User reviews

There are tensions that have built between a couple, Brick Pollitt shows contempt, it's far from subtle, his wife Maggie's in despair, she's in love and really cares, but it's fair to say this pairing, is in trouble. Big Daddy joins the party for his birthday, but the whiskey being drunk just goes down one way, secrets hidden and withheld, relationships are hewn and felled, wounds reopened, from a friend, lost through betray. At the climax of this film you'll hold your breath, as the family is overwhelmed, distressed, with performances profound, so much lost and so much found, you will not be disappointed, I attest.

Three of the greatest cinematic performances placed on film.

This is a fantastic look into a dysfunctional American family, 1950's Style. I was prepared to hate this movie, as I typically don't get into dramas at all. Fortunately, I was completely drawn in. Paul Newman's character (Brick) is enigmatic at best, but somehow, because Maggie the Cat loves him so much and is so utterly devoted to him, you find yourself caring about what happens to him and Maggie both.

Big Daddy and Big Mama both bring back fond memories of my own childhood, and if you grew up in the south, chances are you knew someone like the both of them. Their characters are written and performed so typically Southern, that I realized half way through I felt family connections with the whole family, including the no-neck monsters! Sister Girl is the sister in law from Hades, and her husband needs to dig into her purse for his...manhood. We ALL know a couple like that!

All in all? Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, and Burl Ives are breathtakingly beautiful in their portrayals. This is probably not a good family movie, as Brick has a serious drinking problem and Maggie IS so desperate for his affections, and probably not a good Friday/Saturday night movie, but I still love it, and will think of it fondly for the rest of my life.

It rates an 8.8/10 from...

the Fiend :.

The best thing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has going for it is one truly remarkable acting performance. And that performance comes from neither Elizabeth Taylor nor Paul Newman. There's nothing wrong with the work turned in by Taylor and Newman, they are both perfectly fine in their roles. And it is their characters who are the focus for most of the film. But late on in the proceedings Burl Ives grabs hold of the film and makes it his own. Ives turns in a performance which is so strong and powerful that it threatens to overshadow and overwhelm everything else in the film. However it is rather difficult to overshadow Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. And the film's rather simple story is certainly compelling enough so as not to be overwhelmed by the Ives tour de force near the end. So while Ives may end up being the most memorable thing the film has to offer he is certainly not the only memorable thing. His great performance is merely the best part of what is an overall thoroughly satisfying film.

The film's simple story centers around a day in the life of a wealthy Southern family. With this family the key word is "mendacity". What does that even mean? Any of our characters who initially don't know about mendacity surely will by the time the story plays itself out. As we meet them everyone has come together to celebrate the 65th birthday of family patriarch Big Daddy. Initially it seems the film is about Big Daddy's son Brick and his wife Maggie the Cat. Brick and Maggie are not currently in the throes of wedded bliss. To say their relationship is strained would be putting it mildly. The fact that alcohol seems to be the only thing in life Brick is at all interested in probably does not help matters. But as the film progresses we see there is a larger issue than Brick and Maggie's troubled marriage. Big Daddy is dying. And nobody, not his family and not his doctors, has the guts to tell him. This will ultimately play itself out in powerful, heartrending fashion.

For much of the film's running time you would call it compelling but certainly not spectacular. But then Ives, as Big Daddy, grabs the film by its throat and shakes some real life into it. There's a scene where Ives as Big Daddy and Newman as Brick are alone in a basement which simply could not have been performed any better. There's so much these characters have to say to one another. The emotion is raw and the scene is so powerful. It hits you right in the heart. Just this one scene alone, with these two great actors, elevates the film all by itself. Newman is terrific. Ives is astounding. Perhaps it is in fact possible to overshadow Elizabeth Taylor. Maybe just this once. Maggie the Cat is an intriguing character in her own right and Taylor certainly doesn't disappoint in the role. But it turns out that ultimately the film is really about the relationship between Brick and his father, not Brick and his wife. And as such it is Newman, and most especially Ives, who you will most remember. It is their work which transforms a good movie into something truly memorable.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is truly an actor's movie, and it is one of those rare films where every single actor is perfect.

Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor are both brilliant as Brick and Maggie Pollitt, respectively. Not very often is there a screen couple that have the same chemistry together that they do.

Newman, however, steals the show. If you watch "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" for nothing else, watch it for his performance. One of the greatest actors of all time, Newman showcases how powerful an actor he can be. This is not to say the supporting cast isn't excellent. Burl Ives is superb in a supporting role as Big Daddy, a man who's greatest concern is having his legacy live on after him. The sequence with Ives and Newman in the basement of the house remains one of the most incredible displays of acting I have ever seen.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is a very appropriate title. It is a searing, wonderfully acted film that I will not soon forget. I recommend those who haven't seen it yet to rent it as soon as they get a chance. A true classic.

I've got to say that Tennessee Williams' 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' was one of the best Newman films. It's one of those movies that grabs your attention in the first 10 minutes. The interactions between the gifted actors and actresses were stupendous. I really felt for Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) "The Cat ", though and how she was able to keep her composure with her husband Brick Pollitt's (Paul Newman) berating of her. We learn that he was a drunk trying to recapture his glory days of high school sports by leaping hurdles on a track field, dreaming about his moments as a youthful athlete, but suddenly he falls and breaks his leg, leaving him dependent on a crutch. During the film, he has some harsh words for Maggie. I felt that her character was treated unfairly by Brick and to make matters worse, his father Big Daddy (Burl Ives), shows nothing, but contempt for his son that he's even violent towards him. I really understood why he was so angry with Brick and as you watch the verbal fight between the two, you really side with Big Daddy. Newman really was a great actor and was the best choice for this part. Taylor, on the other hand, is a big star And she played Maggie to a T! I really think the Hollywood scripts these days are dead weight compared to the 50s and 60s! The exchanges of dialog and the acting were definitely marvelous. Canadian actress Madeleine Sherwood, who played Mae Pollitt in the film, was the last one to pass away in 2016 at 93! they all left their mark in the acting world.

Burl Ives gives the greatest portrayal of a literary character in film history, and he wasn't even recognized by an Oscar nomination, further evidence of the Academy's complete lack of credibility as an arbiter of screen excellence.

The casting is brilliant:

Tennessee Williams's Big Daddy was indeed big - larger than life, domineering, insensitive, self-absorbed. Burl Ives's Big Daddy is larger than life, insensitive, domineering, self-absorbed. Ives is "on" every moment. And every moment is true.

Paul Newman's Brick, is as afraid of life as Big Daddy is in love with it. Yet, in his way, he's a chip off the old block - self-absorbed, insensitive.

And domineering or, as Big Daddy and Maggie would have it, masterful, ready to take charge -

if he could just get over himself.

I confess, I don't care for Elizabeth Taylor as an actress, but she is so right for the part, that I can't think of anyone else to fill it. Anyway, who else has eyes that could compete with Newman's?

Judith Anderson plays the typical Williams matron, living in her house of delusions. She's Big Daddy's tormented, desperately lonely, unloved partner, who towards the end wins Big Daddy with her nobility and devotion.

The under-appreciated Jack Carter has the unenviable role of Brick's pliant, conformist brother, Gooper, decent at heart but worn out after years of jumping through Big Daddy's hoops and still winding up on the short end, with a house full of brats, bred at Big Daddy's presumed bidding and delivered by a scheming, ambitious weasel of a wife. Gooper the only character I have a little trouble with, because his climactic speech, as rendered by Carter, is so heartfelt, that we are aggrieved with him at the injustice of Big Daddy's favoritism for the no-account but aesthetically more pleasing Brick.

Perhaps an even more unenviable role is that of Gooper's wife, played to perfection by Madeleine Sherwood. Anyone who has grown up in the South has known "Sister Woman". I can assure those who haven't, that this character is not a stereotype or caricature.

There are a few quibbles. One character, the family doctor, though played well by Larry Gates, has a dramatic function that's about as useful as the referee in a pro wrestling match, but not nearly as decorative. I guess he's included to provide plot information, but I think it could have been provided just as well without him. I was also put off by the contrived thunder claps at dramatic moments. Then, there were some continuity problems, such as different facial expression when shot angles were changed and Gooper's too many "Shut ups" to Sister Woman.

If, as another reviewer has said, Tennessee Williams hated this film, then it couldn't have been because it was untrue to his work. If he disliked the changes and omissions, he should blame '50s prudishness, not the film, for dictating, say, the suppression of Brick's homosexuality.

Williams wrote about lies and delusions, the good ones and bad ones. Well, that's what Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Streetcar Named Desire and Glass Menagerie were all about. Tennessee Williams's stories about the South and its culture of delusion are not just rebukes of Southern hypocrisy and bloodymindedness but paeans to the gentle and genteel refuge which delusion provides. As Maggie "The Cat" says, "Truth, truth - everybody keeps hollerin' about the truth. Well, the truth is as dirty as lies."

Finally, I think it was brilliant of Richard Brooks to insist on color, for Williams's stuff is talky, and with the drabness of a typical Williams set, this can be a bit oppressive. With color, and the wonderful animation Brooks instills in all the characters, his Cat contains not a dull moment. If Brooks has given us something at odds with what Williams intended, I think he has given us something just as fine.

I am studying Tennesse Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in English. It is a fabulous play, constantly entertaining and witty. I saw the film with great interest, and I was most impressed. Yes the filmmakers did tone down the sexual references and the language and some of the events are simplified or cut(ie. they suppressed Brick's supposed homosexuality) . But even with the changes, the film thanks to the stellar performances and the witty screenplay sizzles fantastically on screen. It is also very gripping and intense, like the play.

What makes the play so unique is this. Whereas directors tend to stage what they visualise in their heads when there are no stage directions to show exactly what the playwrights intend, Williams is very specific what he wants throughout. His characterisations are broad and his descriptions of everything down to the bed, which is very symbolic, are detailed. The film, like I said, is toned down, but it still retains the sizzle, wit and intensity of the play with consummate ease.

The screenplay is very witty, emotional and funny even. The direction is very good too, and respects Williams's style. The film for its time looks lovely with lovingly designed costumes and skillful cinematography. The music is great, and the editing is crisp.

Out of the performances, all of which were stellar in what is really an ensemble piece, Burl Ives stands out especially in a towering spot-on portrayal of the domineering patriarch Big Daddy, and managed to stay true to his character. Paul Newman is splendid as Brick, giving a performance of quiet intensity and broodiness. While she slightly overdid the Daddy Dawling routine, Elizabeth Taylor is deliciously catty and sexy as Maggie, and her and Newman's chemistry was evident throughout. While maybe not quite right in terms of build, Judith Anderson the brilliant actress she was is wholly convincing as Big Mamma. While loud and coarse, she is also sympathetic. Jack Carson plays Gooper well too, Madeleine Sherwood was a tad annoying as Mae, then again I never liked Mae that much in the play anyway.

There are many standout scenes, but the one that stood out for me was the scene in the rain with Big Daddy and Brick. Thanks to the contrasting personalities of the two characters and the powerful acting of Ives and Newman, it is one of the most powerful scenes in any film. It makes me wonder why Ives was so overlooked at the Academy Awards really. The final confrontation was also a highlight. All in all, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has its minor flaws, but it is impeccably acted, atmospheric and very steamy. 9/10 Bethany Cox

This is my all-time favorite film, ever ever ever ever!!

How can I describe the fabulousness?? Paul and Liz are so hot and beautifully frustrating together as Brick and Maggie, that the TV nearly explodes...Gooper is perfectly portrayed as a good man, financially independent, but still seeking Big Daddy's approval, and a prime example of a man being "whipped"...we hate Sister Woman, and rightly so -- for she is a despicable character...Big Momma is stronger than anybody thinks, and Big Daddy holds the whole family and story together with his massive strength and faith in himself.

The relationship between Brick and Maggie is the most fascinating ever recorded on celluloid. We think it's all about sex, but if it were, they would have jumped each other long ago (My GOD, LOOK at them!! It's Newman and Taylor). This is a relationship full of confusion, betrayal, honesty, dishonesty, love, desire, and trust. The phenomenal symbolism of Brick's crutch is beautifully represented.

The play was wonderful, and the movie was wonderful, but it is important to remember that they are two separate entities. A mistake that I believe that many people make while watching adaptations, is that they are exactly that -- an ADAPTATION! They are not meant to be the same. They should be judged each on their own merit!!

On Cat's own merit, it is a magical film

"Brick Pollitt" (Paul Newman) is a former athlete who has an extremely wealthy father known as "Big Daddy" (Burl Ives) and a beautiful wife named "Maggie" (Elizabeth Taylor). Unfortunately, although an injury sustained while playing football has destroyed his athletic career, it's another situation (which only he knows) that results in him becoming angry and bitter at everybody in his life. This not only includes Big Daddy--who finds fault with everyone around him--but also Maggie who does everything she can to remedy the situation with Brick only to see her romantic advances thrown back in her face. Naturally, this has left her both sexually frustrated and even more importantly--childless. Yet, with all of this going on, when he hears rumors that his father is extremely sick, both he and Maggie decide to visit Big Daddy upon his release from the hospital and--coincidentally enough--his 65th birthday as well. However, what nobody counts on is the dramatic turn of events that follow which shatters the family dynamic in a most dramatic manner. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an impressive film which benefited greatly from the fine acting of Burl Ives, Paul Newman and especially Elizabeth Taylor who eluded beauty and sexuality from start-to-finish. That said, however, this film featured no action, very little humor and was quite wordy. Yet even so, I found it to be it rather entertaining despite these weaknesses and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

Elizabeth Taylor's death a few days ago prompted me to watch one of her most famous movies.* I've never seen a stage production of Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", but I will say that the movie version is worth seeing, despite the unrealistic southern accents. The storm taking place outside the mansion is nothing compared to the tension between all the family members gathering for the patriarch's birthday.

As with another notable Tennessee Williams play -- "A Streetcar Named Desire" -- they had to remove the references to homosexuality to bring the movie to the silver screen. Still, the scenes of Maggie (Taylor) in her slip seem as though they would have been risqué for the time. Along with her, just about every character made me feel as if my throat was going to constrict. In a way, it's as if the only truly benign characters were the servants.

All in all, I wouldn't call this movie a supreme masterpiece, but I found it to be worth seeing. This one, along with "Streetcar" and "Baby Doll" are the three great adaptations of Tennessee Williams plays. Also starring Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson (Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca"), Jack Carson and Madeleine Sherwood (Reverend Mother on "The Flying Nun").

*This is going to sound insane, but prior to "COAHTR", the only movie in which I'd seen Elizabeth Taylor was the god-awful "Flintstones" movie, in which she played Wilma's mother.

I have never read or seen the play 'Cat on a Hot tin roof', but after watching the quite superb film, I want to. A movie about families, money, love or lack off. The acting is first rate, Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor are superb, if you're looking for laughs, look elsewhere. A classic.

Some 95% of the IMDb comments on "Cat..." concentrate on its stars/performances, and justly so: that's about all there is to this static, bowdlerized adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play. In 1958, director/writer Richard Brooks had the questionable distinction of bastardizing TWO masterpieces in the SAME year, Williams' "Cat..." and Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" (remember that ending?).

"Cat..." is basically an all-talk psychodrama (if you're not fluent in English, be prepared to read a lot of subtitles!), as we watch a dysfunctional family dysfunctioning to the hilt, in another of Williams' exorcism of his ghosts (in "Cat..." 's particular case: his relationship with his brutish father, his coming out of the closet, his alcoholism, his tragic relationship back in the 1940s with his first male lover that eventually left him to get married, only to die of a brain tumor in 1944 with Williams at his deathbed).

It's difficult to take this adaptation seriously when two of the main themes of the play were either entirely eliminated (homosexualism) or trivialized (alcoholism -- how can a serious drunkard look as healthy and fresh-faced as Paul Newman?). The problem of eliminating the homosexual innuendos of Brick's relationship with Skipper -- besides the grave fact that Brooks betrayed the very core of the play -- is that Brooks doesn't come up with anything consistent in its place. The "new" motivations for Brick's trauma (that led him to become an alcoholic and sexually reject Maggie) are at first vaguely mysterious and then an over-sized bubble, because they amount to nothing much.

What Brooks did to the play was worse than white-washing; it was an act of...mendacity!! Oh, the irony of it all:)

Williams himself dismissed Brooks' adaptation, saying it looked "like prostitution or corruption", that he "cheats on the material, sweetens it up and makes it all hunky-dory". It's said Williams even publicly advised audiences not to see the movie. Nevertheless, he wasn't exactly physically tortured to accept (reportedly) half a million dollars for the film rights :) Anyway, he would show Brooks and Hollywood a thing or two the next year, when he adapted (with Gore Vidal) his own play "Suddenly Last Summer" for the screen, making homosexuality its unequivocal (though encrypted) center, even if homosexual "pervert" Sebastian gets his "deserved punishment" at the end, being literally eaten alive!

Brooks' version of "Cat..." is disappointingly static; the camera's only interested in its stars. But then, what stars! Taylor and Newman are really one of the most spectacular screen couples ever. Liz -- probably never more beautiful -- hadn't however finished peeling off that early "nice girl" quality (it was her first real "nasty" role) and still lacked the delicious "trampiness" that would bloom in the 60s (though she has a shrill laughing scene by the mirror, at the beginning, that is delightfully vulgar and sexy). Paul Newman, also at his hottest, tries hard (and he's always pretty aware of his cinematic wooing powers) but is ultimately miscast: looking invariably sober and impeccably healthy, with not a shadow of anguish in his All-American brow, he doesn't succeed in portraying the compulsion to drink, the nihilist decay, the uptight despair to his part (imagine what Brando or Clift could have brought to the role). It's very hard to think of him as the complete loser Brick is. Burl Ives, physically impressive, chews everything around him in the Emil-Jannings-acting-school fashion (OK, so Big Daddy is bigger than life -- one more reason to smuggle in an occasional subtlety). Jack Carson is wasted in the under-developed part of his potentially very interesting character (Brick's underdog brother Gooper). Judith Anderson as the hysterical, torn apart Big Mama, and Madeleine Sherwood, as the nightmarish hag "sister-woman", have a ball with their roles, all stops out.

"Cat..." is ultimately disappointing because it's glamorous when it should have been grim, and just repetitive when it should have been obsessive. However, it has star power to spare, some of the dialog is Williams at his poisonous best and there are some undeniably effective scenes: when Big Mama confronts Maggie saying that troubles in marriage have but one cause -- while firmly pounding her open hand on Maggie's mattress -- the film suddenly becomes alive for a moment.

Much has been made of the differences between Tennessee Williams' play and this film--the homoerotic themes have been driven further into subtext (though not eliminated entirely) and a more upbeat ending was added. The changes were necessary when the film was made; although theater and literary purists decry the "sanitizing" or censorship of plays when they are adapted for the screen, in some cases (such as this one) the changes can improve the work in question. "Cat" on film is clearer, for one thing. Tennessee Williams plays tend to be "cluttered" in their original form. They are also cynically downbeat; if that type of story appeals to one, this adaptation might be off-putting.

As with all theatrical adaptations, many of the scenes are excessively talky, especially the Brick/Big Daddy scenes in the second act. Some of the highlights are just as wordy but thoroughly enjoyable rather than tedious (especially Maggie's story about Mae's reign as Cotton Carnival Queen and the entire scene in the basement). All of the performances are excellent, though Paul Newman as Brick is less flashy; it's not really until the basement scene that one feels his talent is given a workout. Elizabeth Taylor is an emotional rollercoaster, venturing from flirtatious to hectoring to wheedling to calm to grasping to tender, often within a single scene, and yet she never slips the rails. Watching films from this period (her career peak), one wonders what happened to turn her into the vague, bleary-eyed woman we see today. Judith Anderson's Big Mama is loud, coarse, and bossy, but completely sympathetic both in the scene with the birthday cake and in the confrontation scene at the end. When Big Daddy invites her along with him at the end, it is every bit as welcome to the viewer as it is to her. Burl Ives is the most towering of all; the emotional growth in the film is as much his as it is Brick's. Jack Carson and Madeleine Sherwood are every bit as good despite being relegated to comic relief at times.

My favorite aspect of this story, however, is the social dynamic. Brick and Maggie are spoiled, young, "beautiful people" who have yet to take on any responsibility, while Gooper and Mae are the epitome of a serious young family. Brick is an alcoholic former football player, while Gooper is a corporate lawyer. Despite these obvious differences, however, both their parents and the audience (and Tennessee Williams, obviously) clearly prefer Brick and Maggie. Every aspect of Gooper and Mae's personalities, even those which bespeak traditional values, are portrayed as petty and unimaginative. Even if one believes that Gooper and Mae have done all the right things, they have done them for the wrong reasons. Thus the theme of the story is most clearly presented: all that is important is to love and to express that love.

I first encountered "Cat" in a fine National Theatre production in 1988 with Lindsay Duncan as Maggie, Ian Charleson as Brick, Eric Porter as Big Daddy, Paul Jessons as Gooper and Alison Steadman as Mae.

The film is not the play, but you don't often get an opportunity to see a fine cast perform this amazing play, and it needs a fine cast.

The movie has a fine cast. The movie grips you from start to finish. The movie even adds a little; the basement scene works wonderfully in the movie in ways that would be hard or impossible to reproduce on stage.

Yes, the play has been bowdlerised to make it into a movie, but what do you expect in 1958. The reality is, this film is a piece of cinema and drama history. You'd need to be a "Williams Fundamentalist" to hate the movie for its toned-down-ness. To the balanced Williams fan, it is gripping, well acted and nicely-paced.

Once every 10-15 years there is a truly fine production of this play in a world-class theatre. If you get the chance, go see a great production in the theatre. In between times, this movie is a very good second.

Sultry and downbeat, this Richard Brooks directed film is set at a Southern plantation where a dysfunctional family celebrates the 65th birthday of family patriarch Big Daddy (Burl Ives), a portly man whose health, or the lack of it, is very much on the minds of all the family members. The story centers on one of Big Daddy's two sons, a brooding young man named Brick (Paul Newman) and his childless wife Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor).

Brick is reticent and repressed for reasons unknown, and finds relief in alcohol. Beautiful Maggie is concerned that Brick's indifference to Big Daddy may cost them their share of the family inheritance, at the hands of Brick's brother and scheming sister-in-law. Adding fuel to the fire is Brick's prepubescent nieces and nephews, in-your-face brats, whom Maggie refers to, not kindly, as little "no-neck" monsters. Big Momma (Judith Anderson) just wants Big Daddy to be physically well, and for everyone to get along.

Of course, with a big inheritance on the line, tension erupts, first between Brick and Maggie, then later between them and everyone else. As the tension mounts, arguments erupt into a real down-home Southern soap opera.

The film's script is heavy on dialogue. But because of the story's thematic depth, the issues are interesting and insightful, and the script never seems talky. At the heart of the story is the subject of mendacity, of lies and not telling the truth. There is considerable emotional pain, expressed as anger, resentment, and sarcasm. The story, originated by Tennessee Williams, goes against its era, in that it contradicts the virtues of traditional family values and capitalism.

Casting and acting are quite good. But Burl Ives' performance is wonderful, and alone makes the film worth watching. Color cinematography is conventional. It's a slow-paced film with long camera "takes". Sets and production design are lavish.

Because the dreadful Hays Code censored much of the thematic content in 1958, the film's conclusion is weak and does not justify Brick's emotional state. This is not a criticism of the film, but of the Hays Code itself which, mercifully, was abolished in the 1960s.

Dripping with Southern atmosphere, and with a sultry jazz score, "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" is a terrific movie, for its thematic value, its cast, and the splendid performance of Burl Ives.

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.

A classic film in terms of star power, and the flawless craft that went into it, but nowhere near as shocking, poetic or memorable as the earlier B&W Tennessee Williams adaptation A Streetcar Named Desire.

Essentially, this film is a glitzy, upmarket rewriting of that films central themes and tropes, except focusing on a genteel family of well-to-do Americans; their family headed by a plutocrat of sorts, diagnosed with cancer, with his family of dysfunctional, permanently arguing offspring and in-laws bitching at each other over who will get his house, land and business interests after death.

The film does achieve a kind of black comic tone during numerous scenes where Big Daddy essentially thinks his health is fine, but doesn't know the real diagnosis, and of course Elizabeth Taylor looks stunning, always lit and dressed perfectly, and occasionally shot with a soft focus lens that would look out of place nowadays, but isn't as disjunctive as the overcooked soft focus you'd see on, say, an early Star Trek episode.

This movie is OVERRATED. I don't mean that in a bad way, the writing is great, the characterization and catharsis among the troubled offspring verges on a type of pop-psychoanalysis. The movies main problem is that is makes very heavy going of 'taboo' subjects like sex, alcoholism and repressed familial hatreds, that supposedly decent people "just didn't talk about" in the 1950s. The actors often seem to be shouting their emotions at the audience, not at each other, and the sheer volume of endless arguing and accusations among the hateful, greedy family members feels like an endless fever pitch where the director wants a big emotional forte every five minutes, practically like clockwork.

As I mentioned above, the films essentially a recasting of Streetcar, but in a different setting, and numerous commentaries suggesting that Williams own dysfunctional, miserable family are projected in his writing work are quite obvious. Ultimately, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a good movie, but only if you haven't seen the earlier (and better) movie A Streetcar Named Desire.

Lastly, the tone and personal drama approach of the film seems to have hit a commercial formula for popular drama that gets re-written and replayed practically every year, showered with awards no doubt, as pretend family members shout, emote and deliver extensive monologues baring witness to their inner lives, in a very, very direct and obvious manner. Good entertainment, but a bit middlebrow, too.

The problem with the movie version of Tennessee Williams' Cat On a Hot Tin Roof is not the censorship so much (which removed the homosexual aspect of the story, though it's still there for the more perceptive viewers) but the play itself. Director Richard Brooks does a decent job with it, but the play's the thing, and the play ain't that good. I have no problem with the movie. Elizabeth Taylor is well cast as Maggie the Cat, Paul Newman is apprpriately brooding and convincingly impotent as her husband Brick, Burl Ives bellows authoritatively as Big Daddy, and Jack Carson is almost painfully good as Newman's sycophantic brother Gooper, who in some ways is more impotent than his sibling. The story can basically be summed up as 'Daddy's dyin' and who's got the will', or rather the money. It is set in the contemporary South. Much of what goes on hinges on the refusal on the part of son Brick to have sex with his wife. Since the old man is dying he wants to help favorite son (and ne'er do well) Brick, but is more or less forced by circumstances to prefer Gooper, who has children who will keep the family going. Big Daddy holds Gooper in contempt. He is concerned over Brick's drinking, sexual problems, and his personality in general. The conflict between father and son is as much the focal point of the play as the son's sex stuff. I find this play somewhat repulsive; it's as sycophantic as Gooper. Williams aims his pen, so to speak, at the heart of Middle America. He is out to enlighten his audience on sexual matters; also on life in the then still exotic Deep South. I have no problems with either of these goals except that as issues they don't belong in a serious play; they belong in the back pages of magazines like The New Republic and The Nation. I believe it is beneath Williams' enormous talent for him to curry favor with his audience the way he does here, with his ostentatious 'Southernisms', as in terms of endearment such as 'sister woman', and in Maggie's calling herself 'Maggie the Cat', and all the talk about the kids as 'no neck monsters'. This is sitcom stuff. Williams' language, so beautiful in The Glass Menageries and A Streetcar Named Desire, fails him here. The sexy aspect of the play, big news in the fifties, is not news at all any more. Thus the sensationalism, so crucial a factor in the play's success, is missing. I felt continually manipulated into reacting to the material in a certain way. Unlike in his earlier works, Williams doesn't give his audience much breathing space; there's little room here to form a personal interpetation. Williams sets things up so that either Cat is a 'laugh riot',--and of course devilishly sophisticated as well--or it is nothing, a mere anecdote, a failed epiphany maybe. It is a mediocre play, all the more disappointing because its author is anything but, and so the occasional flashes of brilliance become more irritating than revelatory, only serving to remind us that Williams could do so much better. Yet it is if nothing else well-crafted. Williams' professionalism does not fail him here. Cat belongs to its time, before girls wore bikinis on the beach, when homosexuality, hell, sexuality in general, was spoken about in whispers by polite people, and even then not too often. The play owes a huge debt to Freud and Freudian analysis, which Williams was in at the time, and it shows.

Being from Mississippi, and actually born in the same town as Williams himself, I have a cultural right to be extremely picky about this film, so I must begin with two down-home criticisms. A Mississippi delta accent is a very, very specific sound, and most of the cast miss it by a mile--with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman the worst offenders of the lot. That aside, the Mississippi delta simply doesn't look like the brief bits of landscape we're allowed to see in the film, and the architecture of the big house is also extremely unlikely for that area. So if you're actually expecting to find any sense of the region, you're out of luck. Most viewers probably won't notice these problems, but they are a drawback, for William's work is always as much about place as about character and plot, and the film's failure to accurately capture it is a disservice to both audience and creator.

That said, the big problem with CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF is 1950s censorship: it simply wasn't possible to film a play about an unconsciously homosexual man's inability to forgive his oversexed wife for her role in his pseudo-lover's death. As a result, the film sidesteps the entire issue and focuses on the sub-plot of just who is going to inherit Big Daddy's estate when he dies. Accents aside, the cast does quite well, with supporting players Anderson, Carson, and Sherwood particular standouts--but the end result is just so much steam without substance, well done but not particularly meaningful.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer