Baby Doll (1956)

Directed by Elia Kazan. Starring Eli Wallach, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Mildred Dunnock, Lonny Chapman.

One of the better film versions of a Tennessee Williams story/play (from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton), it was condemned by the National Legion of Decency, no doubt because it made them uncomfortable with their own sexual identity confusion/shame. How else should one feel right off the bat when the “Baby Doll” of the title is introduced as a nineteen-year-old woman wearing the clothes of a young girl, spilling out of an infant’s crib, sucking her thumb? Story concerns Baby Doll’s lecherous husband (Malden), eager for her twentieth birthday to arrive so he can finally deflower his prize (per agreement), and engaged in a heated feud with a cotton gin competitor (Wallach); after “first blood” is drawn via arson, said competitor approaches and slowly sinks his seductive talons into Baby Doll, a win-win in the most sordid of terms. Aside from the awkward exposition dump in the first scene, the scripting is almost as effective as the acting (in his first film role, Wallach is nearly as memorable here as he would be a decade later as “the Ugly”, Tuco), and the wicked black humor bubbling beneath the heated histrionics and carnality keeps the stagy narrative from ever descending into overripe parody. Elia Kazan and Williams each produced and contributed to the script, although only the latter received credit as writer. Also making his film debut, Rip Torn has an uncredited bit part as a dentist.

85/100