Handsome, young Chance Wayne returns to his hometown of St. Cloud, Mississippi, a chauffeur and gigolo to a considerably older film star, Alexandra Del Lago. She is needy and depressed, particularly about a film she has just finished making, and speaks of retiring from the acting world.

Chance, once a waiter at the local country club, had gone to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune at the behest of St. Cloud's most powerful and influential citizen, "Boss" Finley, who had duped him into leaving town to pursue fame and fortune as a way of keeping him away from his beautiful daughter, Heavenly.

A political kingpin, Finley enjoys putting Heavenly on display as a model of purity and chastity. His ruthless son, Tom Jr., aids his father's ambitions in any way he can. He, too, is unhappy to have Chance Wayne back in town.

Desperate to have Alexandra further his fantasy of becoming a star, Chance has become her lover. He goes so far as to blackmail her with a tape recording, on which she speaks openly of a dependence on drugs. Alexandra defies him, becoming irate at the realization that Chance's romantic interests in Heavenly are more important to him than her own needs.

Just when Alexandra is at her most vulnerable, she learns from major syndicated gossip columnist Walter Winchell that her performance in the movie she's just made is being raved as the best of her career, and the picture appears to be a certain success. Meanwhile, Finley's discarded mistress, Miss Lucy, exposes Finley's underhanded tactics to the government authorities. Chance, who has been repeatedly warned to stay away from Heavenly and leave town immediately, refuses to do both. Repudiated by Alexandra, and obsessed with his fate, he stages a scene outside the Finney mansion, and is cornered there by Tom, Jr., and his gang of thugs. Determined to ruin Chases’s “meal ticket” once and for all, Tom, Jr., smashes his face in with the crook end of his father’s cane. When Heavenly returns home and discovers Chase lying in a heap in their driveway, she defies her father and runs off together with Chase.

The film was written for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks.^[1][2][3] The adaptation of the original play by Tennessee Williams went through several drafts, with Brooks unsure how to film the play's controversial ending in which Chance is castrated by Finley's hoods.^[4] The castration was cut from the film and replaced by Finley's son clubbing Chance in the face with a cane, followed by Chance and Heavenly escaping together.

The film was a hit, making almost $8,000,000 on a $2,000,000 budget.^[5][6]

The film also was one of Roger Ebert's top films of the decade, and held a score of 74% on Rotten Tomatoes based on a total of 19 surveyed critics.

• List of American films of 1962

• Sweet Bird of Youth at IMDb  
• Sweet Bird of Youth at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sweet Bird of Youth at the TCM Movie Database
• Sweet Bird of Youth at the American Film Institute Catalog