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Rating: Val Xavier (M. Brando) has spent most of his life in nightclubs with his beloved guitar and a snakeskin jacket, worn with the same pride as a soldier with his war scars, which over time has become his signature. After some legal trouble following a brawl in a club, Val decides to change his life and moves to a town dominated by machismo, enslaved by racial prejudice, and poisoned by deep propriety. The encounter with the sheriff's wife, a painter who internally suffocates the dissatisfaction with the reality she's embedded in, gets him a job at the Torrence emporium, run by the owner's wife, Lady (A. Magnani), who is ill and nearing the end (V. Jory).
The woman, of Italian origin, harbors resentment for her sad past, memories of which are tied mostly to a fire set by unknowns to her father's vineyard after he had sold drinks to colored men, and she deeply hates her husband, in perfect synchrony with the common mentality. Val's popularity is sky-high, especially among women, but the men of the town oppose his presence and end up threatening him: he must leave the county if he wants no trouble. Meanwhile, Lady and Val become lovers but the husband sniffs out the affair and in a fit of rage, he reveals to his wife that he was one of the participants in her father's vineyard fire. The adulterous bond is also discovered by the husband's nurse's trained eye, who notices a pregnancy. On the night of the opening of a pastry shop, built to resemble a vineyard itself, Mr. Torrence sets the place on fire and calls for help, loudly accusing Val. With an inevitable tragic epilogue.
In 1959, Sidney Lumet is at his fourth feature film. For the making of "The Fugitive Kind" he calls in the celebrated American playwright Tennessee Williams, who had already worked eight years earlier with Magnani for "The Rose Tattoo" (earning the actress an Oscar), entrusting him with the subject and screenplay. The basic idea is interesting: in a southern county, halfway between Wilder's "Our Town" and Lee Master's Spoon River, the adulterous passion between a man and an older woman plays out. The direction tries to follow Williams' guidelines to the letter but with not entirely successful results. The erotic tension the film aspires to, fueled by Brando's powerful and mysterious presence, seems almost to be undermined by the social critique aimed at the small-mindedness of the inhabitants to the point of being paralyzed by it. Williams' touch proves to be, albeit slightly, counterproductive: it is indeed impossible, given the plot and developments, not to think of "A Streetcar Named Desire", where however the goal of recreating an atmosphere of intense sensuality follows far better solutions, with excellent results. Finally, the references to Visconti's "Obsession" (in the opening dialogue between the protagonists the sharp use of black and white clearly recalls that of the neorealist masterpiece) are more banal than enriching and the unusual Magnani-Brando couple might not be entirely convincing especially in a secret and torrid arrangement.
The theme of social critique was mentioned earlier. The development of this theme is entrusted almost entirely to the character of Carol Cultrere (J. Woodward, Newman's wife). The girl had fought for the colored population, she had fought against the rampant goodness of the environment around her but had gained nothing from it, except the enmity of her fellow citizens and marginalization. Carol falls in love with Val, whom she had met in one of the many nightclubs where the man worked, and wants to convince him to return to the old path, abandoning the "good intentions" that animated him following imprisonment but her attempts prove futile from the first meeting. Lumet allows the character to penetrate the film's leitmotif without leaving it on the sidelines, using it solely for criticism purposes. She cries over Val's body and, in conclusion, gathers his "snakeskin" from the rubble of the pastry shop: just as the reptile leaves traces of itself when it sheds its skin, so too Val after his death had left his mark in that village, eluding the obstacles of that microcosm and instilling in Carol the courage to leave forever.
If Woodward manages to shine thanks to a parallel and central narrative function, Anna Magnani proves to be as splendid as ever. The role of the adulteress poses her no embarrassment and especially she bursts onto the scene without being overshadowed by Brando. Her ability to reach the audience in a spontaneous and truthful manner is one of the film's fortunes as it tempers excessively dramatic tones, pushed to tragedy even to a mannered and annoying extent. Regarding Brando, compared to the divine Anna but also to other past and future performances of his, he does not keep pace, he does not fully adhere to the character, divided between the cursed musician with a shady past and the man ready to start a clean life. It seems almost like following two different Vals (caring with the sheriff's old wife, at times rough with the lover), but there is certainty that the female audience will appreciate it all the same.
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