Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Director: Richard Brooks
Writer: Richard Brooks, James Poe
Based on: Tennessee Williams‘ play
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson, Judith Anderson, Madeleine Sherwood, Larry Gates, Vaughn Taylor
Seen on: 19.7.2025

Content Note: (mention of) suicide, homomisia

Plot:
Southern plantation patriarch Big Daddy (Burl Ives) is celebrating his birthday and the remission of his cancer, and his son Brick (Paul Newman) and his wife Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) are getting ready for the party. More or less. Brick has a broken leg and is drunk already. Maggie worries about Brick’s brother Gooper (Jack Carson) and his wife Mae (Madeleine Sherwood) who she believes are trying to cut them out of the estate. And that’s not the only tension in the family. And things aren’t exactly great between Brick and Maggie either.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has the perfect cast but it is definitely not the perfect version of the story, I’m afraid. Still, it is worth seeing for the performances.

It has been a while that I read the play, but there were some obvious changes made, especially in Brick’s backstory and his characterization. Where the original makes a pretty obvious point of Brick’s repressed queerness, almost every trace of that facet of the play was purged from the film (thank you, Hays Code, I guess). The film is also a lot less depressing than I remember the play being, with an ending that could be almost seen as somewhat happy. I am usually in favor of happy ends, but it felt forced here. It’s just not natural for Tennessee Williams.

Be that as it may, they couldn’t have found a better Brick and Maggie than Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. They really are fantastic, both separately and together. Watching them tearing into each other, trapped in this circle of hurting each other over and over again, is both heartbreaking and revealing.

The rest of the cast is also pretty good, with the movie and Madeleine Sherwood getting a lot of humor out of Mae, Gooper and their children that contributes to the relative feeling of lightness the film has compared to the play. Not that the play doesn’t have a sense of humor, it’s just not as present.

There is a certain theatricality to the film that can’t hide its stage origins, but it never feels incongruous. Brooks has a deft hand for placing his actors and then letting them do their thing, with long shots that stand out to a modern movie audience. I appreciated it, and really enjoyed the film overall.

Summarizing: not without issues but a good film nevertheless.