Sweet Bird of Youth and Reflections in a Golden Eye were among the most controversial films of the 1960s. The former was among the best of that decade, the latter was among the worst. Both have been given sparkling new Blu-ray releases from Warner Archive.

Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth first appeared on Broadway in March 1959 starring Paul Newman and Geraldine Page with Sidney Blackmer, Diana Hyland, and Rip Torn in major supporting roles. Newman, Page, and Torn repeated their roles in the 1962 film version about a small-town gigolo (Newman) who returns to his hometown as the driver/lover of a faded, jaded actress (Page). Torn played the son of local political boss Ed Begley (substituting for Blackmer) with Shirley Knight in Hyland’s role as Begley’s daughter and Newman’s former sweetheart.

Bowing to production code rules of the day, the film never refers to Newman as a gigolo, making him instead an aspiring actor and opportunist who uses the alcoholic, drug-addicted actress as a pawn in his efforts to get a Hollywood screen test. In the play, his former sweetheart had a hysterectomy as a result of Newman’s character infecting her with a venereal disease that caused her to not only lose the baby that she was carrying but prevent the possibility of her ever having a child. In the film, the hysterectomy becomes an abortion forced on her by her father. The other major change to the screenplay is the ending. In the play, Newman’s character is castrated by Torn’s character. In the film, he is merely beaten up, followed by a happy ending in which he and his former sweetheart run away together.

Critically and commercially, the film ranks behind only A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the pantheon of films made from Williams’ plays. Newman, of course, had starred in the 1958 film of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for which he received the first of his eventual nine Oscar nominations. That film was directed by Richard Brooks (Elmer Gantry, In Cold Blood), who also directed Sweet Bird of Youth.

Page began her association with Williams as the star of a successful 1952 off-Broadway revival of Summer and Smoke which catapulted her to fame, leading to her first film, 1953’s Hondo, for which she received her first of her eventual eight Oscar nominations. The 1961 film version of Summer and Smoke brought her a second and Sweet Bird of Youth brought her a third. Knight and Begley were also nominated for Oscars for the film, with Begley winning.

Extras include a remembrance and assessment of the film imported from the 2006 DVD which includes on-camera interviews with Knight, Torn, and featured actress Madeleine Sherwood.

John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye was the film version of a novel by Carson McCullers (The Member of the Wedding, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter). It was one of seven films directed by Huston, two of which he only partially directed, made between 1964’s The Night of the Iguana and 1972’s Fat City, all of which were pretty bad. Reflections in a Golden Eye may well be the worst.

Originally intended for Montgomery Clift, the film was recast after Clift’s sudden death with Marlon Brando as the latent gay Army major opposite Elizabeth Taylor as his birdbrain wife. Robert Forster, in his film debut, plays a private assigned to the stables who is lusted after by Brando but who himself lusts after Taylor. Brian Keith plays Brando’s commanding officer, with whom Taylor is having an affair, and Julie Harris plays Keith’s wife who, in an off-screen rage, cuts off her nipples with garden shears. It all ends in a senseless murder that is announced at the start of the film.

Brando and Taylor both sound like they are saying their lines with mush in their mouths. Neither Southern accent seems remotely real and Brando’s mumblings make his line readings even more incomprehensible.

Reflections in a Golden Eye is presented on two discs. The first features Huston’s gold-tinged version which was withdrawn by Warner Bros. after a week in theatres due to audience complaints and replaced with a full color version which is on the second disc. The gold-tinged version may be more artistic, but neither version of this overheated melodrama is worth the time it takes to tell its ridiculous story.

Warner Bros. has also provided sparkling new Blu-ray releases of two off-beat 1948 westerns from RKO.

Rachel and the Stranger, from a story by Howard Fast, screenplay by Waldo Salt (Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home), starred recent Oscar winner Loretta Young (The Farmer’s Daughter) as an indentured servant whose contract is bought by William Holden, a recent widower with a young son (Gary Gray) who marries her but treats her like a slave until his friend Robert Mitchum comes along and shows him how to properly treat the lady. Mitchum offers to buy her from Holden but Young rebels and leaves them both only to return when the farm is in danger from an Indian attack. It’s nicely played by Young, her two co-stars, and young Gray. It was directed by Young’s brother-in-law Norman Foster (Woman on the Run).

Rachel and the Stranger was released by RKO in October 1948 to coincide with Mitchum’s release from his infamous marijuana possession jail sentence. It made a ton of money.

Blood on the Moon, from a story by Luke Short, screenplay by Lillie Hayward (My Friend Flicka, The Shaggy Dog), was a more traditional western in which Mitchum takes the lead with Barbara Bel Geddes and Robert Preston sharing above-the-title credit. Mitchum is a drifter who comes to the aid of cattleman Tom Tully and rancher Walter Brennan as they join forces to fight unscrupulous finance man Preston. Bel Geddes, fresh from I Remember Mama for which she would soon receive an Oscar nomination, and Phyllis Thaxter are Tully’s daughters, one of whom is in love with Mitchum while the other is in love with Preston. Robert Wise directed the film between Born to Kill and The Set-Up.

Released in November 1948, Howard Hughes, then head of RKO, immediately terminated Bel Geddes’ contract claiming she wasn’t sexy enough.

This week’s new releases include Blu-ray upgrades of A Thousand Clowns and Me, Natalie.