Reviews

The synopsis is incorrect, and the title may be, too. This is the cast of a superb adaptation of Henry James's "Washington Square," reset in 1967, in Malibu.

I was 13 when this Glass Menagerie was first shown on TV, and it seemed like it was the most real thing I had ever seen on TV or in a movie. I remember Hal Holbrook's soliloquies, and I remember thinking Pat Hingle's Gentleman Caller was the nicest man in the world. All the Gentleman Callers that I have seen since were trying to be nice, but Hingle seemed to be absolutely genuine and completely effortless. (I learned that he had gone to UT-Austin, about 30 miles from where I was growing up.)

I noticed Hingle after that--saw him on stage in New York a few years later, with Fritz Weaver and Ken Howard (who had just left 1776) in Child's Play (no relation to Chucky!); and then many years later as Benjamin Franklin in the Bway revival of 1776--he was the best thing in the show--I didn't once wish he was Howard Da Silva.

I was 16 when Then Came Bronson was broadcast, but I still vividly remember moments from 6 or 7 of the episodes.

Maybe it was that I'd never seen that kind of delicacy and sweetness in performance before--and rarely since--nothing "thrilling," nothing forced, nothing fey, nothing indulgent--just careful observations and filled moments. At least, that's how I describe it now. Nothing was underlined; I never felt like I was being told how to react.

Over the years, I'd think, is it possible that show was really that good? Nice to know some people agree with me.

And some of you really have all the episodes on DVD?