Now this is acting! Fantastic!

1958's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof famously doesn't respect Tennessee Williams' play, but that hardly matters to me. Fact is, the text shines through anyway, and the characters exit the story with more grace as a result of its less cynical bent. I'd even call it poignant. And it's extremely well staged and acted. It's hard not to get drawn into Elizabeth Taylor's Maggie, wanting all the things the play tells her NOT to want, including kids even though she's attacked on all fronts by her sister-in-law's monstrous progeny. Or Paul Newman's Brick, a man used to leaning on crutches. Or Burl Ives' toxically funny Big Daddy, the dying manifestation of a prototypical "Decaying South", having laid his foundations on swamp land to prepare for an uncertain future. These three carry the film, but special mention goes Madeleine Sherwood's sycophantic gossip; you want to slap her, but that's how you know she's so good.

Wow! She was SO BEAUTIFUL!!