Marlon Brando stars as guitar-playing drifter Val Xavier, who shuffles into a small Southern town after abandoning a life of petty crime. He soon takes up with two disparate ladies: brassy bad girl Carol Cutrere (Joanne Woodward) and the volatile Lady Torrance (Anna Magnani) -- his boss's wife. Maureen Stapleton and Victor Jory provide solid support in this smoldering melodrama based on Tennessee Williams's play "Orpheus Descending."