7. "One Arm" by Tennessee Williams

This screenplay, more original than All Gaul Is Divided, reflects Williams at his bitter, poignant best. In his preface, he explains, "I have conceived of the film as a dark poem whose theme is the prevalence of mutilations among us all, and their possible transcendence" (Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays, 197).

One Arm centers on Ollie, a former boxer who became a male prostitute after losing his arm in a drunk-driving accident. To his surprise and disgust, he discovers that his "mutilation" makes him more attractive to certain clients, some of whom want him to humiliate them in various ways (including a practice that, thanks to Kim Kardashian, has entered the popular discourse. I wonder what Tennessee Williams would make of the Kardashians...but I digress). Ollie retains his basic humanity, helping those less fortunate than himself--sometimes with tragic consequences--and remaining uncorrupted by the milieu in which he travels, even as he's unable to escape that milieu.

I think this screenplay would be difficult to film effectively, but that may just be my opinion. William frames the action within a meta-narrative structure, even going so far as to have a narrator explain that the actor portraying Ollie is supposed to have only one arm, so audiences should imagine that the actor is missing his right arm. The stage directions dictate that Ollie always enters from and vanishes into a cloud of mist, as if he isn't quite real and/or is a mythic hero. However, I think both the self-consciousness of the narration and the contrivance of the mist detract from the stark force of the human encounters that give One Arm its poignancy and power.