Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Paul Newman had his first big screen success, and earned one of the film’s seven Oscar nominations, and Burl Ives gives an unforgettable performance as Big Daddy, the dying plantation owner whose anticipated estate sparks discord in his deeply dysfunctional family. With Elizabeth Taylor.

“An all-fired lot of high-powered acting is done in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, film version of the Tennessee Williams stage play. Burl Ives, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Judith Anderson, Jack Carson and two or three more almost work and yell themselves to pieces making this drama of strife within a new-rich Southern family a ferocious and fascinating show.

“And what a pack of trashy people these accomplished actors perform! Such a lot of gross and greedy characters haven’t gone past since Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes went that way. The whole time is spent by them in wrangling over a dying man’s anticipated estate or telling one another quite frankly what sort of so-and-so’s they think the others are.

“As a straight exercise in spewing venom and flinging dirty linen on a line, this fine Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production in color would be hard to beat. It is done by superior talents, under the driving direction of Richard Brooks, making even the driest scenes drip poison with that strong, juicy Williams dialogue. And before the tubs full of pent-up fury, suspicion and hatred are drained, every major performer in the company has had a chance to play at least one bang-up scene.” – New York Times

  • Country USA
  • Rating NR
  • Year 1958
  • Running Time 108 minutes
  • Distributor MGM
  • Director Richard Brooks

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