Baby Doll (1956)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Elia Kazan

Writer:

Tennessee Williams (screenplay)

Release Date:

18 December 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Her role is raw electricity! Her portrayal is a sensation! CARROLL BAKER

Plot:

Steamy tale of two Southern rivals and a sensuous 19-year-old virgin.

Plot Keywords:

Cotton | Cotton Gin | Marriage | Child Bride | Maturation

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Karl Malden	...	Archie Lee Meighan
Carroll Baker	...	Baby Doll Meighan
Eli Wallach	...	Silva Vacarro
Mildred Dunnock	...	Aunt Rose Comfort
Lonny Chapman	...	Rock
Eades Hogue	...	Town Marshal
Noah Williamson	...	Deputy

Runtime:

114 min | Argentina:115 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System) | Stereo

Certification:

USA:Approved (original rating) | USA:Unrated (video rating) | USA:R (re-rating 1969) | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | UK:X (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating)

Filming Locations:

Benoit, Mississippi, USA

Company:

Newtown Productions

Trivia:

Tennessee Williams's first choice for the title role of Baby Doll was Marilyn Monroe, (who was straining to improve herself as an actress at the time and wanted the role badly), although Elia Kazan preferred newcomer Carroll Baker, whose work he was familiar with from the Actors' Studio in New York.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The interval between rings of the phone varies irregularly from 3 to 8 seconds, as though it was being rung manually, but it is on a dial system.

Quotes:

Baby Doll: [after being told to make him comfortable] Ain't nobody comfortable in that house. Lucky if you can find a chair to sit down on. You want coffee?
Silva Vacarro: No, just a nice cool drink of water.
Baby Doll: Oh, well the house water runs warm. But if you've got the energy to run that old pump over there you can get yourself a nice cool drink from that there cistern.
Silva Vacarro: I've got energy to burn.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Dream for an Insomniac (1996)

Soundtrack:

Shame, Shame, Shame

Buy Arkansas

This is a hilarious farce by Tennessee Williams, containing much self-parody. On one level, it can even be interpreted as a burlesque of his "A Streetcar Named Desire." "Stella!" becomes "Baby Doll!" If one cannot imagine the great dramatic playwright writing comedy, then this is the film to see.

Even the story is a mockery. A foolish old man, Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden), pretending to be a Southern gentleman, with a rundown plantation and a cotton gin, tricks another old man into letting him marry his comely teenage daughter, Baby Doll (Caroll Baker). He promises to renovate the old farm for Baby Doll and to buy her the world. She agrees if he swears not to touch her until her twentieth birthday. The foolish old man quickly becomes a laughing stock to both blacks and whites who live in the small community in the delta region (there's a sham sign posted in the general store that reads, "Buy Arkansas"). To insure his hold on the rather worldly, not so innocent Baby Doll, Archie Lee burns down his competitor's cotton gin. His competitor, a Sicilian named Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach), becomes Baby Doll's Latin lover to get back at Archie Lee.

There are several memorable scenes in Elia Kazan's direction of Tennessee William's screenplay. The one that is most remembered because it created such a moral outrage at the time (even Baby Doll pajamas were marketed) shows Baby Doll lying in a baby crib, scantly clad in, what else?, baby doll pajamas, sucking her thumb and arousing all sorts of erotic sensations in the male observer. Another scene is one of the most laughable ever put on the big screen. Picture if you will Eli Wallach riding a hobby horse like a wild stallion while slurping lemonade from a pitcher, listening to "Shame, Shame, Shame" by Smiley Lewis on the record player. This is part of the mad Sicilian's seduction of Baby Doll in the most childish way conceivable, ultimately falling asleep in her baby crib with Baby Doll intoning to him a lullaby.

In classical dramas, tragedies naturally had tragic endings and comedies had happy endings. Tennesee Williams' travesty doesn't exactly have a happy ending, but it's not a tragic ending either, more of a postponement of things to come.

A personal note: I was twelve when "Baby Doll" opened in my home town in Arkansas. The churches and other so-called decency groups attempted to have it banned. There were even pickets outside the theater. Because of all the hype with pictures of Baby Doll flooding the media, I had to finagle a way to see it. Those under thirteen had to be accompanied by an adult (this was before the MPAA ratings system was developed--the PCA was beginning to bend its strict rules as American mores were changing. I mislead my dad, who paid little attention to movie previews, into thinking it was suitable for the general public. My dad attended the film with me and seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. He never told my mother about either one of us watching it.