By Kim Morgan
May 4, 2006
"There isn't much of you, but what there is is choice. Delectable, I might say... You're fine-fibered. Soft and smooth...You make me think of cotton. No! No fabric or cloth, not even satin or silk cloth, and no kind of fiber, not even cotton fiber has the absolute delicacy of your skin."
So says a predatory Eli Wallach to an aroused and "hysterical" Caroll Baker in one of the most notoriously erotic mainstream films ever produced at that time. The movie was Baby Doll, director Elia Kazan's tragic-comic follow up to his already steamy masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire, his controversial On the Waterfront and his poignantly powerful East of Eden. Used to a certain amount of censorship and hullabaloo (especially for Streetcar), Kazan was most likely, not prepared for the maelstrom of controversy when Baby Doll, a sultry Southern gothic he intended as a "sleeper" was released in 1956.
Denounced by the Legion of Decency and deemed "Just possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has ever been legally exhibited" by Time Magazine, Baby Doll, though not as "dirty" through time (especially with our current accessibility to salacious cinema) still remains as sexually charged, perversely interesting and psychologically complex as it did then. It's also incredibly funny, superbly acted and weirdly beautiful. Though somewhat, inexplicably forgotten through time (it's finally getting a DVD release), Baby Doll is one of Kazan's greatest accomplishments-a masterpiece that stands on equal footing with Streetcar and Waterfront.
Written by that genius of Southern turbulence, Tennessee Williams (Baby Doll was his first original screenplay-adapted from parts of two earlier one-act plays), the film gave Carroll Baker her first starring role with an entrance that, in terms of cult cinema, is about as sexually iconic as Marilyn Monroe's upswept dress in The Seven Year Itch. Gorgeous, blonde 19-year old child bride Baby Doll (Baker) lies in an infant's crib, sucking her thumb while her middle aged husband Archie Lee (Karl Malden|) leers at her through a peephole.
But why must he leer at his own wife? As we soon learn, Baby Doll is a virgin-she married Archie for what she thought would be a cushy life of prosperity and Southern comfort. But at this point Archie's lost his cotton gin to a Syndicate Plantation and is so in debt that his furniture has been removed from the house. An exasperated, angry Baby Doll threatens to leave Archie while he desperately waits out the day-the eve of her birthday- for their especially provocative "agreement:" that when she turns 20, he can finally sleep with his wife.
But things take a turn when Archie loses his temper and burns down the Syndicate Plantation and Cotton Gin, managed by the cocky Sicilian Silva Vacarro (Wallach). Seeking revenge, Vacarro finds the one thing that'll make Archie murderously angry-Archie's wife. And not just his wife but, perhaps (not to be revealed here) his wife's maidenhood as well. That is, if you could call the sassy, sexually curious tease Baby Doll a "maiden." She's certainly not-as-infantile-as-she-looks-making her all the more sexy.
The cat and mouse games and tricks played by Baby Doll and Vacarro result in the film's gleefully demented seduction with scenes on a porch swing that some viewers thought were downright pornographic. What were his hands doing? Why is she swooning that much? The eroticism is heightened by the film's lovely counterpoint of a blonde, summer dress-wearing Baby Doll to the darkly dressed, swarthy Italian who holds a riding crop no less. And to further amp things up, Wallach will be seen riding Baker's hobby horse to the rock tune of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" with a shot of his shadowy rocking suggesting a whole helluva lot more.
But there's more to the film than just overheated sensuality. Starkly but stunningly shot in black and white, the picture showcases
a sad, crumbling South (encapsulated in Malden's distressed, ultimately crazed performance as a cotton farmer being taken over
by big business) with a cast of characters that earn sympathy for each of their situations. Baby Doll as the unhappy, little schooled though clever wife, Archie as the lost Southerner and Vacarro as the despised outsider. No one is inherently good, but none of these people are evil either. They are corrupted, vindictive, mean and in the case of Baker-achingly sexy on top.
I would, in fact, go so far as to say that Baker's Baby Doll is one of the sexiest film performances in screen history. With that alone shouldn't the film earn greater respect through time? It does somewhat in this DVD release (in conjunction with the Tennessee Williams' box set which also includes that other underrated depiction of frustrated sexuality and a sizzling Lolita Sue Lyon-The Night of the Iguana) with an accompanying short documentary. Chronicling the film's scandal (happily all three spectacular leads are alive to discuss the movie) and appreciating the picture's placement within Kazan's esteemed canon of work, it's a nice addition though not long enough.
Nevertheless, I'm just happy one of my favorite movies has finally (I've been waiting for years!) made its way to a proper DVD release. As Baby Doll express at the end of the film, "we got nothin' to do but wait for tomorrow and see if we're remembered or forgotten." Thankfully and respectfully (maybe ironically so) Baby Doll is indeed remembered. Really, how could it have ever been forgotten?
