While on duty, Merchant Mariner Tom Wingfield recalls his life in a dilapidated St. Louis apartment with his delusional mother Amanda and crippled younger sister Laura, and their story unfolds via flashback.

At first upset by the damage, she realizes the loss of the horn makes the unicorn more like the horses and therefore less noticeable, as she feels she herself is because of her pronounced limp.

Laura gives him the broken unicorn and invites him to return some day with his fiancée, but after he leaves her devastated mother berates Tom for raising her hopes.

Seemingly free of her limp and brimming with self-confidence, Laura awaits a visit from another "gentleman caller" in an upbeat ending that deviates from the play.

Gene Tierney, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Tallulah Bankhead, Miriam Hopkins, and Ralph Meeker also were considered for the film.

[1] In May 1949 Variety announced that Jane Wyman was cast as Laura and that the leadinf contenders for Amanda were Miriam Hopkins, Fay Bainter, Ruth Chatterton, Irene Dunne and Ethel Barrymore.

Despite the fact Williams had an active hand in bringing his play to the screen, he was unhappy with the outcome, calling the casting of Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda "a dismal error" and the overall film a "dishonest" adaptation of his work.

Jane Wyman reprised her role opposite Fay Bainter as Amanda in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast on March 8, 1954.

The play later was adapted twice for television, in 1966 with Shirley Booth, Barbara Loden, Pat Hingle, and Hal Holbrook, and in 1973 with Katharine Hepburn, Joanna Miles, Sam Waterston, and Michael Moriarty.

In 1987, Paul Newman directed a feature film remake starring Joanne Woodward, John Malkovich, Karen Allen, and James Naughton.

Miss Lawrence and the screenplay make her a farcically exaggerated shrew with the zeal of a burlesque comedian to see her diffident daughter wed .

As much as we hate to say so, Miss Lawrence's performance does not compare with the tender and radiant creation of the late Laurette Taylor on the stage.

On the other hand, modest Jane Wyman is beautifully sensitive in the role of the crippled and timid daughter who finds escape in her menagerie of glass, and Arthur Kennedy is intriguingly caustic as the incredibly long-suffering son.

It is regrettable that Director Irving Rapper was compelled, it appears, to kick around the substance of a frail, illusory drama as though it were plastic and not Venetian glass.

"[11] TV Guide rated the film three out of four stars and commented, "This bittersweet, delicate story is handled with care by director Rapper, but the accent is placed more on laughs than on pensive study, which somewhat weakens the play's original intent.