Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (film)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (A cat on a hot tin roof, in Latin America; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in Spain) is a 1958 American film directed by Richard Brooks and based on the play of the same name by Tennessee Williams.

Plot

Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in a picture of the film's advance.

Brick (Paul Newman) and Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) form a marriage that does not go through its best moments: Brick has become an alcoholic and does not want to have children with Maggie, although she wants it. Then, they move to the large family mansion to celebrate the birthday of Brick's father (Burl Ives), who is near death from a serious illness. From all this they will try to take advantage of another of his children, Gooper (Jack Carson), and his wife: Mae (Madeleine Sherwood).

Cast

• Elizabeth Taylor like Maggie Pollitt
• Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt
• Burl Ives like Harvey Pollitt
• Judith Anderson as Ida Pollitt
• Jack Carson as Cooper Pollitt
• Madeleine Sherwood as Mae Flynn Pollitt
• Larry Gates like Dr. Baugh
• Vaughn Taylor like Deacon Davis

Comments

Not even the rigid censorship of the time prevented this from being one of the best adaptations of a Tennesse Williams work, as well as one of the great classics of cinema. Topics such as family, parent-child relationships, love or hypocrisy parade between the mastery of the interpreters and her dialogues. And a recital by Elizabeth Taylor, who received the news of the death in a plane crash of her husband at the time, producer Mike Todd, a fact that made her give herself even more to her character.

Censorship

Both the work and its homonymous film were censored in Argentina during the military dictatorship that called itself the Liberating Revolution. In Spain, the censorship of the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco changed the title of the original work, eliminating the "hot& #3. 4; (The correct translation was "Cat on a hot tin roof") in his translation, understanding that it could have sexual connotations.

Awards

Oscar 1958