Sidney Lumet directed The Last of Mobile Hot Shots, starring Lynn Redgrave, James Coburn, and Robert Hooks.
Grade: C- (* out of *****)
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Theatrical release poster
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The screenplay by Gore Vidal is based on Tennessee Williams play, “The Seven Descents of Myrtle,” which opened on Broadway in March 1968 and closed after only 29 performances.
In 1959, Vidal made a much better screen adaptation of Williams one-act play, Suddenly Last Summer, which became a controversial smash hit, under the direction of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Starring Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor.
In New Orleans, Myrtle Kane and Jeb Stuart Thorington arrive on The Rube Benedict Show, where the host selects them and another couple as contestants.
Despite not knowing each other, the couple wins the competition, and decides to earn $3,500 on the condition that their marriage be ordained by a minister on the set.
They arrives about 100 miles upstream from New Orleans, where Jeb shows his wife the decaying plantation that his family has owned since 1840.
Jeb introduces Myrtle to his multi-racial half-brother, Chicken (Robert Hooks) on his father’s side; his nickname derived from hoarding chickens to the rooftop in his childhood.
Jeb and Chicken argue over the former’s ownership of the mansion, while Chicken states that when Jeb succumbs to terminal cancer, he will become the new owner as the next of kin.
Jeb reveals to Myrtle in a flashback that he was discharged from the army, after which he got into conflict with Chicken, ordering his half-brother to leave the mansion.
Myrtle shares her background in show business, as the last surviving member of Alabama female quintet, the Mobile Hot-Shots, and reveals that she’d never married Jeb. Refusing to believe it, Chicken orders her to retrieve her license. After showing the document, Myrtle engages in extramarital affair with Chicken.
Jeb experiences several flashbacks of his mother, and multiple affairs with prostitutes. He becomes angry that his wife has not returned with the document.
Chicken reveals that he is actually the plantation’s heir, through his mother rather than the “mistake” produced from interracial extramarital affair of Jeb’s father, who later died in World War II. Learning of the revelation, Jeb collapses and dies.
Finally, the levee breaks, forcing Chicken and Myrtle to escape the floodwaters for refuge and sexual gratification.
The film was shot in New Orleans and St. Francisville, Louisiana.
It was released by the title of Blood Kin in Europe.
Actor Coburn later said “I thought it would be a wonderful film. After all, James Wong Howe shot it. Gore Vidal wrote the script, Sidney Lumet was the director and we had good budget. But, somewhere along the way the focus got lost, it didn’t work as a film. When Sidney makes his mind up about something, he’ll go with it, good or bad, right or wrong. Unfortunately, he was wrong on that film.”
Some critics blamed the source material, the failed play, for being haunted by ghosts of more memorable and likeable Tennessee Williams characters in previous plays
Others complained about the frequent tonal changes, from slapstick tragicomedy and parody to a preposterously plotted melodrama.
It did nit hel that there was no chemistry between Coburn and Redgrave as a couple, and all three main charavters were just unpleasant and eccentric but not inyteresting.
As a result, The Last of Mobile Hot Shots was a failure on any level, ranking as the worst movie ever made based on a Tennessee Williams literary source.
Cast
James Coburn as Jeb Stuart Thorington
Lynn Redgrave as Myrtle Kane
Robert Hooks as Chicken
Perry Hayes as George
Reggie King as Rube Benedict
Credits:
Directed, produced by Sidney Lumet
Screenplay by Gore Vidal, baased on “The Seven Descents of Myrtle” by Tennessee Williams
Cinematography James Wong Howe
Edited by Alan Heim
Music by Quincy Jones
Production: Sidney Lumet Productions
Distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Release date: January 14, 1970
Running time 100 minutes
