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Elizabeth Taylor sizzles in cat on a hot tin roof
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Maggie (a.k.a. "the cat") (Elizabeth Taylor) and Brick (Paul Newman) are having problems and an emergency visit to the family mansion doesn't help matters much. Brick is the youngest of two brothers with a 50/50 chance of inheriting the entire estate and million-dollar business from his sickly father, Big Daddy (Burl Ives). Maggie, however, is the only one of the pair that seems interested in the prospect. She has everything going against her attempts to sway her in-laws. For one thing, she's childless. As Big Daddy points out, "With a figure like hers I would have already had four children and one in the oven!" So what's the problem? Brick cannot stand her. The truth begins to crawl out in each and every character as they await the ineviable. Deceit, suicide and a secret romance are only the tip of the iceberg in this firey drama.
The film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) was based on the play by Tennessee Williams of the same name. However the screenplay wildly deviated from its predecessor. When Paul Newman accepted the role of Brick, he assumed that the film would mirror the stage preformance, but he was shocked and disheartened when he saw the drastic changes in the final script. Lana Turner and Grace Kelly were offered the role of Maggie, but turned it down. They wouldn't be able to do justice to the part. Only Elizabeth Taylor in that gorgeous white dress could play such a pitiful and desperate woman in the midst of movie giants Newman and Ives.
Both Newman and the glorious Taylor give their all with beautiful southern dialogue. The only thing that really seems off is the music. Reason being is that when the film was made the musicians were on strike. So they borrowed some canned soundtrack from MGM's Tension in 1949. A tremendous difference in music styles from 1949 to 1958 in motion picture scores, but not enough to spoil the movie.
This movie is one of the best dramas around. It is excellently written, wonderfully filmed and directed and magnificently portrayed. A perfect example of Ives, Newman, and Taylor's amazing acting abilities and what makes them legendary in the art of motion pictures.
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