Tennessee Williams hit the mother-lode in this, the most cinematic of all his work. Director Elia Kazan literally goes to town (Benoit, Miss, that is) with brilliant found stuff, staggeringly well captured by lenser Boris Kaufman. Carroll Baker is the unsullied child bride who sucks her thumb & sleeps in a crib while hubby Karl Malden goes crazy watching as his home, his business & his virginal bride fall to usurping Sicilian/American Eli Wallach in his film debut. (Wallach may well have purloined Kazan’s own sexual modus operandi for his characterization.) The tone of the film is comically appalling and assured, a Southern Gothic Chekhov, though a bit of a mess toward the end. The use of local color and custom a constant delight. But would anyone allow those marvelous black characters on screen today?
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