These are films that either feature Capote or were written by him. This will be fairly short, despite that it will be about 4 different movies.

Remember this movie? Don’t worry about it if you don’t. It’s just okay. I’ve heard that the director’s cut was a better film that gave a more realistic portrayal of the swinging 70s club (apparently Harvey Weinstein demanded the cuts). I regret that I couldn’t find the director’s cut streaming for free as it also has a gross cameo cut out. Ryan Phillippe plays Shane, a bartender with disco fever hired by the club’s owner Steve Rubell (a real person played by Mike Myers). The movie also includes Salma Hayek, Breckin Meyer, Neve Campbell, and a brief scene of Mark Ruffalo as additional young people with celebrity status or trying to obtain celebrity status. The part I want to talk about is in the first ten minutes. Steve stops the music at Studio 54 and calls for Truman Capote (played by Louis Negin in an appropriately ham way). To celebrate Truman’s facelift, Steve has a boy dressed as a golden cupid descend from the ceiling and hand him a mirror. Capote jokingly reaches for the boy and then dances with a man not wearing a shirt. Capote is not the only older person at the disco trying to re-capture their youth through anonymous sexual encounters. The part that made me laugh was Shane confessing he had no clue who Truman was. Of course, Shane doesn’t know any media personalities (not Andy Warhol or Erroll Flynn or half of the people he meets), except Grace Kelly because his mother named his sisters after her.

Children on their Birthdays

I’ve read this story by Capote which is yet another one based loosely on childhood experiences. It’s Billy Bob’s 13th Billy Bob (played by Joe Pichler who tragically went missing as an adult, this was his last film). He, his mother (hey, it’s Laura Palmer . . . I mean, Sheryl Lee), and best friend Preacher (look at baby Jesse Plemons) meet a precocious girl named Lily Jane Bobbit (Tania Raymonde). The girls in town hate Lily Jane and the boys all start to compete for her affections. Billy Bob is also upset that his mother is finding love with town mechanic and lawman Speedy (Christopher McDonald) even though his father has been dead for years. He also feels intense shame when he doesn’t stop Preacher from picking on a little Black girl named Rosalba Cat (Brazhal Brewer) and both his mom and Lily Jane see. Unlike the Lily Jane of the story, this Lily Jane comes down from her high horse for the sake of another girl in need of a hero. However, her longing for a life on the stage is the same as in the story. A con man (Tom Arnold) comes to town and convinces Lily Jane that he could make her a star.

I won’t give away the entire plot, but unlike Capote’s other stories of childhood, this one is less about him as a child and more about observations of people through a child’s eyes. However the movie is kinder all around. It makes Lily Jane kinder and more a of child. It makes the interactions between the children and adults more like a coming-of-a-story than a tragedy. And (spoiler alert) it completely changes the ending.

The Innocents

I used to hate this movie as a child because I was literally haunted by the novella The Turn of the Screw. Every time I’d find a Victorian ghost story on TV, it would turn out to be an adaptation of Turn of the Screw. After several years of escaping the story, I finally went back and reread it then re-watched some of those adaptations I was so dogged by. And this is the best version (not counting the Netflix min-series since it does combine a lot of stories). I’m not sure if it was Capote’s idea as the screenwriter or the director’s to make you wonder whether the ghosts were real just like in the original book, but this is the movie where it works the best.

Beat the Devil

This is an odd film that I feel like you need to watch multiple times to get the entire plot. Long story short, Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre star in this story about uranium, land deals, and taking advantage of naive British people (somebody had to). The reason I am including this is not that it’s about writing, but that, despite being based on a book, Capote had to work on the screenplay as they were filming. This probably accounts for plot holes and disjointed scenes. Still, Bogart and Lorre - I’m in. Capote was also all in because he got to hang out with the entire cast.

This is a fictionalized tale of how famed poet Robert Browning fell in love with aspiring poet Elizabeth Barrett, Barrett is depicted as a kind woman of intelligence, but poor health and, along with her siblings, is trapped in a household under the thumb of an emotionally abusive father. It was made once in the 1930s, but this is me talking about the 1954 version.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street is also about how writing gives people an escape and brings them together. The overbearing Mr. Barrett, played by John Gielgud, refuses to provide the healthy environment his favorite daughter Elizabeth (called Ba by the family), played by Jennifer Jones, to overcome lifelong illness. He keeps his daughters and sons in fear of his whims and their love for Ba seems to be the only thing that gives them some courage to argue with their father. The obsessive behavior Mr. Barrett shows towards his invalid daughter gets downright creepy at times.

Being bedridden, every knows about and encourage’s Ba’s poetry, even her doctors and the household staff. The movie sprinkles her poems between scenes so this writing acts as the narrator, showing that the film makers respected their subject as a poetess, not just a good dramatic topic.

Ba corresponds with local poet Robert Browning (played by an over zealous Bill Travers) for writing advice. Eventually, they fall in love first through letters then by Browning insistently coming to visit her. The movie still insists how being writers is so important to the pair and how Browning wants her continue to be a poet even as his wife.

Spoiler alert: A very true historical moment in the movie is Ba’s doctors insistence that as she shows more strength she needs to get away to Italy. There was a belief that dry air and warmth helped with tuberculous. Naturally, when her father refuses to let her go, it’s Browning who takes her Italy through elopement. And bring her dog, Flush, without question.

In reality, I really did admire Barrett Browning because she was a woman who was confined to a bed for much of her life. Yet even from that position, she used her smarts and later her fame to fight against the oppression of women, child labor, and slavery. Of course, what really endeared her to me was her love for her dog, Flush (first I watched this I was probably 10, but that dog is so sweet).

Something that this melodrama gets full marks on it the idea of seeking criticism especially (in the same theme as Devotion) as a woman in a time when it was hard to be taken seriously as a writer. But in this case that criticism comes a healthy, mutual, and equal relationship between Ba (Barrett) and Browning.

In reality, Elizabeth Barrett Browning did not become famous until after her death, despite her husband’s support and promotion. Once again, society questioned whether he secretly wrote or heavily edited Elizabeth’s work. Despite knowing this truth, as a movie about a writer I love how everyone encourages her (save for her dick dad, of course).

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