Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – 1958
Director: Richard Brooks
Run time: 108 minutes
Directed by Richard Brooks, (who also co-wrote the screenplay with James Poe), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was based on Tennessee Williams’ 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name. Released in 1958, it was the third highest-grossing film in that year.
Opening scenes of the film show Brick Pollitt (Paul Newman), the younger son of Harvey ‘Big Daddy’ Politt (Burl Ives), attempting to drunkenly jump hurdles with a bottle of spirits in his hand. He miscalculates, crashing into the dirt and breaks his ankle.
The following day, Brick is seen nonchalantly lying on a sofa in the bedroom of a large colonial style house swilling whisky and smoking a cigarette. His wife, Maggie, (Elizabeth Taylor) drives up to the house in a sporty open-top Ford Fairlane and parks just outside the main door. In the foreground, trestle tables are laden with food and drink in anticipation of Big Daddy’s birthday party. Brick’s older brother, Cooper ‘Gooper’ (Jack Carson), reads a newspaper while he ignores one of his five children plunging her hands into a container of ice cream and trifle. Several of Gooper’s other children march around blowing trumpets and smashing cymbals together while trying to perform a melody, all under the watchful eyes of conductor Mae ‘Sister Woman’ Politt (Madeline Sherwood), Gooper’s wife. The noise is off-key and deafening. Maggie espies her niece arm-deep in trifle, and marches across to tell the girl off, only to have a handful of ice cream flung in her direction. The cream lands on Maggie’s skirt and splatters her legs. In the background, Mae, shrilly warns her sister-in-law not to retaliate. Maggie ignores the caution, scoops the melting dessert from her clothes, and shoves it into the face of her niece while Mae shrieks with indignation. Afterwards Maggie storms up to her room and tells an unconcerned Brick about the incident. Maggie points out that it is common knowledge Big Daddy is dying. She insists that Mae and Gooper are trying to capitalise on this fact and attempting to persuade Big Daddy leave the lion’s share of his money to the pair. Maggie is adamant this is the reason why the duo has so many children and are going on to have more. Mae is heavily pregnant with her sixth. There is a degree of jealousy from Maggie as she yearns for a baby, but Brick is not interested in being intimate with her, suggesting instead that she take a lover.
The conversation between Brick and Maggie is tense and it is clear there is an issue between the two – an event that Maggie is seeking redemption for, with Brick refusing to give it.
Mae, Gooper, and their children drive to a private airfield to await the arrival of Big Daddy and Ida ‘Big Mama’ Politt (Judith Anderson) in their private plane. Maggie comes along separately. Big Mama, their doctor, Dr. Baugh (Larry Bates) emerge first from the aircraft. Finally Big Daddy comes into view, descending the stairs of the plane with his grandchildren striking up a discordant, raucously loud tune, playing with furrowed brows and demonic conviction. All overseen by the stridently energetic Mae. Big Daddy is visibly irritated with the cacophony of the ‘band’ but visibly brightens when he sees Maggie, selecting to travel back with her to his mansion rather than endure another minute in the company of his noisy grandchildren. Big Daddy queries why Maggie and Brick have not yet had a child, bewailing the fact that his daughter in law and elder son have 5, with another due in weeks. He sees Brick, ahead of Gooper, as his natural successor and desperately wants Maggie and Brick to bear his grandchild.
In later interactions with her husband, Maggie tries to talk to Brick about the event tearing the couple apart. Brick had an exceptionally close bond with a high school friend called Skipper. Convinced that Skipper was not a true ally, Maggie decides to seduce Skipper in the hopes that Brick will recognise his supposed friend is not who he pretends to be. Maggie cannot bring herself to go through with the plan, however, Brick finds out about the ruse. Skipper phones Brick but Brick refuses to speak with him. Despairing, Skipper commits suicide.
Early on, it is unclear whether Big Daddy suspects he is going to die, but as the story progresses, the information comes to the fore with all parties in the household eventually learning of Big Daddy’s prognosis. Once the evidence is divulged, the internal structure of the family starts to disintegrate, dividing into two factions. On one side, lies Gooper, Mae, and Ida ‘Big Mama’; the other cohort is taken up by Brick, Maggie, and Big Daddy. It is evident which party is grittier, has more determination and is intent on slugging it out until the very end. A central premise of Big Daddy’s state of being, is through perceived omnipotence and core masculinity. When this component is threatened, Big Daddy becomes cornered and hostile. He starts to verbally lash out at those he deems weaker than himself – Mae Politt is repeatedly referred to as ‘Sister Woman’, a marginally insulting nickname that seems to indicate Big Daddy simply cannot be bothered to recall his daughter in law’s name. By contrast, Maggie is always called Maggie – never anything else. Big Daddy is also dismissive of Big Mama and his eldest son Gooper. When Big Daddy finally grasps his illness is terminal, there is a brief hiatus until he arrives at a mental crossroads and retreats into moribund raging against the machine. Big Daddy descends to the basement where Brick locates him and they join in a fatal battle of wills, a manifest of maleness and an attempt to rejuvenate and restore the ruins of Brick’s life. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Big Daddy’s goal is to ensure his line is carried on, not through his eldest son Gooper, but by his youngest, Brick. The son who most resembles his father’s ways and peccadilloes is being given an out, a means to break free from the invisible chains that bind. It remains to be seen whether Brick will step up or move aside. This wonderfully tense scene between two alpha bulls locking horns, is less to do with gaining the upper hand, and more with Big Daddy testing Brick’s mettle. Big Daddy is ready to hand over the reins. The question hangs in the air as to whether Brick is willing to grasp the nettle and meet the challenge.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is manifestly first and foremost a play – Burl Ives and Madeleine Sherwood transferred from the theatre and continued their roles on screen. There are key differences between play and film however, with the core narrative in the play focussing on Brick and Skipper’s relationship. Plainly, Brick was in a romantic relationship with Skipper. In the movie version, this aspect is nullified as Maggie bewails Brick’s handsome good looks and wishes drink would lessen his male beauty. Brick is essentially being fetishised for his perfection – a masculine ideal to be admired only by other men – a realm of faultlessness where female loveliness holds no sway. By contrast, the play however, mirrors Williams own early life where his clumsy relationships with women were fraught and unsuccessful. America between the late 1940s through the 1960s, was hugely conflicted by its conservative views on homosexuality. On one side, there was the Homophile Movement – a group that started to raise ever more strident voices in support of gay men and women. On the other, outrageously so, the Lavender Scare saw thousands of men (and women) fired from government service primarily because of their homosexuality. There existed a moral panic about gay men and lesbians during the McCarthy era of ‘reds under the bed’ which amounted to a witch hunt. No surprises therefore when the homosexual theme in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was tamped down by director Richard Brooks.
It is also interesting to note in 1955, the same year as Tennessee Williams’ play was first run, Patricia Highsmith wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley about a love triangle between two men and a woman – much like Brick, Skipper, and Maggie. In Highsmith’s book, the anti-hero, Tom Ripley is accused of being ‘queer’, a charge he refutes with heated objections. Highsmith’s book reflects sexuality bound by death and mayhem – a trope that appears to be lessened and subdued in the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof but is nonetheless there if you look hard enough. In Richard Brooks’ adaptation, Skipper exists solely to explain the tension between Maggie and Brick. Skipper’s role is therefore key, but only as a plot device to move the story along and for no other reason.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is one of those films where everyone recalls the first time they saw it. It is a testimony to the human spirit and the ability to overcome tragedy and heartbreak – from a moral void and near self-destruction, comes hope, promise, and rebirth.
