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BABY DOLL
1956
Director
Elia Kazan
Starring
Carroll Baker
Karl Malden
Eli Wallach
Runtime
114 minutes
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Among Kazan’s most controversial films, BABY DOLL is one of the finest renditions of the psychosexual territory of Tennessee Williams’ mysterious Deep South. Adapted from two of Williams’ one-act-plays, 27 Seven Wagons Full of Cotton and The Unsatisfactory Supper, Kazan puts his comical stamp on the marriage between the thumb-sucking, yet sexually precocious Baby Doll (Carroll Baker) who keeps her husband, Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden), a failed cotton gin owner, waiting until her 20th birthday to consummate their marriage. Principally shot in rural Mississippi with African American locals given bit roles, Kazan’s mid-career masterpiece uncovers a web of gender, class, and racial prejudices marinating in the southern heat.
BABY DOLL’s provocative study of sexual desire inflamed a passionate outcry from the Production Code Administration and the Catholic Legion of Decency, who tried to derail the film by branding it with their lowest rating of “C,” for “condemned.” This salacious mark only helped the promotion of the film and it became a sleeper hit of 1956 before it went on to win four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Actress.
BABY DOLL’s provocative study of sexual desire inflamed a passionate outcry from the Production Code Administration and the Catholic Legion of Decency, who tried to derail the film by branding it with their lowest rating of “C,” for “condemned.” This salacious mark only helped the promotion of the film and it became a sleeper hit of 1956 before it went on to win four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Actress.