Come Back, Little Sheba

Daniel Mann's 1952 film adapts William Inge's 1950 play. The mismatched marriage of Doc and Lola comes to the surface with the arrival of Marie, a young and pretty boarder; Doc's alcoholism and Lola's longing for Sheba, her lost dog, are two faces of the same emptiness. The film is about the cost of lost youth and decisions never made. Shirley Booth had played the same role on Broadway and won a Tony; with this, her first film, she won the Academy Award for best actress at fifty-four. Her performance keeps Lola from being ridiculous and makes her painfully recognisable. Burt Lancaster playing a character much older than himself was criticised at the time. Who it's for: viewers who like classic Hollywood adaptations of plays and character drama. Who it's not for: anyone avoiding scenes of alcoholism and violence, or who will find the enclosure of a stage-derived structure confining.