Upon its 1956 release, Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams’ satiric film about lust, Baby Doll, was condemned by almost everybody. Time Magazine sneered that “Baby Doll is possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has been legally exhibited,” Cardinal Spellman, from the pulpit of St Patrick’s Cathedral, urged church-goers to stay away from this “evil” movie. On Thursday June 23rd- at 7:30 pm, Baby Doll, and its star, Carroll Baker, will appear at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre.
Set in Tiger Tail County, Mississippi, Baby Doll follows the troubles of middle-aged Archie Lee Mieghan (played by a wildly comical Karl Malden). Middle-aged Archie is married to teenaged Baby-Doll (Carroll Baker), a blonde vixen who sleeps in a crib, sucking her thumb. The financially struggling Archie is forbidden to touch Baby-Doll until he buys her brand new furniture. Archie resorts to vandalizing the mill belonging to his business rival, Vacarro (Eli Wallach). When Vacarro puts two and two together, the fur flies.
When Carroll Baker was told of the nation-wide uproar against her most recently released film, she wondered “what film?” She was also in Giant at the same time, and doesn’t remember doing anything distasteful in either film. Written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Elia Kazan, Baby Doll, a funny-as-heck display of machismo gone wrong, is their Streetcar Named Desire on laughing gas. Even compared to Hollywood fare of its day, Baby Doll is rather tame. Like Kubrick’s Lolita, years later, it replaces sensationalism with sharp satire. Baby Doll also marks the start of Eli Wallach’s career. He would go on to appear in The Magnificent Seven, How The West Was Won (again with Ms. Baker), The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, and most recently- Nurse Jackie andWall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
With Baby Doll, the studios wanted to sculpt Ms. Baker into another Marilyn Monroe, but she wanted roles that really worked her talents. She turned down Too Much, Too Soon with Errol Flynn. Ms. Baker’s career would include such films as William Wyler’s The Big Country, John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Star 80, and The Game.
In his autobiography, Shock Value, John Waters recalled his Sunday school days: “The nun used visual aids to convince us to stay away from (Baby Doll). She showed a picture of a huge crowd waiting outside the theatre showing The Ten Commandments. ‘Now look at this’, she’d sneer as she held up another photo of a theatre playing Baby Doll, with not one person waiting on line. “See?” she’d beam triumphantly. I immediately snuck downtown to see Baby Doll, and than made it a point from then on, to see every condemned film I could.” Catch the film for yourself at The Cinema Arts Centre.
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