++++
Powerful, intelligent, and darkly funny adaptation, by Tennessee Williams himself, of two of Williams' one-act plays, 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short. Carroll Baker is 19-year-old Baby Doll Meighan, coerced into marriage to the much older Archie Lee (Karl Malden), owner of a cotton gin that is put out of business by Sicilian Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach) and his modernized cotton company. Nothing, Archie Lee decides, that a touch of arson can't fix -- but he doesn't count on Silva figuring he did it and making a play for Baby Doll in revenge. With superb acting and substantive dialogue, and at best a moving target for our sympathies. Controversial when first released (it was "condemned" by the Catholic Legion of Decency and banned as obscene in Aurora, Illinois, for instance), the film is still today racy enough to make its "sex" scenes suspenseful and somewhat nerve-wracking, particularly one set on an outdoor swing.
Powerful, intelligent, and darkly funny adaptation, by Tennessee Williams himself, of two of Williams' one-act plays, 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short. Carroll Baker is 19-year-old Baby Doll Meighan, coerced into marriage to the much older Archie Lee (Karl Malden), owner of a cotton gin that is put out of business by Sicilian Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach) and his modernized cotton company. Nothing, Archie Lee decides, that a touch of arson can't fix -- but he doesn't count on Silva figuring he did it and making a play for Baby Doll in revenge. With superb acting and substantive dialogue, and at best a moving target for our sympathies. Controversial when first released (it was "condemned" by the Catholic Legion of Decency and banned as obscene in Aurora, Illinois, for instance), the film is still today racy enough to make its "sex" scenes suspenseful and somewhat nerve-wracking, particularly one set on an outdoor swing.