The Fugitive Kind

The Fugitive Kind is a 1960 American drama film starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, and Joanne Woodward, directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Meade Roberts and Tennessee Williams was based on the latter's 1957 play Orpheus Descending, itself a revision of his 1940 work Battle of Angels, which closed after its Boston tryout. Frank Thompson designed the costumes for the film.

Despite being set in the Deep South, the United Artists release was filmed in Milton, New York. At the 1960 San Sebastián International Film Festival, it won the Silver Seashell for Sidney Lumet and the Zulueta Prize for Best Actress for Joanne Woodward.

The film is available on videotape and DVD. A two-disc DVD edition by The Criterion Collection was released in April 2010. It was upgraded to Blu-Ray in January 2020 and includes three one-act plays by Williams (among them This Property Is Condemned, also later adapted for the screen) performed on NBC television network also directed by Lumet.

Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier is a guitar-playing drifter who earns his nickname from his jacket. He flees New Orleans after landing in jail following a police raid on the establishment he was playing at on New Years Eve, to a small town to avoid imprisonment. On his 30th birthday he decides to change his drifting "party boy" life.

Thanks to kind wife (Vee Talbot) of the local sheriff (Jordan Talbot) he finds work in a small-town mercantile store operated by an embittered older woman known as Lady Torrance, whose vicious husband Jabe lies ill in their apartment above the store. An undercurrent of violence, past and present, dominates the town. Lady's father died a tragic death in the burning of his vineyard, after selling wine to local Black citizens (against the law in pre-Civil Rights South).

Frequently drunk libertine outcast Carol Cutrere, who knows Valentine from their shared past in New Orleans, sets her sights on the newcomer. Snakeskin is only attracted to Lady, who has grand plans to open a beautifully decorated "Lady's Confectionery" wing to the rundown store. Sheriff Talbot, a friend of Jabe Torrance, as well as Vee's husband, threatens to kill Snakeskin if he remains in town but Xavier chooses to stay when he discovers Lady is pregnant.

It causes Jabe's final acts of resentment, leading to tragic consequences. While Lady and Snakeskin are in the new Confectionary, an arson fire breaks out. Lady runs to the aid of her husband, trapped in their apartment on the upper floor but Jabe shoots her on the staircase. The fire crew arrive and use the hoses on Snakeskin forcing him back into the flames. The movie ends with Cutrere driving her dilapidated MGA roadster out of town.

Anna Magnani and Marlon Brando had both originally been offered the parts in the Broadway production of Orpheus Descending but turned it down. The roles were played on Broadway by Maureen Stapleton and Cliff Robertson. Film rights to the play were originally optioned by Hal Wallis, who had made a movie of The Rose Tattoo with Anna Magnani (that role had also been originally written for Magnani but played by Stapleton on Broadway). After reception to Orpheus on Broadway proved disappointing, Wallis allowed his option to lapse.