Any TV Generation person like myself knows actress Shirley Booth as the bright and bubbly maid, Hazel, who takes good care of the Baxter Family in the popular 1960s television series. But many of us didn't know that she won a Best Actress Oscar in 1952 for her dramatic role as an unhappy but relentlessly optimistic and cheery housewife with an alcoholic husband in the movie Come Back, Little Sheba.

Many in the entertainment industry thought that an actress of Booth's caliber, with her Broadway and film background and success, was crazy to play a wacky maid on television, and yet that's how Miss Booth is remembered by an entire generation.

So if you haven't seen this film, rent it and see the depth and dimension Hazel never had a chance to show you. It's easy to see how Booth won the Best Actress Oscar that year, even against far more beautiful competition. Booth has the talent and the power to be a tragic clown in the Emmett Kelly style that can make you laugh -- or tear your heart to pieces.

They Call Each Other Baby and Daddy

When the movie begins with a typical domestic scene, like Booth making breakfast for her husband, "Doc," you'll note that they call each other "Baby" and "Daddy" but there are no children to be seen. They are a dreary middle-aged couple in a run-down house in a nondescript town.

Lancaster's "Doc" is far more attractive than Booth's frowsy and unkempt housewife. That's the one flaw in the casting. Lancaster was not yet 40 when he played the recovering alcoholic chiropractor, and his body was in peak form (like he was that same year in From Here to Eternity when we saw him rolling around on the beach with Deborah Kerr). The producers and directors thought Lancaster was too youthful and handsome to be credible in the part. They were half right. He had the right feel for the character, just not the right look. Lancaster begged for the part and truly believed he "knew" Doc, and he won the role.

Even so, putting gray streaks in his wavy hair, padding his middle and letting his 5 o'clock shadow show has little effect. Trying to make Lancaster look seedy and downtrodden in those days would be like seeing if you could make Michelangelo's David look old and flabby.

But Booth is ideally cast in both demeanor and appearance. She's thick around the middle, her hair is a mess, her chin is falling and she's disorganized. Her primary asset is her relentless cheer despite her dreary life. The highlight of her day is when the mailman comes and she can offer him a cold drink and visit with him for a minute. You wonder how such a lonely person can be so happy over the smallest things, but she is.

So Who Is Little Sheba?

You learn fairly quickly that Sheba is a dearly loved little dog who has run away from home. Little Sheba has been gone for ages, or she has died of boredom living with these people. Yet Booth steps on the front porch to call for her religiously and hopefully.

Lancaster's "Doc" has been a successfully recovering alcoholic for about a year. He's extremely mild-mannered, almost comatose opposite Booth's incessant talking. "Yes, Baby...that would be nice, Baby" are his stock answers to every question or comment. And yet that Lancaster intensity simmers beneath the quiet exterior.

Booth seems to be constantly on edge, cautiously optimistic about Doc's long-term sobriety and constant participation in an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter as a sponsor to new recruits. And yet she seems to be deeply fearful of the possibility of Doc taking another drink. She makes it crystal clear to the viewer in a subtle way that quiet and shy Doc is a horrendously violent drunk -- and that's when you get to see the classic Lancaster explosive intensity later on.

How Did This Odd Couple Wind Up Together?

Watching this film, you get to wonder that for a little while. They don't seem compatible in any way, looks or otherwise. They have little of substance to say to each other and they rarely touch.

As the plot unfolds, we learn that Booth was "quite a looker" and dancer in her younger years, which she recalls with wistful nostalgia. She remembers with Doc about when she was young and pretty, and he was young, shy and afraid but burning with lust and desire to possess her -- which he does, and she becomes pregnant. They get married, but her father bans her from his life -- and her mother's -- forever because she got in trouble.

Then she talks with Doc about how their lives might have been different if the baby had lived. She has no parents, no child, no friends besides the mailman -- only distant Doc. If he starts drinking again, she has no one to turn to.

The Beautiful Border Comes to Rent a Room

Fresh-faced actress Terry Moore arrives one day to see about a room for rent at the house. Booth is thrilled at the prospect of the sweet young art major from the nearby college living with them and adding some interest to her life.

All Terry wants is a spacious room with good light so she can draw, and a reasonably private entrance -- so she can have her boyfriend come visit. She has a couple of young men who are interested in her, but she has her eye on a guy named "Turk" whose athletic body she wants to sketch. At worst, she exhibits a normal and healthy interest in the opposite sex, and she's a bit of a tease with her powerfully built model. She also has a more respectable boyfriend who wants to marry her. She has no desire to get too chummy with her new landlords, but Booth hovers over her.

Doc's Youthful Passions Again Unleashed

Doc is instantly attracted -- in a gentlemanly way -- to Terry. He is highly interested in her comings and goings, and in her visitors. So is Booth, who is eager to play hostess to her young renter and any "nice young men" who visit her. She starts dressing nicer and keeping the house up well because she has people there now.

Somewhere along the way, Doc decides Terry is a "bad" girl -- like Booth was when they were young. His fervor over the wild nights he imagines she is having with her boyfriends becomes almost Evangelical, and he begins to deliver intense speeches about youth and morality -- but not to Terry, only to his dumpy wife. His attitude seems to be "If I had to get trapped into marriage, why couldn't it have been with a woman like that?"

The result is Doc's quick and violent return to the bottle, and a terrifying scene where he tries to kill his wife by slashing her throat during a fight in the kitchen -- he regains his sanity just in time.

Despite all the turmoil and emotional and psychological messages, there is a silver lining to all the clouds, and this film does have a happy ending.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12