Baby Doll
In the 1950s, Baby Doll was released, which is regarded as one of the most provocative films that emerged from Hollywood. Due to this film’s C classification from the Catholic Legion of Decency many theatres cancelled their bookings, and Time magazine stated it is ‘perhaps the most smut-filled American film ever screened in America and legally’’. Cardinal Spellman of New York described the film as wrong through and through, bigoted in theory, and a film guaranteed to have damaging, immoral impacts on any film-goer.
Screen play was written by Tennessee Williams who based it on two of his one act plays, 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, and the Long Stay Cut Short. Karl Malden portrays the role of Archie Lee Meighan who is a cotton-gin owner and struggling entrepreneur at that, and he marries Baby Doll (Carroll Baker) who from a dirt poor combination of extreme naivety and ignorance is only 18 years old.
After making the young girl’s dad promise that his daughter would not have sexual intercourse till the day she turned 20, her father died. But Baby Doll’s injured pride does not allow her to be daunted and she further escalates tensions in the home by exerting herself deeply into influencing Jospeh to look better as well as pursuing Silva Vacarro, an Italian business competitor of Archie. She openly teases her spouse by getting undressed before him whenever she feels like it.
All the three principals excel in their roles. Malden, who is forever hot, constantly takes swigs of whiskey and gets flustered at the open mockery from his neighbors. Malden exudes jealousy and childishness and, just like the rest of the characters, in effect does the same all the time fuming, yelling, and running up and down the stairs like a lunatic.
Baker’s depiction of Baby Doll is that of a little girl on the brink of puberty who knows that due to a worn-out relationship promise, she will eventually have to surrender herself to a man whom she detests. Baker wears very few clothes while at home, and dresses in a way that is likely to provoke men when she goes out. She knows what she does, the influence her charms have over men, especially Archie who she drives mad with her teasing. Baker portrays all facets of Baby Doll, the naivety, animalistic sexuality, vanity and the contempt brewed beneath the surface and all the uncontrollable passion.
As Wallach makes his first appearance on the big screen, he plays a steamy rival who complicates the romance between Archie and Baby Doll. But, admittedly, he’s not presented as the classic young exceeding in love (Marlon Brando would have been better suited). In a long episode on a public swing, Vacarro uses Baby Doll to try to draw out what may have been the motives of the arsonist who set fire to his cotton gin. Wallach is animated with spirit and appeals to Baby Doll who has never met such a sexy exotic male.
Comfort’s Aunt Rose, Mildred Dunnock, is another women in the “mess” who lives with the wedded pair and adds to her income by preparing salads and supervision of the child. She is quite frequently hated by Archie, but her expression is composed, and she does not appear to be perturbed by tantrums and outbursts. As Dunnock buzzes around the spacious and Greystone abode like a poor relative, Aunt Rose only exhibits and stretches herself on further grim without the dark, subdued reliefs where it seems Aunt Rose occupies the last center stage.
The film is directed by Elia Kazan (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront) who sets the story in a rural Mississippi plantation that was once grand but is in a state of decline. Most of the time he is at maximum, but there is one notable exception the encounter between Baby Doll and Vaccaro. Set amidst the Southern Gothic, this is a much less subtle variant of Kazan’s Streetcar, and interesting nevertheless.
Malden’s manic acting has a comic touch to it most of the time, most likely because he tries to act like the “lord of the manor,” who is in fact a cuckold. Kazan often times switches to Archie who is absorbed in his work at the cotton gin while the audience witnesses Baby Doll and Archie’s unsettling attraction. Kazan employed a number of the local residents in Benoit, Mississippi who add to the surroundings that were distinctly regional.
The newly restored Warner Archive’s HD master comes with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio for the original widescreen film that was preserved from the DVD edition released in 2006. The black and white images take the viewer through the remains of a once glorious and luxurious old home containing filthy walls, sparse and large empty spaces, classy stairs, and bare windows. The atmosphere surrounding the area is one of despair with broken porch steps, bricks and mortar columns splitting apart, an old discolored vehicle, and other remnants lying around.
Archie seems to be in some wretched garments as he peeks in on Baby Doll who is napping in the room beside theirs. She is more interested in looking really good whenever they go to the city. The differences showcase the variation in their self-perception. The black and white images really fit this melodrama since problems with colors would have made every scene too glamorous and affected the mood.
Director Kazan often would cut away to side characters watching the action unfold who didn’t engage in the action. A shocking explosion at Vaccaro’s cotton gin propels the narrative further into the plot. The camera captures a big string of cotton wagons when Vaccaro delivers his raw cotton to Archie’s gin.
The soundtrack is in English DTS-High Defined Master mono audio 2.0 Its English SDH subtitles are optional. The dialogues are always well rendered. Baker and Wallach sound Southern but Malden does not try to speak with any regional accent. Other local cast members, from the locals play the characters who have quite a bit of an accent. Intermittently featured throughout the plot, are the jazz melodies composed by Kenyon Hopkins, which go well with the storyline. When the cotton-gin arches burns, the music accompanying the fire and the destruction of the structure makes use of exciting music.
An old and rusty Archie’s convertible speeds off over dirt-roads as he takes a gung-ho approach. Malden’s desperate outbursts are loud and angry, reflecting his growing animosity towards Baby Doll and jealousy of Vaccaro. The tranquility is shattered by several shotgun shots as Archie Lee begins shooting around the house in a fit of rage. In a sequence in which Baby Doll seeks and Vaccaro hides, the latter shakes the chandelier, plucks the piano wire; blows the trumpet to lure her.
Including as bonus features, on R-rated Blu-ray release: Baby Doll: See No Evil and Baby Doll theatrical trailer.
Baby Doll: See No Evil – “It was a film that sizzled with raw sexuality.” Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, and Eli Wallach reminisce about the making and aftermath of Baby Doll. In Baker’s opinion, she along with the entire cast was never of the opinion that the movie they were making was inappropriate and were quite pained by the fact that a large portion of the American public’s reaction forced “a nation-wide boycott that took it off the screen.” Baker narrates the story of receiving abuses from people who had seen her on the streets.
The audience, wounded and angry after World War II, had become more mature and could handle realistic issues. The sexual mores of society were changing. Tennessee Williams did not have a Puritan view of sex he spoke about it as a positive act. Elia Kazan, the director, made the decision to shoot the film in the deep South. Initially, the townsfolk of Benoit, Mississippi, were quite suspicious of the film company as they thought that the film would be addressing the themes of segregation and showing them as rednecks. The swing scene was shot when it was very cold outside.
The actors were surrounded by heaters and Baker and Wallach had to bite on ice cubes and spit them out just before the filming started so that vapor would not be seen issuing from their mouths. In one of the posters for the film, Baker is seen in the crib. Jack Warner withdrew it from releases after a few weeks since the film was shunned as a result of the arguments that were surrounding it despite some positive reviews that it had received.
Theatrical Trailer This 3 minutes trailer takes off mentioning Elia Kazan and his mysterious actors Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and James Dean in East of Eden. The narrator describes Baker’s unique talents by claiming that she combines “the same special raw electricity you found before only in Marlon Brando and James Dean.” The video features fragments of the film’s plot.
However, there is no nudity or sex in the movie, and Baby Doll can yet be perceived as erotic. Archie says at a certain point: ‘There’s no torture on the earth to compare to the torture that a cold woman gives.’ But in spite of the scandal, it won four nominations, including that of Best Actress for Carroll Baker, to Oscar. In this film, Baby Doll which was ahead of its time, contained great performances laced with drama mixed with dark comedy.
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