This Property Is Condemned (1966)
(On Cable TV, August 2020) At first glance, there isn’t much in This Property is Condemned to make for compelling viewing. It takes place in a small town whose main attraction remains the railway, features a young woman taking conscious advantage of her beauty to find a way out of town, and ends on an immense downer of an ending made even worse by how it’s casually revealed in voiceover by a minor character. But here’s the thing: The film features Nathalie Wood at her most beautiful, and a very young Robert Redford in full worldly charmer mode. Plus, it’s the second feature film directed by Sydney Pollack, right before becoming a defining filmmaker of the 1970s and 1980s. It’s an impressive pedigree, but it understates the well-oiled nature of the script, which manages to create a captivating atmosphere and compelling characters. This Property Is Condemned is still a sad love story, but there’s plenty to watch along the way as Wood and Redford push and pull, with her character’s mom meddling as much as she can and true love being no match for desperate circumstances. Despite a similar thematic concern of a young woman using her charms to get ahead, there’s a world of difference between this and Breakfast and Tiffany’s, for instance, and you can just feel the disillusionment of New Hollywood peeking through This Property is Condemned, barely a year before Hollywood shifted forever. I may not like the entire film, but there are some really interesting moments along the way to its sombre conclusion.