Word: dolls
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...real villain in the controversy over the morality of Baby Doll is neither Tennessee Williams, who wrote it, nor Elia Kazan, who produced and directed it, nor New York's Cardinal Spellman, who mounted the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral to condemn it. The villains are the advertising men who designed the singularly repulsive poster which decorates, among other things, a whole block of Times Square in Manhattan. While it is the usual practice for publicity men to emphasize sex in every film they promote, this time they have done us a real disservice, for their work is largely...
...influence of foreign blood on a corrupt system. In point of fact, it is a telescoping of two earlier short plays--Twenty-seven Wagons Full of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short--and, for Williams at least, is a second-rate work. The story concerns itself with Baby Doll, a delicious but nearly brainless child of twenty, who is legally though not in fact the wife of Archie Lee Meighan, a middle-aged owner of a broken-down cotton gin. Goaded beyond endurance by his wife's refusal to consumate the marriage, Mieghan takes his revenge on the world...
Kazan's most important contribution to the film, apart from getting remarkable performances from his actors, was to turn Williams' sweaty study of degeneracy into a comedy. Always searching for humor among the dirt, Kazan has his principals--Carroll Baker, as Baby Doll, Karl Malden, as Meighan, and Eli Wallach, as Vacarro--explore the comic sides of their characters. His direction is brilliant and the three performers, who give unanimously superb performances, prove once and for all that Kazan's rather nervous brand of naturalistic acting is quite suitable for comedy. The director's interpretation unquestionably improves the script, even...
...Baby Doll (Andy Williams; Cadence). This ditty, from background music for the controversial film (TIME, Dec. 24), begins with vocal leers, groans and gasps, but deteriorates into a fairly commonplace rock 'n' roll number. Moral of the lyrics: keep away from Baby Doll...
Born. To Carroll Baker, 22, star of Baby Doll (TIME, Dec. 24), and Jack Garfein, 26, theatrical director: a daughter, their first child; in Manhattan. Name: Blanche. Weight...