Most people know this storyline by now: Maggie the Cat desperately wants latent homosexual hubby Brick to impregnate her and thus insure her standing in the eyes of terminal Big Daddy Pollitt. Compared to the 1958 movie version with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, this 1976 TV movie is merely satisfactory. Both Wood & Wagner were clearly middle aged. At 46, Wagner's Brick looks more like a drunk who can't get out of a bathtub, than a young man who's college football days are but a few years behind him. As for his character's thoughts, intentions, it would appear that he wasn't able to get anything else accomplished except to convey that Brick is a drunkard. Wood is overly anxious throughout & overdoes her 'southern' accent to the inth degree. Unlike Burl Ives in the '58 version, Olivier's Big Daddy is just distant. Why would anyone even bother with him ? The only save in this mess is the always outstanding Maureen Stapleton as Big Mama, who parlays years of her husband's neglect and indifferent children into her character's crushed but still trying spirit.
Review of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
