Tennessee 100: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958)

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.

When Did Stars Start Posing As Other Stars?

Remember these photos of Julianne Moore as Bette Davis, Ann-Margret and Marlene Dietrich? I can't remember when they were taken exactly. I want to say 1999?

When did all this start? It's a question for the pop culture historians out there. It's been going on for as long as I can remember. And one of the funniest things about is it people get excited each time like it's a new concept. Remember the hoopla over that Vanity Fair Alfred Hitchcock shoot a couple years back when Jodie Foster did The Birds, Javier Bardem and ScarJo did Rear Window and Marion Cotillard did Psycho and so on and so on and so on?

Often this star-on-star mimicry involves Marilyn Monroe. One might have an easier time listing the people who haven't posed as her than listing the people who have. I'm not even talking about the people who have actually played Her (or thinly veiled interpretations of her) in the movies or on television or stage and that list is even longer.

Here's just a small sampling or Marilyn tributes from Madonna, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson.

Yes this has a lot to do with iconic imagery and nostalgia but both iconography and nostalgia predate the birth of Marilyn Monroe. Unless the scientists and the zealots are both wrong and the world began on June 1st, 1926. And if it did why the hell was Marilyn Monroe pretending to be Theda Bara?

But anyway... by the time I was born, Marilyn was already well established as Hollywood's most present ghost and she's never stopped haunting popular culture. [Tangent: The first star that I actually remember the death of was Natalie Wood on November 29th, 1981 since West Side Story, which I watched religiously every time I could find it on tv, was my gateway drug into movie freakdom. Rapid onset Oscar mania was just a few years round the corner. Was I trying to fill the hole that Natalie left by discovering Streep, Close, Hurt & Turner, Bridges & Pfeiffer and all the rest?  I was... distraught...  to say the least.]

This subject is on my brain since I unpacked that "Life at the Movies" book and saw this photo of Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood doing a silent film Rudolph Valentino & Vilma Bánky thing.

Isn't that cute? But wait there's more. How about Paul Newman as a swashbuckler a la Fairbanks / Power

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Link's Cutoff

Your Movie Buddy has already named a few "best of the year" posters (and it's only March!) including this absolute beaut for Meek's Cutoff to your left. Seriously. I like this poster better than the movie and I like the movie pretty well.
The Wrap has an open letter to David E Kelley about his new Wonder Woman series that doubles as a love letter to Joss Whedon. I think it's time the internet gave up that ghost as sad as it is to say farewell to.
Scene Stealers gives a fist up to Duncan Jones's Source Code with our Jake Gyllenhaal.
Slant also looks at the new scifi tinged thriller
Towleroad speaking of... some lame person at SXSW tried to snap a photo of Jakey doing his business in the bathroom. Uncool.
Critical Condition unburies 80s stinker Just One of the Guys and treats it like a hidden treasure.
Old Hollywood shares a great 70s quote from Peter Weir on Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).
My New Plaid Pants Eeek. How did I miss this old Michael Fassbender commercial? So funny. And naked.

Finally, The Hairpin has curated an Netflix instant watch program called "Newman's Ownly" that sounds more delicious, soul-fattening, and spiritually satiating than any solo triple feature evening has any right to be

"'Hombre' means 'man'…and Paul Newman is 'Hombre'."

Should you partake in this orgy of celluloid Newmanliness, I only ask that you make it a double feature instead or replace Hud (1963) with another film somehow. Hud should be rented on DVD or simply bought on BluRay as it deserves better resolution than the generally good but still streamed "Instant Watch" can provide. It's one of those crispest and most perfect looking black and white films ever made, like it was carved from the purest cinematic marble by Michelangelo himself. There's one cold-eyed close-up of Newman that is so heart stopping I needed a defribulator to make it through the rest of the movie. Plus, Hud (1963) is one of the best movies of its entire decade so give it the space in your head that it deserves.