end of this film. Her mother and father won't take her in and her neighbor's only advice is "keep busy." This, Lola will do, as she must, as she has no choice, but at a high cost.
The first time I saw this film I was 12 or 13 years old. I'm 50 now. I just watched it again tonight. I cried.
GREAT ADAPTATION
After reading the stage play of "Come Back, Little Sheeba," I realized that this screenplay was a superb adaptation. Shirley Booth is absolutely letter perfect in her performance....there is not a single moment of less than perfect pitch as far as where she needs to bring her character at any given moment in the film. I always found Burt Lancaster to be a very mannered actor, and, while he doesn't hurt the film by any means, he makes me wonder what the film would have been with someone like Ralph Bellamy in the role of Doc. I understand the need for box office draw and that is an unfortunate situation in film even to this day. Shirley Booth is so good that she elevates Lancaster. Terry Moore and Richard Jaeckel lend excellent support as does everyone else in the film. This is a heartwrenching drama of sweetness and sorrow not to be missed.
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