Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Elizabeth Taylor has never been sexier than as Tennessee Williams's hot-blooded Maggie "The Cat" Pollitt, prowling around her boudoir in a slinky white slip. That's how you know her alcoholic, ex-football-player husband, Brick (Paul Newman), must have more than just his leg in a cast. It's the 65th birthday of wealthy (but dying) southern patriarch Big Daddy (Burl Ives), and his sons Gooper (Jack Carter) and Brick have come to suck up to him for $10 million in inheritance money. Gooper is a family man and father to a brood of "no-neck monsters"; youngest boy Brick is papa's favorite (as if you couldn't tell from the fellow's names), but hasn't sired progeny. Maggie is definitely in heat, but Brick refuses to sleep with her because he suspects her her of being unfaithful with his best friend, who recent committed suicide. Although toned down for the movies, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is vintage Tennessee Williams. The film was directed by Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood, Blackboard Jungle, Elmer Gantry). --Jim Emerson

Genre: Drama
Production: MGM Home Entertainment
  Nominated for 6 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 10 nominations.
 
IMDB:
8.1
Rotten Tomatoes:
97%
NOT RATED
Year:
1958
108
3,287 Views
This is Maggie the Cat...
Every sultry moment of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize Play is now on the screen!

Big Daddy:
But it's always there in the morning, ain't it — the truth? And it's here right now. You're just feelin' sorry for yourself. That's all it is — self-pity. You didn't kill Skipper. He killed himself. You and Skipper and millions like ya are livin' in a kid's world, playin' games, touchdowns, no worries, no responsibilities. Life ain't no damn football game. Life ain't just a bunch of high spots. You're a thirty-year-old kid. Soon you'll be a fifty-year-old kid, pretendin' you're hearin' cheers when there ain't any. Dreamin' and drinkin' your life away. Heroes in the real world live twenty-four hours a day, not just two hours in a game. Mendacity, you won't... you won't live with mendacity, but you're an expert at it. The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman that you don't love any more. Truth is dreams that don't come true and nobody prints your name in the paper 'til you die... The truth is, you never growed up. Grown-ups don't hang up on their friends... and they don't hang up on their wives... and they don't hang up on life. Now that's the truth and that's what you can't face!

Brick:
Can you face the truth?

Big Daddy:
Try me!

Brick:
You or somebody else's truth?

Big Daddy:
Bull. You're runnin' again.

Brick:
Yeah, I am runnin.' Runnin' from lies, lies like birthday congratulations and many happy returns of the day when there won't be any.

Big Daddy I'll outlive you. I'll bury you. I'll buy your coffin... It's death, ain't it?

Brick:
You said it yourself, Big Daddy. Mendacity is a system we live in.

Big Daddy:
I suddenly noticed that you don't call me Big Daddy any more. Ah, if you needed a Big Daddy, why didn't you come to me? You wanted somebody to lean on. Why Skipper and why not me? I'm your father! I'm Big Daddy. Me! Why didn't you come to your kinfolks, the peoples that love ya?

Brick:
You don't know what love means. To you, it's just another four letter word.

Big Daddy:
Why, you've got a mighty short memory. What was there that you wanted that I didn't buy for ya.

Brick:
You can't buy love! You bought yourself a million dollars worth of junk. Look at it. Does it love you?

Big Daddy:
Who'd you think I bought it for? Me? It's yours. The place, the money, every rotten thing is yours!

Brick:
I don't want things! [pushes down and smashes vases, an old athletic trophy and other accumulated objects] Waste! Worthless! Worthless! [destroys a life-sized poster of himself throwing a football and then breaks down in a fit of uncontrollable tears]

Big Daddy:
Don't, son. Please don't cry, boy. That's funny. I never saw you cry before. How's that? Did you ever cry?

Brick:
Can't you understand? I never wanted your place or your money or any—... I don't wanna own anything. All I wanted was a father, not a boss — I wanted you to love me.

Big Daddy:
I did and I do.

Brick:
No. Not me, and not Gooper, and not even Mama.

Big Daddy:
That's a lie. I did love her. I give her anything, everything she wanted.

Brick:
Things. Things, Papa. You gave her things. A house, a trip to Europe, all this junk, some jewelry, things. You gave her things, Papa, not love.

Big Daddy:
I gave, I gave her an empire, boy.

Brick:
The men who build empires die, and empires die, too.

Big Daddy:
No. No, it won't. That's why I've got you and Gooper.

Brick:
Look at Gooper. Look at what he's become. Is that what you wanted him to be? And look at me. You put it very well indeed. I'm a thirty-year-old kid, and pretty soon I'm gonna be a fifty-year-old kid. I don't know what to believe in. Now what's the good of livin' if you've got nothin' to believe in? There's gotta be some, some purpose in life, some meanin.' Look at me. For the sake of God, look at me before it's too late. For once in your life, look at me as I really am. Look at me. I'm a failure. I'm a drunk. On my own in the open market, I'm not worth the price of a decent burial.

Brick:
Big Daddy! Now what makes him so big? His big heart? His big belly? Or his big money?

Maggie:
The heat has made you cross.

Brick:
Give me my crutch.

Maggie:
Why don't you put on your nice silk pajamas, honey, and come on down to the party? There's a lovely cool breeze.

Brick:
Give me my crutch, Maggie.

Maggie:
Lean on me, baby. [He turns and stiffly ignores her] You've got a nice smell about you. Is your bath water cool?

Brick:
No.

Maggie:
I know somethin' that would make you feel cool and fresh. Alcohol rub. Cologne.

Brick:
No thanks. We'd smell alike. Like a couple of cats in the heat.

Maggie:
It's cool on the lawn.

Brick:
I'm not goin' down there, Maggie, not for you and not for Big Daddy.

Maggie:
At least you can give him his present that I remembered to buy for you for his birthday. Do you think you could write a few words on this card?

Brick:
You write somethin' Maggie.

Maggie:
It's got to be your handwritin'. It's your present. It's got to be your handwritin'.

Brick:
I didn't get him a present.

Maggie:
Well, what's the difference?!

Brick:
Then if there's no difference, you write the card.

Maggie:
And have him know you didn't remember his birthday?

Brick:
I didn't remember.

Maggie:
Well, you don't have to prove it to him. Just-just write 'Love, Brick' for heaven's sakes.

Brick:
NO!

Maggie:
You've got to.

Brick:
I don't have to do anything I don't want to! Now you keep forgettin' the conditions on which I agreed to stay on livin' with you.

Maggie:
I'm not living with you. We occupy the same cage, that's all. You know, that's the first time you've raised your voice in a long time. Crack in the stone wall? I think that's a fine sign. Mighty fine.

Brick:
That's what you hated. Bein' shut out.

Maggie:
Not by the crowds, baby. By you, by the man I worshipped. That's why I hated Skipper.

Brick:
You hated him so much that you got him drunk and went to bed with him.

Big Daddy:
[After a long pause] Well, is that true?

Maggie:
Oh Big Daddy, you don't think I ravished a football hero?

Brick:
Skipper was drunk.

Maggie:
So were you most of the time. I don't seem to make out so well with you.

Brick:
Are you? Are you trying to say that nothing happened between you and Skipper?

Maggie:
You know what happened!

Brick:
I don't know what happened. I don't know, Maggie. Now I wasn't there. I couldn't play that Sunday. I wasn't in Chicago. I was in the hospital...

Maggie:
But Skipper played. Oh, he played all right. Played his first professional game without Brick...Without you, Skipper was nothin'. Outside - big, tough, confident. Inside - pure jelly. You saw the game on TV. You saw what happened.

Brick:
But I didn't see what happened in Skipper's hotel room. That little episode was not on TV. Go ahead, tell Big Daddy why you were in Skipper's room.

Maggie:
He was sick, sick with drink and he wouldn't come out. He busted some furniture and the hotel manager said to stop him before he called the police. So I went to his room. I scratched on his door and begged him to let me in. He was half-crazy, violent and screamin' one minute and weak and cryin' the next. And all the time, scared stiff about you. So I said to him, maybe it was time we forgot about football. Maybe he ought to get a job and let me and Brick alone. I thought he'd hit me. He walked toward me with a funny sort of smile on his face. Then he did the strangest thing. He kissed me. That was the first time he'd ever touched me. And then I knew what I was gonna do. I'd get rid of Skipper. I'd show Brick that their deep true friendship was a big lie. I'd prove it by showin' that Skipper would make love to the wife of his best friend. He didn't need any coaxin'. He was more than willin'. He even seemed to have the same idea. [pause] I was tryin' to win back my husband. It didn't matter how. I would have done anythin' - even that. At the last second, I-I got panicky. Supposin' I lost you instead. Supposin' you'd hate me instead of Skipper. So I ran. Nothin' happened. I've tried to tell him a hundred times but he won't let me. Nothin' happened.

Brick:
Hallelujah - Saint Maggie! (He raises his drinking glass)

Maggie:
I wanted to get rid of Skipper but not if it meant losin' you. (To Big Daddy) He (Brick) blames me for Skipper's death. Maybe I got rid of Skipper. Skipper went out anyway. I didn't get rid of him at all. Isn't it an awful joke, honey? I lost you anyway.

Big Daddy:
What are you runnin' away from? Why'd you hang up on Skipper when he called you? Answer me. What did he say? Was it about him and Maggie?

Brick:
He said they'd made love.

Big Daddy:
And you believed him.

Brick:
Yes.

Big Daddy:
Then why haven't you thrown her out? Somethin's missin' here. Now, now why did Skipper kill himself?

Brick:
'Cause somebody let him down. I let him down. When he called that night, I couldn't make much sense out of...There was one thing that was sure. Skipper was scared. Scared! It would happen that day on the football field, that I'd blame him, scared that I'd walk out on him. Skipper afraid - I couldn't believe that. I mean inside, he was real deep-down scared. And he broke like a rotten stick. He started cryin': 'I need you.' He kept babblin': 'Help me! Help me!' Me help him? How does one drownin' man help another drownin' man?

Big Daddy:
So you hung up on him.

Brick:
And then that phone started to ring again. And it rang and it rang and it wouldn't stop ringin'. And I lay in that hospital bed. I was unable to move or run from that sound and still, it kept ringin' louder and louder! And the sound of that was like Skipper screamin' for help. And I couldn't pick it up.

Big Daddy:
So that's when he killed himself.

Brick:
Yep. 'Cause I let him down. [Tears well up in his eyes] So that disgust with mendacity is really disgust with myself. And when I hear that click in my head, I don't hear the sound of that phone ringin' anymore. And I can stop thinkin'. I'm ashamed, Big Daddy. That's why I'm a drunk. When I'm drunk, I can stand myself.


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