La chatte sur un toit brûlant

Most people know this storyline by now: Maggie the Cat desperately wants latent homosexual hubby Brick to impregnate her and thus insure her standing in the eyes of terminal Big Daddy Pollitt. Compared to the 1958 movie version with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, this 1976 TV movie is merely satisfactory. Both Wood & Wagner were clearly middle aged. At 46, Wagner's Brick looks more like a drunk who can't get out of a bathtub, than a young man who's college football days are but a few years behind him. As for his character's thoughts, intentions, it would appear that he wasn't able to get anything else accomplished except to convey that Brick is a drunkard. Wood is overly anxious throughout & overdoes her 'southern' accent to the inth degree. Unlike Burl Ives in the '58 version, Olivier's Big Daddy is just distant. Why would anyone even bother with him ? The only save in this mess is the always outstanding Maureen Stapleton as Big Mama, who parlays years of her husband's neglect and indifferent children into her character's crushed but still trying spirit.

Natalie Wood gives the best performance and even that is lackluster. She doesn't feel southern. The rest of the cast is off and Big Daddy looks like Colonel Sanders in this version. I couldn't take him seriously. The pacing once again for this show is just too slow. I did love that they included the new ending.

Natalie Wood was probably born for the role of Maggie the Cat, a frustrated woman trapped in a marriage to a drunk who doesn't want to face the reality of life. Playing her husband Brick, a former football player and commentator, is real-life husband Robert Wagner - and those who only know him from 'Hart to Hart' will be surprised by how good an actor he is here.

In a set which is strictly budget, but still gets across the claustrophobia of a Southern summer, Wood and Wagner spar with each other, and balance the slight overacting (and strange make-up) of Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy, the patriarch who doesn't realise his time is up.

All three are very good in this play and some areas which were excised from the better-known Taylor-Newman film return to the script, and the plot is all the better for it. But this is Natalie Wood's show, and she knows it. Still glamorous in middle-age, she purrs and plots to save her marriage and get one over her greedy, grasping in-laws, Gooper and May, and their 'no-neck monsters'.

Well worth watching and very enjoyable.

First off, yes, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were too old for the parts they were playing, but it doesn't detract from the story, at least on Natalie Wood's part.

The characters are all at rich Big Daddy's (Oliver) plantation home to celebrate his 65th birthday. Unknown to him and Big Mama (Stapleton), but known to everyone else, this is also his last, as he's been diagnosed with terminal cancer but told that it's a spastic colon to soften the blow, and his days are numbered.

Brick (Wagner) is the all-American hero. A football star, the envy of everyone. He should be at the top of the world, but his best friend Skipper has recently died as a result of too much alcohol. In addition, Skipper started drinking after being convinced by Brick's wife Maggie (Wood) that he was gay, and their friendship, which Brick deems pure and true, was actually driven, in Maggie's opinion, by Skipper's unrequited love for Brick. He attempts to sleep with Maggie, but it ends badly, and after Brick turns his back on him after confessing he loves him, he drinks himself to death.

At the start, Brick is now drinking himself slowly to death, all the while being resentful of Maggie's intervention, and her part in his death. It's never clear if Brick himself was gay, and if so, if just for Skipper, or in general. The fact that he and Maggie engaged in a sexual relationship at least seems to confirm he was not purely a gay man. He coldly ignores Maggie much of the time, instead taking solace in drinking alcohol to achieve the click, when the troubles of his life fade away and he spends the rest of his waking day in blissful peace.

Centering around this are Gooper (Hedley) and Mae (Peach). Gooper is Brick's resentful older brother, who did everything that Big Daddy asked, but never was given the time of day by him, unlike Brick, who gets Big Daddy's affection even when Brick is ruining his life. Gooper and Mae want control of Big Daddy's estate, and do everything in their power to sully Big Daddy's image of Brick, and to highlight the marital strife and hatred between Brick and Maggie, and the fact they are childless, which Big Daddy regrets most of all.

The cast isn't as good as the '58 version with Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives, Jack Carson, Judith Anderson, and Madeline Sherwood. But the film highlights the homosexual undertones of Williams' original play, which could not be delved into because of the sanitary codes of the 50s. And really, it's hard to top Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor at the top of their games, and added to that are Ives and Sherwood, who recreate their roles from the hit Broadway play.

Wood makes for an excellent Maggie, despite her age. Much better than Jessica Lange's characterization, which for the most part was shrill, even when trying to be seductive. Maggie is high-strung, that's for sure, living with a man who sets guidelines for their staying married, refuses to sleep with her, and resents her fully. But Wood finds the right balance between tension and seductiveness.

Wagner is a bit miscast as Brick. He doesn't look the part. Brick is an athletic god. Maggie laments the fact he hasn't lost his looks yet, in spite of the alcohol. That's just not Wagner. He's a good-looking guy still, he's just not the magnetic image Brick is supposed to be. I like Robert Wagner in other things, this just isn't a role he's physically fit for. Also, his acting in the first act is off. He's very hateful towards Maggie. That works when she talks about Skipper, but shouldn't be the undertone of the entire act. He's more indifferent to Maggie than anything, until she rubs the Skipper wound raw, at least in Williams' play. Later on though, Wagner grows in the role, and is much better in the second act, when talking to Big Daddy, and the third, when the revelation Big Daddy is drying and the vultures trying to take the estate start circling.

As Daddy, Olivier fares much better. His southern accent is good, his acting is good, and he's light years ahead of Rip Torn in the aforementioned remake with Lange, who was apparently directed to play Big Daddy as drunk and senile. Big Daddy is a powerful man, you're supposed to be awed in his presence, and while I like Rip Torn, he just wasn't it. Olivier strikes the balance of awe and desperation, wanting to leave everything to Brick, but unable to reconcile the fact that he'd be leaving a 10 million dollar estate to a childless drunk who would simply use the money to buy alcohol and further run himself into the ground.

Maureen Stapleton also excels as Big Mama, easily the most pitiful character in the film. She loves and dotes on Big Daddy, despite his open resentfulness of her, and his affinity for insults, which she tries to love, in spite of the fact it hurts. She really shines in act three, which is her pivotal scene in the play.

Also, Hedley and Peach are good in their lesser roles of Gooper and Mae, They're not heavily dimensional, serving mainly as antagonists to drive the other characters to get through to Brick, but they play well what they're given.

It's not the best of the films, that goes to the '58 version, in spite of it's upbeat ending and skirting around of the homosexual undertones in the original play, but it's the better of the two straight play adaptations, in spite of some miscasting on Robert Wagner's part, though he does OK in the role. Ultimately, this is a dysfunctional day in the lives of very dysfunctional people, and overall, it delivers.

I give it a 7/10

That the actors are talented is undeniable. Perhaps they just didn't have time to get it right. But there is nothing about the accents or the pacing which comes across as authentic to me. Where is the heat and humidity of a Mississippi summer? I appreciate what they were trying to do, but nothing rings true to me. It is unfortunate that the Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives version was so constrained by the censors. They had a feeling for the environment which is not engendered in this version. Whether it was a lack of rehearsal time or a lack of vision on the part of the director I have no idea.