From the March 20, 2003 Chicago Reader. — J.R.

Marlon Brando is pitted against Anna Magnani in this 1960 adaptation by Tennessee Williams and Meade Roberts of Williams’s play Orpheus Descending, and as Dave Kehr once remarked in these pages, It’s the biggest grudge match since King Kong met Godzilla. Unfortunately, director Sidney Lumet, who’s sometimes out of his element when he leaves New York, seems positively baffled by the gothic south and doesn’t know quite what to do with the overlay of Greek myth either. With Joanne Woodward, Victor Jory, and Maureen Stapleton. 135 min. (JR)