Rent Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
3.9 of 5 from 136 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
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- 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
Gorgeous adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize winning play benefits enormously from its beautiful stars Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. It was substantially changed from Broadway because of problems with censorship, and also to give the film a more upbeat resolution.
Big Daddy (Burl Ives) is dying and the awful family of his elder son goes head to head with Maggie (the Cat) to inherit the estate, just as her husband, the younger son (Newman), takes to the bottle. Taylor as Maggie in her beautiful Grecian dress looks like another possession, something brought back from a trip abroad. We encounter no love in this opulent mansion, only materialism and greed.
There's a vacuum in the heart of film left by the removal of any references to the alcoholic son's homosexuality, which nothing else fills. What remains is poetic melodrama with many great lines and reflections of the themes of mendacity and endurance. Music is used to great effect to evoke past lives. And sex is approached quite directly for the period.
Like most fifties screen drama, it looks stunning. And not just its stars. The use of colour is sensual and the sets are eloquent. Taylor and Newman are exceptional as those classic Williams archetypes, the frightened, wounded souls adrift in an ocean of corruption, surrounded by monsters.
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