Baby Doll

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.

The conventional wisdom on "Baby Doll" seems to be, "Oh, this movie may have been steamy in its time, but it's totally tame now." Oh, really? If the scene of Eli Wallach and Carroll Baker on the garden swing doesn't leave you feeling "fuzzy and buzzy," I suggest you get your pulse checked.

Two Southern rivals battle over cotton gins and dumb-as-a-rock wife.

Seldom have so many theatrical heavyweights been responsible for such a misfire. The movie may have been cutting edge in the repressed 1950's, but the results are now almost unwatchable.

It's impossible to tell what the movie makers had in mind outside of enraging public watchdogs with an iconic photo of a thumb-sucking Baby Doll (Baker). But, whatever their intentions, the movie's now mainly an exercise in the grotesque. I'm sure all the bluster and bellow are nowhere to be found in Karl Malden's Book of Fond Memories.

For example, there's that horribly over-extended scene between Silva (Wallach) and Baby Doll that has to be one of the most excruciatingly overdrawn on record. The point is made in the first three-minutes, so why pointlessly drag it out for twenty, except maybe to fill empty screen time with some of the silliest shenanigans imaginable.

Then too, much of that wasted time could have expanded the roles of such capable performers as Chapman, Torn, and especially Dunnock in a small part that unfortunately a hundred lesser actresses could have minced through. All I can say is if this was supposed to be sophisticated farce, the groans way out-number the chuckles.

No need to go on, except to point out the one redeeming feature, namely, an unvarnished glimpse of the rural South you won't see in Gone With The Wind. Yes indeed, somehow I missed this mess back in '57. Now I know how lucky I was.

The crumbling ruins of a deep south plantation, circa 1956. Karl Malden running through empty rooms, yelling "BayBee DOLLLLL!" The dementia-ridden elderly aunt forgetting to turn on the stove before cooking the greens. The old guys lounging around the yard, laughing and watching Malden's frenzied activities like it's must-see TV. Kooky gorgeous Baby Doll sucking her thumb, sleeping in her crib. And Eli Wallach: ah, what a specimen. He's intense, he's irresistible. He's relentlessly "handsy" like a high school boy on a date; he never, ever, for a moment, lets up. It's impossible to take your eyes off of him.

This movie is perplexing and wonderful, it really is more of a place and an atmosphere than a story. Twisted, and in a good way. The characters are as wild and inexplicable as any you've seen in a David Lynch movie. Your jaw will drop, you'll laugh out loud, and the whole weird place just gets better each time you watch it.

Back in 1956 when this movie came out it was the Legion of Decency run by the Catholic church that decided what was proper or improper to see. I remember my parents checking that list whenever I wanted to see a movie. They were divided into groups. Unobjectionable, Objectionable with certain restrictions and others but the worst one was rated Condemned. I laugh when I think about it. Baby Doll did not play in my town of 100,000 as the church would have made a big stink about it, but it did play in Boston which was 25 miles away. I did not see it then but I heard from others that did and they told me that it was very steamy. There was so much controversy about this movie that no one dared mention that they saw it in mixed company as being branded as liking porno movies. I finally saw this movie on AMC about 15 years ago and I had to smile because this was such a mild movie by today's standards. This movie could be shown today on regular TV unedited with a PG rating. It had no nudity nor swearing. Karl Malden, Eli Walich and Carol Baker were outstanding. Still today Carol Baker is still being mentioned as Carol "Baby Doll" Baker, truly a role she will never live down. One more thing, the musical score throughout the movie is very moving. I bought the LP soundtrack long before I saw the movie and it was interesting to see how it fit. I have recorded it onto a cassette and still play it in my car. I think that it was the church and it's censorship that made this movie so popular.