In "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," Newman is an ex-football player, trying to relive his college athletic glories
Drinking and staggering, he attempts to jump hurdles, resulting in a painful injury that has him hobbling around on crutches during most of the film
The role was certainly another demonstration of his widening range, for Brick is in many ways the antithesis of Ben Quick ("The Long, Hot Summer"). Although he too is cynical, cold and guilt-ridden, he manifests it by becoming moody, withdrawn, introverted
In addition, whereas Ben was strong and decisive, causing and participating in events, Brick is weak and passive, largely reacting to events around him... And he's anything but ambitious: while his greedy brother and sister-in-law await Big Daddy's death so they can inherit his huge fortune and plantation, and while his wife Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) urges him to fight for his share, he merely broods and drinks... An emotionally crippled, "thirty-year-old boy," he refuses to face responsibility and truth, preferring to drown his memories in liquor
Newman and Taylor enact striking contrasts in temperament: she is fiery, loud, animated, sensual; he is cold, quiet, immobile, dispassionate
Brick and Maggie haven't been sleeping together, and she wants him desperately, but he keeps rejecting her advances
As she talks, he replies with sarcasm, contempt and mostly indifference, speaking in a dreamy, monotonous manner, as if only half-there
In conversations with her, as with Big Daddy (Burl Ives), he stares into space, or walks away (usually toward the liquor supply), turning his back on the other party and forcing the dialog to take place on separate planes
All of this places him in a private world, where he hides his torment and anxiety beneath a mask of detachment
If Newman is best at enacting Brick's unspoken thoughts and emotions, he's also effective in the more spirited moments, as when he screams at Maggie or Big Daddy, to prevent them from getting at the truth he wants kept buried
But exactly what the "truth" is remains unclear
In the play, Brick's fear of admitting a homosexual attachment led indirectly to his friend's death and explained his overall moodiness and passivity
But because of Hollywood's moral code, director-scriptwriter Richard Brooks had to eliminate this, and the character's motivations are considerably weakened
His hostility toward Maggieunderstandable in the playis especially confusing because it results from events that are unconvincingly outlined
With the homosexuality cut out, Brick's dependence upon his friend is now explained by the failure of Big Daddy to provide strength and love, and this changed emphasis does make for exciting drama
The film's key scenenot in the playis one in which Brick confronts his father with this painful truth
As they sit in a cellar disarranged with the old man's useless antiques, he tells Big Daddy that love cannot be bought
Newman moves powerfully from anguished looks to an eruption of emotion, smashing everything in sight, finally breaking down and crying: "All I wanted was a father, not a boss ... I wanted you to love me." Both are in painBig Daddy because of cancer, Brick because his crutch has (symbolically) been broken, and they need each other's he1p to get upstairs
Therefore the film ultimately becomes another statement of father-son alienation, and their coming to terms with it, as in "The Rack" and "Somebody Up There Likes Me," leads the characters to a new strength (and an upbeat ending not in the play).
Despite its compromises, the film was still daring by 1958 standards, and was an enormous commercial success
It received six Oscar nominations, including one for Newman as Best Actorhis first. Newman had developed, at last, a really impressive acting ability, and a distinctive screen image
Plot summary
An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
February 19, 2019 at 05:17 AM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Newman proving decisively that he wasn't a second-rate Brando
Cat Has No Claws
Yet another example of a 1950s stage to screen adaptation in which the entire reason for the play's existence is removed from the screen version in order to placate the censors. Why did people even want to make movies out of plays if they wanted to remove everything that made the plays interesting in the first place? Without the homosexual subtext, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" isn't about very much except Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor disliking each other until they do a complete 180 and get it on in the film's final scene. I guess at the time the pairing of two hot actors was enough to get audiences into the theatres, but that's not good enough now. This is tepid and bland, with uninspired direction, and would make anyone wonder why this Tennessee Williams play is considered to be such a classic.
There is one reason to see this film, though, and that's Burl Ives. Newman and Taylor fade into the background, and the movie becomes the story of Ives' Big Daddy, who gives a fascinating, bellicose performance as a dying patriarch, desperately in need of a worthy heir to carry on his legacy. With this and "The Big Country," released the same year, Ives had perhaps the best 1958 of any other actor working at the time.
Grade: C
"Maggie the Cat is Alive"
After a run of 694 performances on Broadway during the 1955-1956 season, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof made it to the big screen in 1958, just in time for Elizabeth Taylor to get her second Best Actress nomination in two years. Unfortunately Liz was up against Susan Hayward for I Want to Live and nobody was beating Hayward out that year.
But Elizabeth Taylor proved something. She was more than just an extraordinarily beautiful woman. That girl had real talent and she proved to be more than a box office name to insure business.
In fact of the original Broadway cast only Burl Ives as Big Daddy and Madeleine Sherwood as his other daughter in law were retained for the film version. Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor replaced Ben Gazzara and Barbara Bel Geddes as the leads.
Newman also got one of his early triumphs playing Brick Pollitt, the favored younger son of Big Daddy Pollitt. Brick's an aimless guy, still living out his dreams of glory from being a football player when he was younger. In fact in a drunken stupor he tried some athletic stuff at his former high school and got a broken leg for his troubles. Newman spends the entire film on crutches, with Ives berating him for being a 30 year old kid.
The Pollitts are one dysfunctional family. They are awaiting the arrival home of the patriarch Burl Ives from a big name hospital and the news ain't good. Ives is dying and it's how the estate is to be divided that's his concern. Older son Jack Carson as Gooper with Sherwood has five kids with another on the way. A thoroughly obnoxious little group of 'no-neck monsters', but Southern families do like breeders.
Brick on the other hand is making a big show of ignoring Elizabeth Taylor and no normal heterosexual male's going to do that for long. Obviously something is eating him, possible infidelity by Liz with his late football buddy Skipper.
A whole lot of family skeletons get thrown from the closet before this film is over. Each one of the Pollitts is a deeply flawed human being as Tennessee Williams shows us.
Burl Ives as actor was established in this role and in his role in The Big Country for which he got an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. 1958 was that man's career year on screen. Big Daddy Pollitt is a man who worked his way up from nothing, concentrating so much on making a success he had no time for his family.
And Paul Newman really is wonderful as a 30 year old kid who if he doesn't straighten out will soon be a 50 year old kid. It's a performance that really rings true for me because I was pretty aimless in my twenties before settling down to the job I held for 23 years before retiring.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is one of the great pieces of 20th Century American literature. It has some universal lessons we could all profit by in viewing it.