‘I’ve got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live…’
If I were to mention a classic Hollywood movie written by Tennessee Williams and starring an iconic movie star in his prime playing a character who is hard to sympathise with due to his propensity to act like an asshat then you would probably think of Marlon Brando and A Streetcar Named Desire. And you’d be right for that truly is a masterpiece. Well, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof you can replace Brando for Paul Newman and Vivien Leigh with Elizabeth Taylor and you are left with something still great, but not quite as good…
Maggie (Taylor) and Brick (Newman) are trapped in a grotesque imitation of a marriage. He is a drunk who won’t touch his wife and she is a cheat who refuses to help her husband. These issues come to a head following the arrival of the ridiculously named Big Daddy (Burl Ives), the family patriarch who is having troubles of his own.
Newman is possibly one of the most underrated actors of his generation and he knocks it out of the park here. What begins as cold detachment soon becomes furious rage and biting resentment, and Newman sells it every step of the way. Luckily, he is matched by a ferocious turn from Ives and a heart-breaking, vulnerable performance from Taylor. An actress who sells melodrama like no other.
As this comes from the acid pen of Tennessee Williams, the dialogue is incredible throughout, veering between raw emotion and arch one liners, often within the same scene. Director Richard Brooks allows the story to develop with unobtrusive cinematography and equal billing for all of his larger than life characters.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof suffers in comparison to A Streetcar Named Desire, but then, pretty much any other film throughout history would also. An emotionally engaging success.