24. "Stopped Rocking" by Tennessee Williams

Stopped Rocking, the final screenplay in Tennessee Williams' eponymous compilation, is bitter and brutal--at least I thought so. Williams, in his preface (which I don't advise reading until after after you finish the screenplay, because it contains a major spoiler), seems to differ, at least to an extent.

The play centers around Janet, who has spent five years in a sanitarium; her husband, Olaf Svenson (also known as "Stone Man"); and his common-law wife, the manipulative, lubricious (Williams' word, and what a spectacularly incisive one it is) Alicia Trout. Janet lives for Olaf's visits, while Alicia nags him to divorce Janet--whom she accuses of "moral blackmail"--and marry her.

Janet is incarcerated in a Catholic institution. The attitudes of the two nuns who attend her, Sister Grace and Sister Grim, provide a strong counterpoint: Sister Grim acts out of grudging duty, while Sister Grace has a true calling to work with the residents, toward whom she shows genuine love and gentleness. Williams also paints a contrast between the kindly Father O'Donnell, the recently deceased chief of staff, and his successor, cynical psychiatrist Dr. Cash.

Like The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond and One Arm, Stopped Rocking has the potential to be a poignant, powerful screenplay, with the right direction.

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.

6. "All Gaul Is Divided" by Tennessee Williams

I purchased Tennessee Williams' compilation Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays last year, in order to read the screenplay for The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond before seeing the film. In that instance, I felt the screenplay had potential, depending on the filmmaker, to be either amazing or a total flop. It turned out to be extremely powerful, a movie that had me in tears early on and left me emotionally flattened, but in a good way. Well, mostly good. What felt like odd gaps in the text translated, onscreen, into poignant and laden silences that filled in the complex interconnections between characters.

Unfortunately, I don't think All Gaul Is Divided, the first screenplay in the book, has the same potential. It revisits the familiar Williams themes of brittle, beautiful, insane women; the vicious, conniving women who undermine them; and handsome but clueless or cavalier men. It does so with far less force and power than Williams' best-known plays. The introductory note says this screenplay is based on an eponymous play, which I haven't read; I'm curious as to whether that's more fully realized.

 All Gaul Is Divided takes place in St. Louis, a less lush setting than some of Williams' other work, set against a high school and a poor, china-cluttered apartment (shades of The Glass Menagerie in the latter). Part of what made Teardrop Diamond work, I think, were the sweeping, panoramic shots of the countryside and the Mississippi River levees. Even if a St. Louis high school offered the potential for those kinds of evocative images--which I doubt--I don't think Gaul holds the same promise.