I love this stuff; it's remarkably silly, yet the actors play it so straight you'd think it was Hamlet.
No, there was no beating Tennessee Williams for steamy, sleazy Southern sex. Then throw in more goofy characters like Aunt Rose Comfort (Mildred Dunnock), Baby Doll's aunt who lives with them, and Rock (Lonny Chapman), Vacarro's right-hand flunky, and you've got a worthy contender for the most-watchable soap-opera parody of all time. And while Malden and Wallach and Dunnock are good, it's Baker who steals the show with her coy, perhaps mock innocence, setting the two men in her life against one another.
Trivia: According to John Eastman in his book "Retakes" (Ballantine Books, New York, 1989), "an amused Eli Wallach repeated for years afterward his account of the house hallway scene, in which Baker kept on kissing him long after the camera had moved away." The filmmakers made the movie on location in Mississippi, and "the house in which most of the filming occurred was the 'old Burras Place,' which had been vacant for twenty-five years.... Kazan never rigidly plotted his scenes, preferring his cast to remain unaware of the camera; instead, he ordered his camera crew merely to follow the actors. He said he preferred this film to his much more acclaimed 'A Streetcar Named Desire.'"
Video:
The disc offers the picture pretty much as it was shown in theaters in 1956, in a 1.33:1 ratio closely matching its original 1.37.1 size, and in black-and-white. The print Warner Bros. found appears in excellent condition, no doubt the result of some expert touching up as well, and there are no age spots or blemishes of any kind. A few scenes display the grain that was probably already there, but otherwise there is nothing to complain about. B&W contrasts are quite strong, and object delineation is generally sharp. The Motion Picture Academy nominated the photography for an Oscar, and it's still a pleasure on the eye.
Audio:
The film's sound is its only minor letdown. The WB engineers remastered it in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono, and while it is commendably clear and clean, if turned up to a comfortable listening level one can hear some residual background noise. With its understandably limited dynamic range and frequency response, the soundtrack will win no awards today; but it does a good job with dialogue, and that's all that really counts here.
Extras:
The disc's primary bonus item is a new, 2006, featurette, "Baby Doll: See No Evil," lasting about twelve minutes and including comments for the movie's three leading actors. It is remarkable that Karl Malden and Eli Wallach, both of whom were middle-aged when they made the film, are so active and healthy today, both men in their nineties. Their observations, and Carroll Baker's, are worth your while. Then, there are three "Baby Doll" trailers; twenty-eight scene selections (but no chapter insert); English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
Despite the controversy swirling around the film when it was released, the usually staid, conservative Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated "Baby Doll" for four Academy Awards: Best Actress (Carroll Baker), Best Supporting Actress (Mildred Dunnock), Best Cinematography, Black and White (Boris Kaufman), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Tennessee Williams). The Academy was not so broad-minded as to actually accord it any Oscars, however.
Warner Bros. have made "Baby Doll" available individually or in a six-movie box set, "The Tennessee Williams Film Collection," which also includes "A Streetcar Named Desire" "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Deluxe Edition," "The Night of the Iguana," "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," and "Sweet Bird of Youth."
Trivia: According to John Eastman in his book "Retakes" (Ballantine Books, New York, 1989), "an amused Eli Wallach repeated for years afterward his account of the house hallway scene, in which Baker kept on kissing him long after the camera had moved away." The filmmakers made the movie on location in Mississippi, and "the house in which most of the filming occurred was the 'old Burras Place,' which had been vacant for twenty-five years.... Kazan never rigidly plotted his scenes, preferring his cast to remain unaware of the camera; instead, he ordered his camera crew merely to follow the actors. He said he preferred this film to his much more acclaimed 'A Streetcar Named Desire.'"
Video:
The disc offers the picture pretty much as it was shown in theaters in 1956, in a 1.33:1 ratio closely matching its original 1.37.1 size, and in black-and-white. The print Warner Bros. found appears in excellent condition, no doubt the result of some expert touching up as well, and there are no age spots or blemishes of any kind. A few scenes display the grain that was probably already there, but otherwise there is nothing to complain about. B&W contrasts are quite strong, and object delineation is generally sharp. The Motion Picture Academy nominated the photography for an Oscar, and it's still a pleasure on the eye.
Audio:
The film's sound is its only minor letdown. The WB engineers remastered it in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono, and while it is commendably clear and clean, if turned up to a comfortable listening level one can hear some residual background noise. With its understandably limited dynamic range and frequency response, the soundtrack will win no awards today; but it does a good job with dialogue, and that's all that really counts here.
Extras:
The disc's primary bonus item is a new, 2006, featurette, "Baby Doll: See No Evil," lasting about twelve minutes and including comments for the movie's three leading actors. It is remarkable that Karl Malden and Eli Wallach, both of whom were middle-aged when they made the film, are so active and healthy today, both men in their nineties. Their observations, and Carroll Baker's, are worth your while. Then, there are three "Baby Doll" trailers; twenty-eight scene selections (but no chapter insert); English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
Despite the controversy swirling around the film when it was released, the usually staid, conservative Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated "Baby Doll" for four Academy Awards: Best Actress (Carroll Baker), Best Supporting Actress (Mildred Dunnock), Best Cinematography, Black and White (Boris Kaufman), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Tennessee Williams). The Academy was not so broad-minded as to actually accord it any Oscars, however.
Warner Bros. have made "Baby Doll" available individually or in a six-movie box set, "The Tennessee Williams Film Collection," which also includes "A Streetcar Named Desire" "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Deluxe Edition," "The Night of the Iguana," "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," and "Sweet Bird of Youth."
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[release]18842[/release]