Baby Doll

When Karl Malden died last week at age 97, most obituaries mentioned his tenure on the 1970s cop drama The Streets of San Francisco, or his many commercials for American Express. His most famous film work was done in the 1950s, in films directed by Elia Kazan. He won an Oscar for A Streetcar Named Desire, and he was memorable as the crusading Father Berry in On the Waterfront. But the third film he made for Kazan in the 50s is less well known, perhaps because the film was actually pulled from theaters after being condemned by several quarters.

That film is Baby Doll, which is a strange and feverish picture no matter what the era. It was written by Tennessee Williams (based on his play 27 Wagon Loads of Cotton) and was an overcooked Southern gothic that is also frankly sexual.

Malden plays the middle-aged owner of a cotton gin in Mississippi who is at wit's end. Not only has he seen most of his business go to a rival, a Sicilian immigrant (Eli Wallach), but he's also dealing with his much younger wife, who is the title character (Carroll Baker). It seems that she married him to please her father, but was only eighteen years old, so she and Malden made a deal that she would be "ready for marriage" on her twentieth birthday. That day is only a few days away at the start of the picture, and Malden no doubt is sporting a magnificent set of blueballs and has taken to spying on his wife through a hole in the wall as she sleeps.

As he spies on her, we get our first image of Baby Doll--sleeping in a crib with the slats down, sucking on her thumb, and wearing a nightie (that would later be called a babydoll nightie). It's a stunningly erotic image for 1956. Though Baker's Baby Doll is a sexualized image, she's determined not to bed down with Malden, especially after all of their furniture is repossessed for non-payment.

Malden sets out to fix his problem with Wallach by burning down the Sicilian's gin. Wallach suspects Malden is the man who did it, and comes to call. He sees the tension between Malden and Baker, and while Malden is away Wallach exacts his revenge by seducing Baker. Much of the film is taken up with Wallach and Baker playing a kind of game through the old dilapidated house she lives in. There's one scene in particular that earned the ire of the Catholic Church--Baker and Wallach share a glider swing, and the scene is shot in tight closeup, which means we can't see what Wallach is doing with his hands.

The film, which was released right before Christmas in 1956, was denounced from the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral by Cardinal Spellman, as well as by Time Magazine, which called it pornographic. I imagine it was quite an eye-opener for its time, and still packs a certain wallop, but it's also so odd that it doesn't quite hold together. It did earn quite a few Oscar nominations, including one for Baker, Williams, and Mildred Dunnock, who plays Baker's dotty old aunt.