Handsome, young Chance Wayne returns to his hometown of St. Cloud, Mississippi accompanied by a considerably older film star, Alexandra Del Lago. She is needy and depressed, particularly about a film she has just finished making, and speaks of retiring from the acting world forever. Chance had gone to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune at the behest of St. Cloud's most powerful and influential citizen, "Boss" Finley, either too naive or unwilling to appreciate that Finley merely wants Chance, a waiter from the country club, to keep away from his beautiful daughter, Heavenly. A political kingpin, Finley enjoys putting Heavenly on display as a model of purity and chastity. His ruthless son, Tom Jr., aids his father's ambitions in any way he can. He, too, is unhappy to have Chance Wayne back in town. Desperate to have Alexandra further his fantasy of becoming a star, Chance has become her lover. He goes so far as to blackmail her with a tape recording, on which she speaks openly of a dependence on drugs. Alexandra defies him, becoming irate at the realization that Chance's romantic interests in Heavenly are more important to him than her own needs. Just when Alexandra is at her most vulnerable, a call comes from Hollywood to notify her that the new movie she's just made appears to be a certain success, reviving her career. In a scene with Finley, Chance is shown being muscled off the screen by Finley's henchmen for purposes of either being roughed up or castrated. Meanwhile, Finley's discarded mistress, Miss Lucy, exposes Finley's underhanded tactics to the government authorities. Chance, with nowhere else to turn and still on his own two feet, persuades Heavenly to leave town with him. Able now to face the truth about himself, Chance and Heavenly reconcile and leave town together, leaving her father to face indictment.
The film was adapted and directed by Richard Brooks. The adaptation of the original play by Tennessee Williams went through several drafts with emphasis on how to film the controversial ending in which Williams originally called for the castration of Chance's character as portrayed by Newman. The depiction of castration was cut from the film and filmed as an ambiguous portrayal of Chance being muscled off the screen by Finley's henchmen for purposes of either being roughed up or castrated as originally written into the play. The roughhouse implied to take place off-screen was offset in the film by a closing scene depicting an ambulatory portrayal of Chance on his feet and preparing to leave town apparently not scarred in any appreciable way by the scene near the end of the film depicting Finley's henchmen taking bodily control of Chance.
Reception
The film was a hit, making almost $8,000,000 on a $2,000,000 budget. The film also was one of Roger Ebert's top films of the decade, and held a score of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes based on a total of 18 surveyed critics.
