Baby Doll (1956) on Netflix
Archie Lee Meighan awaits his wife Baby Doll's twentieth birthday, when the marriage can be consummated. Rival gin owner Silva Vacarro arrives with truckloads of cotton and an interest in her.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.2/109,100 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the Mississippi Delta, Archie Lee Meighan owns a failing cotton gin and a dilapidated house called Tiger Tail. His wife, Baby Doll, is nineteen and childlike; her dying father arranged the marriage, and Archie promised to provide for her. Under the agreement, the marriage is not to be consummated until her twentieth birthday, which falls the next day. Until then she sleeps in a crib, while Archie drinks and watches her through a hole in the wall. Her senile Aunt Rose Comfort keeps the house. When Archie falls behind on his payments, the furniture is repossessed and Baby Doll threatens to leave. His competitor, Silva Vacarro, whose newer gin has taken his business, arrives with truckloads of cotton, offers to pay Archie to process it, and turns his attention to Baby Doll.
Cast
- Eades Hogueas Town Marshal
- Noah Williamsonas Deputy
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Baby Doll (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Although the film's title card reads "Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll," Elia Kazan claimed in his autobiography that Williams was only "half-heartedly" involved in the screenplay and that Kazan himself actually wrote most of it.
- The Catholic Legion of Decency rated Baby Doll "C" ("Condemned"), called it "grievously offensive" to Christian morality, and got it pulled from numerous theaters. Variety noted it was the first time in years the Legion had condemned a major American film that the MPAA had approved.
- Baby Doll drew controversy before release with a New York City billboard showing Carroll Baker lying in a crib and sucking her thumb. Cardinal Spellman then urged Catholics and non-Catholics alike to avoid the film, deeming it a moral danger.
- Audiences speculated that Eli Wallach's character was fondling Carroll Baker under her dress during their scene on a swinging chair, because his hands are out of frame. Baker and Wallach said the hands were hidden only because Elia Kazan had placed heaters around them in the cold weather.
- Baby Doll was banned in many countries over what was called its "exaggerated sexual content," and the objections and the resulting publicity earned it a reputation as one of the most notorious films of the 1950s.
- Carroll Baker was Elia Kazan's first choice for the title role, but Tennessee Williams had considered Marilyn Monroe; Williams favored Baker after she performed a scene from his script at the Actors Studio.
