Cat On a Hot Tin Roof

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF                             A                    

USA  (108 mi)  1958  d: Richard Brooks

How does one drowning man help another drowning man?          —Brick (Paul Newman)

A hugely powerful work, arguably Tennessee Williams’ best play, and his personal favorite, but the playwright disowned the film version, claiming it censored some of the original power by deleting the homosexual references in the lead character.  Paul Newman, the star, also noted his disappointment with the screen adaptation, which also revises the final act.  However, even with the author’s reservations, this is a stunning film, especially memorable by the iconic performances, where each meticulously created character is forever etched in our memories.  Burl Ives as Big Daddy, the wealthy owner of 28,000 acres of the most fertile land in Mississippi, is unforgettable as the gruff speaking, big-bellied patriarch who is led to believe he has a second chance at life, that he has a clean bill of health instead of the terminal cancer he feared.  This is spectacular news on his 65th birthday, where his family has gathered at his huge plantation to celebrate.  Judith Anderson is the matriarch Big Momma, continually shamed into second class status by the iron clad rule of her overbearing husband.  Elizabeth Taylor has never looked more glamorous than as Maggie the Cat, the beautiful wife of Brick (Paul Newman), the favored son and heir to the throne, a man drowning in his own sorrows, self-pity, and plenty of liquor, disgusted at the turn of his life and disgusted with Maggie, refusing to allow her anywhere near him, despite her attempts to entice him away from the bottle.  Equally memorable are the “no-necked monsters,” the endlessly annoying, spoiled, ill-bred children of Jack Carson as Goober, the dutiful and obedient son, and Madeleine Sherwood as his perpetually pregnant wife Mae, otherwise known as Sister Woman, one of the more contemptible characters to ever hit the screen, whose proficiency at backstabbing is second to none. 

Offscreen, Elizabeth Taylor was emotionally distraught and near paralyzed from the death of her husband, Michael Todd, who died in a plane accident shortly after the birth of their child, an event that held up shooting for several weeks.  Todd actually negotiated the part for his wife with MGM, where immersing herself in the role of Maggie the Cat is reported to have saved her career, receiving the second of 4 Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in four consecutive years, and if truth be told, it is a career-defining performance worthy of a star, one that defines her as an actress, typified by her sexual allure, smoldering passion, intelligence, combativeness, and simmering restraint.  Wearing a white slip or a white cocktail dress, she exudes glamour and elegant sensuality either way, offering an extraordinary sense of urgency and even desperation about life while her husband is steeped in impotency and despair (the gay subtext makes much more sense than what is implied here).  Newman, who hops around on a single crutch after breaking his ankle, goes through several bottles of whisky in one day, enough to knock most men off their feet, but barely seems phased by it as he’s plenty coherent when he needs to be, but has no interest in sharing in the family party festivities, especially the ridiculously aggravating moments from the trained-like-monkeys children.  But that doesn’t stop the party from coming to him, where eventually he and his father confront each other’s personal disgust with all the “lies and mendacity” that consume their lives.  Their knock-down, drag-out, man to man talk is one for the ages, and comprises the central themes of the film.  It is blisteringly intense and goes through several lengthy phases, exploring the dysfunctional family component each has learned to despise. 

Both father and son go through an achingly personal transformation confronting the skeletons in their closet, but Ives’s performance is off the charts, especially after he learns the truth that he’s really dying of cancer.  His Lear-like patriarchal prominence dwarfs the rest of the cast, even Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman at the peak of their beauty and power, as the death looming over his head is all that matters, everything else is secondary.  As Goober and his Iago-like wife fight for their piece of the inheritance, Brick only grows less and less interested, infuriated as much with himself as anything else, but also overwhelmed by the impending death of his father.  In a storm sequence, Big Daddy fades away into the basement where he’s alone with his Xanadu of life’s collectibles, all stockpiled, filling every inch of space, covered in cobwebs.  The man may as well be alone with his dreams as he watches them all disappear before his eyes.  When Brick joins him, after an initial disagreeable outburst of suppressed anger, the pace of the film slows, becoming quietly reflective, and as they seem to reconcile their differences, Ives reflects on his own life with a newfound clarity.  It’s the scene of the film, perhaps unsurpassed in the entire Williams’ repertoire, but ironically also a revision from the original play, yet beautifully written by Richard Brooks and James Poe and perfectly delivered, simply an unforgettable moment, where the background music of a lone harmonium can be heard underscoring the hauntingly dramatic poignancy.  Ives won a Best Supporting Actor that same year for his performance in William Wyler’s THE BIG COUNTRY (1958), where he’s the patriarch of another dysfunctional western family, but his spellbinding performance here is nothing short of brilliant, easily the greatest performance in his lifetime.  Once more, just like on her last film Raintree County (1957), leave it to Elizabeth Taylor to bring down the curtain in dramatic style.     

Day of the Outlaw

DAY OF THE OUTLAW                     B+

USA  (92 mi)  1959  d:  André de Toth

You won't find much mercy anywhere in Wyoming.          
—Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan)

A spared down, low budget, mercilessly bleak, Black and White American “B” western from the late 50’s, adapted from a Lee E. Wells novel, the last western made by this director known for his grim psychological dramas, this one defined by the tough as nails intractability of the lead characters, none of whom can stand up to the barren ruggedness of the natural outdoor landscape, which kicks human butt in this movie.  Shot on location in the Oregon Cascades during the winter, featuring the visibly identifiable Three Sisters Mountains as well as Mt. Bachelor, a lone peak that stands alone.  When one thinks of winter movies set in the snow, THE THING (1951) and again in (1982), DR. ZHIVAGO (1965), MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971), QUINTET (1979), THE SHINING (1980), FARGO (1996), THE SWEET HEREAFTER (1997), and WINTER SLEEPERS (1997) come to mind, most all shot in color, but this movie is set at the end of the road, where “the trail ends in this town. There's no place to go but back.”  Of course, in this film, back is not an option.  One must defy death. 

Taking place in a small isolated settlement of only twenty people in Wyoming, the ire of cattle rancher Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) is raised when farmers begin to place barbed wire fences around their property, which violates the original credo of the free and expansive American West.  This is no small disagreement, as men’s livelihoods are at stake, where everything depends on protecting what’s theirs, and if neither side backs down, something’s got to give.  Femme fatale Tina Louise as Helen Crane is married to one of those farmers, but as women are scarce in this neck of the woods, she’d been carrying on an affair with Starrett before she married her husband.  Yet when a shootout looms, she’s willing to throw herself at Starrett if it means he’ll spare her husband’s life.  Not so easy.  This is the West where men are used to having their way and not letting anyone interfere, especially a “pig-belly farmer.”  Just as a bottle is about to drop off a bar spelling the sign for the bullets to fly, they are quickly interrupted by a rag tag group of cutthroat outlaws who grab the men’s guns and immediately take over the town in a psychologically unsettling siege, completely shifting the balance of power. 

Led by Burl Ives as deserting Army Captain Jack Bruhn, carrying sacks of stolen gold, they are just ahead of the tracking cavalry but need to ride out the night in a safe and warm place, where Bruhn needs a bullet extracted from his chest, but despite his men’s preference for women and whisky, Bruhn tells the local folk to hide their liquor and protect their women, as both are hands off to his men, claiming he needs them all sober when they leave at dawn.  With his men itching to get what they want, knowing there’s a long ride ahead, they continually press the boundaries and tempt fate.  Bruhn always seems to magically appear just as his men are about to stray, bullying them into backing off.  But they do convince him that there’d be no harm if he’d allow a social dance with the town’s four women.  “We only want to borrow them - - we'll give them back.”  Diametrically opposite to the grace and sweep of most dance sequences, think of the opulence of Max Ophuls or the legendary grandeur of Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963), this one is painfully difficult to watch, as the endless barroom piano music never ceases, growing more and more physically aggressive as the men try to catch a kiss as the women continually back away in disgust.  This is as raw and primitive as it gets, but in some strange and delirious way an antecedent to Béla Tarr’s hypnotic but mind numbingly repetitious dance in SÁTÁNTANGO (1994).

When morning comes, Bruhn is barely alive, but he’s too stubborn to recognize it, commandeering Starrett to lead them safely through the mountains, though the snow has made them completely impassable at this time of year, a fact Bruhn comes to realize but withholds from his men, but that doesn’t stop them from what feels like a suicide march, telling Starrett:  “I guess every fool has his reason.”  If Bruhn’s deteriorating condition is not enough, the elements have turned so hostile, where frozen breath can be seen coming from both the men and their horses, with snow up to their bellies, completely covering the landscape, the horses can barely find a way to take one step after another, yet they’re forced to push on.  Rarely are animals seen exerting themselves in this level of difficulty where there are no CGI special effects, they are simply staggering to keep their feet in the brutally harsh conditions.  Beautifully shot by Russell Harlan, knowing what’s inevitable only adds to the pounding psychological dread of this death march, as the men soon start to turn on one another in an insatiable display of greed and avarice, where the music by Alexander Courage is heavy handed and amped up to the max.  Imprisoned by the snow around them, it’s apparent there is no escape, as first horses and then men do start to die in the blistering winter cold where the wind is too ferocious to even light a fire.  It’s telling that in this exceedingly concise rendering, there are no shots of the cavalry, and by the end, no one is pointing a gun at these men’s heads, yet they feel a compulsive desire to follow this mythical trail to that elusive freedom that never arrives, to make that last great escape.  Instead they ride into their own trap.  The story isn’t entirely bleak, as de Toth even adds an element of dark humor to show the demise of one of the last holdouts.  By the end, however, none of the original issues that were worth dying for at the time hardly seem to matter any more.