Baby Doll (1956)

Directed by

Elia Kazan

Genre

drama film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 54m

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 141 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In rural Mississippi, a young woman in a suspended marriage traps her husband into a feud with a rival cotton gin owner. The tension between them builds around a damaged household and a deal that threatens to unravel everything.

steamytensedarkly comicsouthern gothicprovocativeslow-burn

What happens

Baby Doll is a 1956 American black comedy film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Carroll Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach. It was produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams, and adapted by Williams from two of his own one-act plays: 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Unsatisfactory Supper. The plot focuses on a feud between two rival cotton gin owners in rural Mississippi. Filmed in Mississippi in late 1955, Baby Doll was released in December 1956. It provoked significant controversy, mostly because of its implied sexual themes, and the National Legion of Decency condemned the film. Despite the moral objections, Baby Doll enjoyed a mostly favorable response from critics and earned numerous accolades, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Kazan and nominations for four other Golden Globe awards, four Academy Awards and four BAFTA Awards. Wallach won the BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer. Baby Doll has been listed by some film scholars as among the most notorious films of the 1950s, and The New York Times included it in its Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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