Rent Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
3.9 of 5 from 134 ratings
1h 44min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- "I'm not living with you", Maggie snaps at Brick. "We occupy the same cage, that's all". The raw emotions and crackling dialogue of Tennessee Williams' 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning play rumble like a thunderstorm in this film version, whose fiery performances and grown-up theme made it a box-office hit. Paul Newman earned his first Oscar nomination for his nuanced portrayal of troubled former sports hero Brick. Capturing her second, Elizabeth Taylor makes Maggie the cat, digging her claws in and holding on to life, not as it is, but as she hopes it someday will be, a vivid portrait of passionate loyalty.
- Actors:
- Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson, Judith Anderson, Madeleine Sherwood, Larry Gates, Vaughn Taylor, Zelda Cleaver, Brian Corcoran, Hugh Corcoran, Kevin Corcoran, Patty Ann Gerrity, Bobby Johnson, Walter Merrill, Deborah Miller, Robert 'Rusty' Stevens, Vince Townsend, Jeane Wood
- Directors:
- Richard Brooks
- Producers:
- Lawrence Weingarten
- Writers:
- Richard Brooks, James Poe, Tennessee Williams
- Others:
- William Daniels
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- A History of Gay Cinema: According to Hollywood, Acting Up: British Actresses at the Oscars, BAFTA Nominations Competition 2024, Elvis Presley on Screen, Introducing the Thesping Olympians, Oscar Nominations Competition 2024, Oscars: Winners & Losers
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 17/07/2017
- Run Time:
- 108 minutes
- Languages:
- Castilian Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, Czech Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono, French Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, German Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, Latin American Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, Polish Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
- Subtitles:
- Castillian, Czech, English Hard of Hearing, French, German Hard of Hearing, Korean, Latin American Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Turkish
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.85:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Commentary by Biographer Donald Spoto, Author of 'The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams'
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Playing Cat and Mouse Featurette
- Theatrical Trailer
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Reviews (1) of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Southern Melodrama. - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof review by Steve
Handsome and lustrous version of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize winning play benefits enormously from its beautiful stars Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. The adaptation was substantially changed from the play because of problems with censorship, and also to give the film a more upbeat resolution.
Big Daddy Pollitt is dying of cancer and his son Gooper and his awful family must go head to head with Maggie (the Cat) to inherit the estate, just as her husband Brick takes to the bottle after his best friend Skipper dies. Taylor as Maggie in her beautiful Grecian dress looks like another possession of the Pollitt family, something brought back from a trip abroad, but there is an absence of love in this opulent mansion. There is only materialism and greed.
There is a vacuum left in the heart of film by the removal of any references to Brick's homosexual relationship with Skipper which nothing else fills. What we get is poetic melodrama with many great lines (we don't live together, we just occupy the same cage) and reflection of the themes of mendacity and endurance. Music is used to great effect to evoke the past lives of the characters. And the subject of sex is approached quite directly for a film of that time.
Typical of melodrama in this period, it looks gorgeous. And not just its stars. Its use of colour is sensual and the sets are very memorable. Taylor and Newman are exceptional as those classic Williams archetypes, the trapped, damaged spirits adrift in a sea of corruption, surrounded by monsters.
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