Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Directed by Richard Brooks. Starring Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, Jack Carson, Madeleine Sherwood, Larry Gates, Vaughn Taylor.

Wealthy Mississippi family patriarch Big Daddy (Ives) comes home after a hospital stay, diagnosed with terminal cancer, and over the course of a long, muggy birthday party, he and his family air grievances and open wounds (while some family members shamelessly grovel for the papa’s affections…and inheritance). Chief among those issues is the one coming from son Brick (Newman), an alcoholic who’s repressing his homosexuality while refusing to touch his cat-in-heat wife (Taylor). Tennessee Williams famously detested this film version of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, primarily because of censorship forcing the homosexual issue to be buried into subtext (though it can’t possibly be missed), which makes some conversations overly stilted and unsatisfying. Despite the significant flaws in the scripting, which include an alteration to one character’s motivation at the conclusion, the cast is top-notch, particularly tortured Newman in his dramatic breakthrough role and Ives’ force of nature exposing unexpected layers. Never forget: “There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity” (a word used so often that it starts to lose all meaning!).

77/100