COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA

Oscar-winning Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster

COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA (1952). Director: Daniel Mann. Based on the play by William Inge.

"You didn't know I'd get old and fat and sloppy, but I didn't know it, either." -- Lola to Doc.

Lola Delaney (Shirley Booth) is a housewife who is always afraid that her husband, a chiropractor named Doc (Burt Lancaster), will fall off the wagon again. The couple got married years ago when Lola got pregnant, but she lost the baby, and fears that her husband feels trapped and disappointed with life and marriage. Doc does, of course, but he has a bond with Lola, although trouble appears when they take in a pretty young boarder named Marie (Terry Moore of Peyton Place). Marie becomes a symbol to Doc of lost youth and opportunity, just as Lola's old dog, Sheba (who probably ran away to die), is a symbol of her own faded dreams. When Doc comes to believe that Marie is not the sweet innocent he thought she was, he can't resist going to the bottle ...

Richard Jaeckel and Terry Moore

Shirley Booth played the role on the stage, and it would have been criminal for her not to repeat her part on the screen (she won a well-deserved Oscar for it). As she was not seen as being sufficiently box office, Lancaster was secured for the leading male role. Although Doc was always meant to be an older man, Lancaster is not as miscast as you might imagine. He's quite good, in fact, if not up to Booth. (One has to remember that Lola has become chubby and slovenly over the years, and there have been many cases of couples in which the husband is better-looking, or at least in better shape, than the wife.) Terry Moore also does some nice work, as do Richard Jaeckel [The Dark] as a football hero she dallies with and Richard Kelley as her fiance, Bruce. There are other good character performances in the film as well, including Lisa Golm's [Anna Lucasta] as a sympathetic German neighbor.

Terry Moore and Burt Lancaster

Come Back, Little Sheba is full of lovely and sad touches, such as Lola's phone conversation with her mother, when she desperately wants to come home for awhile, but her father, who has never forgiven her for past indiscretions, won't allow it. An amusing moment occurs when Lola tells Doc that she'll prepare him a hot meal if he comes home for lunch, but the "hot meal" turns out to be cottage cheese and buttermilk! The film is well-directed by Daniel Mann, and there's a nice score by Franz Waxman.

NOTE: I could only get a few minutes into a 1977 TV version of the play in which, incredibly, Laurence Olivier is even more miscast (and less effective) than Lancaster, and Joanne Woodward, also miscast, doesn't come even close to approximating Booth's genius. Booth had a pixilated, almost pathetic quality that made her just perfect for Lola.

Verdict: "Some things should never get old" -- A strong and touching drama. ***1/2.