Filmed in Mississippi in late 1955, Baby Doll was released in December 1956. It provoked significant controversy, mostly because of its implied sexual themes, and the National Legion of Decency condemned the film.
Despite the moral objections, Baby Doll enjoyed a mostly favorable response from critics and earned numerous accolades, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Kazan and nominations for four other Golden Globe awards, four Academy Awards and four BAFTA Awards. Wallach won the BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer.
Baby Doll has been listed by some film scholars as among the most notorious films of the 1950s, and The New York Times included it in its Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.[1]
Plot
In the Mississippi Delta, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin owner Archie Lee Meighan has been married to pretty, naïve 19-year-old "Baby Doll" Meighan for two years. Archie Lee impatiently waits for her 20th birthday, when, by prior agreement with her now-deceased father, the marriage can finally be consummated. In the meantime, she sleeps in a crib, because the only other bedroom furniture in the house is the bed in which Archie sleeps; Archie, an alcoholic, spies on her through a hole in a wall. Baby Doll's senile Aunt Rose Comfort lives in the house, as well, much to Archie's chagrin.
After defaulting on payments to a furniture-leasing company due to his failing cotton gin, virtually all the furniture in the house is repossessed, and Baby Doll threatens to leave. Archie's competitor, a Sicilian-American named Silva Vacarro—who is manager of a newer and more modern cotton gin—has taken away all of Archie's business. Archie retaliates by burning down Vacarro's gin that night. Suspecting Archie as the arsonist, Vacarro visits the farm the following day with truckloads of cotton, offering to pay Archie Lee to gin for him.
Archie asks Baby Doll to entertain Vacarro while he supervises the work, and the two spend the day together. Vacarro explicitly inquires about Archie's whereabouts the night before and makes sexual advances toward her. When Vacarro outright accuses Archie of burning down his gin, Baby Doll goes to find Archie, but he slaps her in the face and leaves for town to purchase new parts for his gin. Vacarro comforts Baby Doll, and after becoming friendly, Vacarro forces her to sign an affidavit admitting Archie's guilt. He then takes a nap in Baby Doll's crib, and is invited for supper at Baby Doll's request as a storm approaches.
Archie, drunk and jealous of Baby Doll's romantic interest in Vacarro, angrily tells Aunt Rose she needs to move out of the house; Vacarro immediately offers to let her live with him as his cook, and Baby Doll and he flirt with each other and taunt Archie. After Vacarro confronts Archie with the affidavit, Archie retrieves his shotgun and chases Vacarro outside while Baby Doll calls the police.
The police arrive, and Archie is arrested when Vacarro presents them with the affidavit. Vacarro then leaves the farm, telling Baby Doll he will be back the following day with more cotton. As Archie is taken away by the police, remarking that it is Baby Doll's birthday, Baby Doll and her Aunt Rose return inside the house to await Vacarro's return.
Jack Garfein, Carroll Baker, and Elia Kazan on the set of Baby Doll
Although the film's title card reads "Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll" and the film is based on Williams' one-act play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Elia Kazan claimed in his autobiography that Williams was only "half-heartedly" involved in the screenplay and that Kazan actually wrote most of it.[2][3]
Casting
Kazan cast Baby Doll using numerous alumni of the Actors Studio, including each of the principal cast members.[4] Carroll Baker was Kazan's first choice for the titular role, although Williams had considered Marilyn Monroe for the part.[2][5] Williams favored Baker after she performed a scene from his script at the Actors Studio. Kazan had been impressed by her performance in All Summer Long on Broadway the year prior.[6]
Eli Wallach was cast in his first screen role[7] but was hesitant, as he was unfamiliar with film acting and lacked confidence in his ability.[8]
Although racial segregation was still present in Mississippi at the time,[9] several local black actors appear in bit parts.[7]
Actors Studio alumnus Rip Torn appears in an uncredited role as a dentist.[8]
Filming
Principal photography began in October 1955 in Benoit, Mississippi[10] at the J.C. Burrus house, an 1848 antebellum home in Bolivar County.[7] Kazan asked the actors to dress the home's interiors with props that they felt reflected their characters' personalities.[7] Other shooting locations included nearby Greenville, Mississippi and New York City.[2] According to Kazan, Williams did not stay long while the film was shooting in Benoit because of the way in which locals looked at him.[2] Some locals were used for minor roles, and one called "Boll Weevil" acted and also served as the production unit's utility man.[2]
The working titles for the film included the name of the play and Mississippi Woman. Baker claims that Kazan changed the title to Baby Doll as a present to her.[7]
Release
Box office
Baby Doll premiered in New York City on December 18, 1956, opening the following week in Los Angeles on December 26 before receiving an expanded release on December 29.[7] During its opening week at New York's Victoria Theater, the film earned promising box-office returns, totaling $51,232.[11] It grossed a total of $2.3 million at the U.S. box office.[12] According to Kazan, the film was ultimately not profitable.[13]
Baby Doll courted controversy before its release with the display of a promotional billboard in New York City that depicted Baker lying in a crib and sucking her thumb.[14]Cardinal Spellman urged both Catholics and non-Catholics to avoid the film, deeming it a moral danger.[15]
Although Baby Doll received a seal of approval from the MPAA, Motion Picture Herald criticized the approval, noting: "Both the general principles of the Code and several specific stipulations are tossed aside in granting the film a Code seal. Among these, the law is ridiculed, there are sexual implications, vulgarity, and the words 'wop' and 'nigger.'"[7] Religious groups continued to apply pressure following the film's December 18, 1956 premiere, and the Catholic Legion of Decency rated the film as a "C" ("Condemned") and deemed it "grievously offensive to Christian and traditional standards of morality and decency."[7] The group succeeded in having the film withdrawn from numerous theaters.[2]Variety noted that it was the first time in years that the Legion of Decency had condemned a major American film that had been approved by the MPAA.[2]
Response to the film from Catholic laity was mixed,[16] and Episcopal bishop James A. Pike argued that The Ten Commandments contained more "sensuality" than did Baby Doll.[2]
According to Baker, the cast and crew were unaware that the material would be perceived as controversial.[17] The main reason for the backlash was believed to be the seduction scene between Baker and Wallach.[17] Speculation arose among some audiences that during their scene together on a swinging chair, Wallach's character was fondling Baby Doll underneath her dress because his hands are not visible in the frame.[17] According to both Baker and Wallach, the scene was intentionally filmed as such because Kazan had placed heaters all around them in the cold weather.[17]
The film was banned in many countries, including Sweden, because of "exaggerated sexual content." It also was condemned by Time, which called it "just possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has ever been legally exhibited."[18] Such heated objections and the ensuing publicity earned Baby Doll a reputation as one of the most notorious films of the 1950s.[19]
Critical response
Reviews from critics were mostly positive. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote in a generally favorable review that Tennessee Williams "has written his trashy, vicious people so that they are clinically interesting...But Mr. Kazan's pictorial compositions, got in stark black-and-white and framed for the most part against the background of an old Mississippi mansion, are by far the most artful and respectable feature of 'Baby Doll.'"[20]Variety wrote that Kazan "probably here turns in his greatest directing job to date" and praised the "superb performances," concluding that the film "ranks as a major screen achievement and deserves to be recognized as such."[21]Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called it "one of the finest films of this or many another year, a chilling expose of what ignorance does to human beings...and an excellent example of why the Motion Picture Association should follow Britain's lead in classifying films into distinct categories for children and adults."[22]John McCarten of The New Yorker praised the cast as "uniformly commendable" and wrote that the plot machinations "add up to some hilarious French-style farce, and it is only at the conclusion of the piece, when Mr. Kazan starts moving his camera around in a prenaturally solemn way, that one's interest in 'Baby Doll' briefly wanes."[23]The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote "Kazan has often fallen afoul of his own cleverness, but in Baby Doll he responds to a brilliant and astute scenario by Tennessee Williams with a great invention and the most subtle insight...There are no bad performances, and those of Carroll Baker as Baby Doll and Eli Wallach as the Sicilian are outstanding."[24]
Not all reviews were positive. Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "offers an experience so basically sordid, and so trying besides, that if one does not manage to laugh at its fantastic ribaldry, he will think that he has spent two hours in bedlam."[25]Harrison's Reports called the film "thoroughly unpleasant and distasteful screen fare, in spite of the fact that it is expertly directed and finely acted."[26]
In the 1970s, Williams wrote the full-length stage play Tiger Tail, based on his screenplay for Baby Doll. The screenplay and stage play have been published in one volume.[30] In 2015, the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey premiered a stage version of Baby Doll,[31] adapted by Emily Mann, the theater's artistic director, and Pierre Laville, who had written an earlier version that premiered at the Théâtre de l’Atelier in Paris in 2009.[32] The latest adaptation supplemented parts of the film script with material based on several others of Williams' works, including Tiger Tail.[33]
Palmer, R. Barton; Bray, William Robert (2009). Hollywood's Tennessee: The Williams Films and Postwar America. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN978-0-292-71921-7.
Haberski, Raymond J. (2007). Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN978-0-813-13841-1.
