Baby Doll
Short description
In Mississippi, Archie Lee Meighan runs a cotton gin that is sliding toward failure, and his marriage to the much younger Baby Doll has not been consummated; her father agreed to the union on the understanding that Archie Lee would wait until she turns twenty. With that birthday approaching, Archie Lee's business troubles deepen, and his rivalry with Silva Vacarro, another cotton man in the area, turns personal when suspicion falls on Archie Lee over a fire. Vacarro sets out to get close to Baby Doll, and she becomes the focus of the two men's contest.
Elia Kazan directed the film, working from a screenplay by Tennessee Williams, and also produced it through Newtown Productions with Warner Bros. Pictures. It followed his features East of Eden and On the Waterfront. Karl Malden plays Archie Lee, Carroll Baker plays Baby Doll, and Eli Wallach plays Vacarro, with Mildred Dunnock, Lonny Chapman and Eades Hogue in supporting roles.
Made in the mid-1950s, the film drew a critics' rating of 8.4 out of 10 across 23 reviews, while audiences rate it 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb from around 8,900 votes and 7 out of 10 on TMDB from 146 votes. The gap suggests critics responded to it more strongly than general viewers did.
What's left behind the scenes
- In the scene where Silva arrives at the burnt factory, Eli Wallach (1915-2014) found it difficult to convey the genuine feelings of his character, as he had no personal experience with such industries. He eventually imagined that a friend of his had burned down his own house with his wife and children inside, and only then was he able to deliver the required reaction.
- Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), who wrote the screenplay, wanted to cast Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) in the lead role – at that time, she was desperately trying to improve her reputation as an actress and was very eager to get the part – but the film’s director, Elia Kazan (1909-2003), preferred to give the role to Carroll Baker, whom he knew from the Actors Studio in New York (a school for professional actors, theater directors, and playwrights). According to Baker's autobiography, the film's premiere was a charity event benefiting the Actors Studio, and Monroe herself worked as an usher at the premiere.
- The film was released in 1956, and its controversial reception by the general public can be explained by the film's plot and the issues it raised. The Catholic Legion of Decency (an organization primarily dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content in cinema, founded in Cincinnati, USA, in 1933) condemned the film for “suggestions of carnal pleasure.” Two days before the film’s release, Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman (1889-1967) denounced it in a sermon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and called on Catholics to boycott it. Spellman’s call marked the beginning of the first nationwide boycott of a film by an American film company, orchestrated by the Legion of Decency. Almost 20 million Catholics across the country took to the streets in protest and picketed cinemas showing the film. 'Time' magazine contributed to the condemnation campaign, calling the film “the filthiest American-made movie ever to be commercially released.” Censors eventually allowed the film to be released, but only after nearly a year of heated debate.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
