Apr. 08, 2004 - 4:09 pm

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

i heard about this one from Greg who seems to love films with either early Elizabeth Taylor or early Paul Newman in them. i didn't really see eye to eye with him on this one though. this is yet another stage play reformatted as a film. i really need to stop seeing those for a while. i'm tired of them and they're generally bad ideas it seems.

it takes place on sort of a family plantation and "Big Daddy" (Burl Ives) and family are coming home from the hospital to celebrate his birthday. Brick (Newman) and his wife Maggie (Taylor) are at the party but Brick has recently become and alcoholic and hates everyone, especially his young wife. he refuses to come down to the party to celebrate with his father. as the party moves upstairs, Big Daddy starts trying to get Brick to tell him what's really bothering him and why he's turned to drink and hasn't produced any children with his beautiful wife.

this is a Tennessee Williams play so there's a lot of hidden homosexuality in the text which was removed for the censors. you can definitely still see that it's there if you're watching for it. i thought that bit was interesting and also seeing Burl Ives onscreen instead of just knowing him as the voice on children's Christmas movies was fascinating. he did a great job.

wow this film has some damned annoying characters in it. i about vomited with everyone being constantly referred to as "Big Momma", "Big Daddy", "Maggie the cat", and "Sister Woman." what is up with that garbage? and then their personalities make you wish the whole house would go up in flames while you watched and threw little sticks of kindling into the fire.