Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958

Colors are vibrant; the mansion looks fake though (it probably is). Taylor is awesome. I could watch her walk, change clothes and talk all day long. And I could listen to these southern accents for hours (probably they are not authentic though). People perhaps look a bit too perfect/clean. The movie often feels too much like a theater piece. They could have cut the light moments (like most of the scenes with kids and Mae doing/talking nonsense in the day part of the movie).

It is much darker than I expected: an unhappy marriage (still they have the best dialogues), drug addiction, homosexuality (allegedly), unwanted childlessness, domestic violence, personal loss, feminism, conservative perceptions about family life, good'ol southern racism (did they even realize how disturbing this is from a today's perspective?), patriarchy, gold diggers, cancer (?), jealous brothers, the legacy of a self made millionaire, the fall of a cotton empire. Williams screenplay is even more explicit but I guess the contemporary movie industry didn't allow more than some tiny hints about what was really going on between Brick and his late friend.

I swear to Christ I never want to hear the words “Big Daddy” again.

I watched this for Taylor/Newman (who were both sexy as hell), but it was a problem movie for me. I dislike Tennessee Williams and I tend to hate stage-to-screen adaptations. Moreover, this movie apparently changed the play fairly drastically to remove references to Newman’s character’s homosexuality. Without that the movie doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and so you’re left with a bunch of truly atrocious accents and a lot of theatrical caterwauling. Hated it.

I can't believe I watched this movie purely cus my mum wanted me to see how hot Paul Newman is in it, only for his character to end up being bi. Really did not expect a story about a southern family with racist undertones to be about repressed sexuality, but that's on me for not being better versed in theatre plays and classic movies. I'm working on it! And having so much fun doing it too.

This movie has a lot of dialogue. It moves slow at the beginning but gets progressively better once the characters are established.

I always say that I'm going to go back and check out some of the older classics and this movie definitely fell into the realm of "classic". Liz Taylor, Paul Newman and Burl Ives were absolutely unbelievable. This movie had layer after layer and each layer removal is more fascinating and delightful than the last. It is a little said that this movie was at the height of Hollywood's decency period (cringing) as it is supposedly unfaithful to the steaminess in Tennessee Williams's original play.