Tennessee 100: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958)
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 9:30PM Robert G from Sketchy Details here to discuss the real star of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for this Tennessee Williams Centennial Week. The beauty of the fifties screen adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is not in the quality of the performances, set design, or cinematography. It comes from the tightly-wound dialog and plot structure adapted from Tennessee Williams' stage play.
Elizabeth Taylor and a No Neck Monster
For this one-day tale of adults acting as foolish as children, the true nature of the story is revealed when the characters pull away from the lines they learned by heart. The dialog is a mask used by the characters to hide their true feelings about everyone else. Even something as ridiculous as Maggie's (Oscar nominated Elizabeth Taylor) constant put-downs of the "no-neck monsters" is nothing but an act of misdirection.
Brick has major emotional hurdles to leap.Every major character in the film, regardless of age, is no more mature than the parade of children singing and dancing throughout the estate. The adults fire off sharp words at each other to draw attention away from their own insecurities. They all play into the roles defined for them by the family. If Brick (Oscar nominated Paul Newman) can't be the football star he once was, he will be the most dedicated alcoholic the family has ever gossiped about. The same goes for Big Daddy (Burl Ives) as the no-nonsense patriarch of an empire, Big Momma (Judith Anderson) as the unyielding caregiver, and even Mae and Maggie as the manipulative money-hungry wives. Talking about the roles they're playing only encourages each of them to act out the roles with more energy and commitment.
It is only when the constant talk of "Big Daddy," "cats," and "Skipper" gives way to the overbearing discussion of "mendacity" that the film comes into focus. Brick isn't the only person trying to escape the lies of the Pollitt Empire; they all are. Every single member of the family is sick of the roles, game play, and war of kind facades with bitter tongues. They don't want to play into it but they don't know how to escape it. Even the doctor plays into the game of lies when he tells everyone except for Big Momma and Big Daddy that Big Daddy's dying from cancer.
The constant repetition in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is an effective device: Brick always plays with his glass in a certain way, Maggie wipes her hands and arms, Mae (Madeleine Sherwood) always conducts the children's songs in the same way, Big Daddy dismisses everyone with the same tone and arm wave. The repeated discussions of child rearing, marriage, Big Daddy's health, and the titular cat metaphor are just extra tools used to keep each member of the family in their respective role.
These words and actions are choreographed to create an artificial sense of normalcy that will eventually give way to more believable mannerisms, speaking patterns, and interactions when the lies stop.
The only thing that can break the pattern is to discuss the environment of lies itself: mendacity. Brick blames it for his drinking, but Big Daddy won't accept that as an answer because Brick is expected to play the role of a drunk. One by one, the lies that support the clan are torn apart until only the true nature of each character is left standing. There is no more glass spinning or arm waving; there is only a family transitioning into better fitting roles.
Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It lost the Tony Award to The Diary of Anne Frank in 1956. The film version was nominated for 6 Oscars losing Best Picture to Gigi. Burl Ives won the Supporting Actor that year but for The Big Country instead. "Big Daddy" surely had something to do with that.
Reader Comments (11)
Great piece! One of my absolute favourite films ever.
I love that the poster advertises "ALL the shock" when they deleted the actual shocking homosexuality of Newman's character and changed the end so that he and Taylor finally get busy. Even without it, it's quite obviously THERE though.
1. Other than the performances, the script is what makes this movie works.
2. I hate that Mae who is pregnant. Guess she must be really good playing that character cos i really hate her during the whole movie.
3. That poster gives a first impression that the movie is a horror. I don’t know why.
4. Those father-son moments in the basement reminds me of East Of Eden. I don’t know why again.
Ah, i loved this movie. Like Glenn noted, the whole homosexuality aspect is so THERE, but i don't know, i liked the whole subtlety of it. It gives more dimension/mystery to Brick's personality. But then again, I pretty much just stared at Taylor and Newman most of the time. Geez, those were some beautiful people.
they did a tv version in the mid70's w/ natalie wood robert wagner and sir laurence olivier and directed by olivier... it dealt a little more with the homosexuality, but was not a very good adaptation.
Thanks for writing about this Robert. This is actually my favorite Tennessee Williams play -- i think it's absolute genius in structure and character and the like. And though I love pieces of the movie, I think A Streetcar Named Desire's reputation is (arguably) strongest because the movie is also so brilliant.
But I think Cat is the best play. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Hearsay! Some visiting prof. on a talk about anachronism and edited literature told us that originally, before/during the 'play doctoring' phase of the play, the third act was just people yelling at each other. Big Daddy became the preview audiences' favourite character, and thus, the the Big Daddy and Brick scene at the basement was added on.
Someone corroborate me on this, please.
It's true that in the original theater script for Cat, Big Daddy only appeared in the second of three acts. Producers demanded that he be reinstated in Act III, which is the version more often performed now, though I like it less.
I absolutely prefer the Jessica Lange / Tommy Lee Jones / Rip Torn / Kim Stanley version of Cat that got filmed for TV in 1984 to this Richard Brooks version. As ever, in this case, Brooks seems compelled to adapt material that neither he nor the studio has the guts to really confront. And I just don't get Newman in this. Then again, Cat is only my sixth or seventh favorite Williams play. Streetcar, Orpheus Descending, Sweet Bird, Glass Menagerie, and Suddenly Last Summer out in front, at least.
... and The Night of the Iguana. I love Ava Gardner in that one. But Streetcar is a f*** masterpiece, both as a play and as a movie.
I agree with most of what Nick says. Paul Newman in this wasn't exactly at his best which is a pity, it could've been his Kowalski (saving the huge distance between both characters) in terms of what Kowalski meant for Brando.
I guess if it manages to work at some levels it's because of the powerful text and the tension between those two beautiful screen gods in their prime.
Nick -- Orpheus Descending, really? That's one of the "problem" texts for me. Maybe I just saw a bad production? I am not, as yet, quite as good at separating the quality of plays from the productions seen as I'd like to be. I do, however, remember the first two instances of the inverse when I something I saw where I was like "oh wow. this is brilliant. but what i'm watching is not." which was a tour of A CHORUS LINE (pretty lame) and the broadway production of WILD PARTY which got middling reviews but i was convinced it was kinda awesome despite a wobbly uneven production.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I focused on the screenplay because it was a whole lot easier than going into what Paul Newman was going for with his performance. I think he focused really hard on creating a static mask so his fight with Big Daddy would be a more dramatic reveal. It's effective, but it's not as dynamic as the decisions every other actor made in the film.
Elizabeth Taylor is AWFUL in this movie. She makes the movie almost unbearable to watch.