Laurence Olivier Presents

Laurence Olivier Presents compiles five of the six plays from 20th century playwrights that were filmed for Britain's Granada Television under the actor's auspices in the late ‘70s, and it's an eclectic group indeed. Two of them—Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (in the original 1955 Broadway version, rather than the bowdlerized 1958 Hollywood adaptation) and William Inge's 1950 Come Back, Little Sheba—are classics of American poetic realism. Two are from British dramatists: The Collection (1961), a typically enigmatic exercise in dark domestic comedy from Harold Pinter, and Stanley Houghton's Hindle Wakes (1912), a proto-feminist treatment of changing social mores among England's middle class. And the fifth, Italian playwright Eduardo de Filippo's Saturday, Sunday, Monday (1971) is a raucous comedy-drama about a large, perpetually squabbling Italian family. Olivier appears in four of them: as the dying Big Daddy in Cat, the alcoholic Doc in Sheba, the wizened grandfather in Saturday, and a gay man with a younger housemate in The Collection, and while only the last really suits him, he's always enjoyable to watch from the standpoint of technique alone. The supporting performers don't always match him—Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner try hard but aren't quite convincing as Maggie and Brick in Cat, Joanne Woodward doesn't efface memories of Shirley Booth in Sheba; and the whole ensemble in Saturday, including Joan Plowright, essay rather broad ethnic types. But Alan Bates, Malcolm McDowell, and Helen Mirren are splendid in The Collection, while in Hindle Wakes, Donald Pleasence leads a cast without a weak link. Technically the films hold up reasonably well, considering their age, and sport good transfers. As a bonus, the third disc includes a TV adaptation of John Fowles' The Ebony Tower, in which Olivier plays an irascible painter, giving a florid performance in a rather slight piece with a weak payoff. Taken as a whole, however, this is highly recommended as a fine tribute to one of the last century's greatest actors. (F. Swietek)