Newman out of his depth

I recently watched this classic film and was dazzled by Geraldine Page as Princess. She delivered a fab performance - glamorous, desperate, insecure, vain and deeply vulnerable. The scene where she hears her films been a success - her face says a million words.

What puzzled me though was why they chose to cast Paul Newman opposite Geraldine Page? Besides his obvious physical beauty, and my what a beauty he was, he was completely, utterly out of his depth opposite Page.

In their scenes he just looked wooden, stiff and with nothing going on behind those perfect blue eyes. Im sure there are far more gifted actors who could still be 'a handsome face.' It just seemed unbalanced. Unlike Streetcar where both Vivien and Marlon were outstanding, here it was left to Geraldine to inject life into the film alone because Newman couldn't.

The rest of the cast all did their roles well but this film belongs to the great Geraldine Page. Pity Chance Wayne wasn't played by Brando or someone who could match her.