Birthday of the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
On August 23, 1958 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the premiere of Richard Brooks' film "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", based on the play by one of the most famous American playwrights of Tennessee Williams, took place. The play was extremely popular in America, as evidenced by the award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1955.
Three years before the premiere of the film, this play of Williams was staged by Elia Kazan on the stage of the Broadway Morosco Theater in New York. The production was a huge success with both the public and theater critics. As a result, in the future this play was staged in many theaters, both from the USA and in Europe. And even in the Soviet Union.
Tennessee Williams was very negative about the adaptation of his play by Richard Brooks. To the people queuing up for tickets for the film, he told that the film was throwing back the film industry for 50 years ago. However, almost everyone understood that Williams' irritation was caused by the fact that Brooks removed from the script the slightest hints of homosexual overtones contained in the play. Meanwhile, a kind of love triangle between "Maggie Cat", her husband Brick and his "dear friend" Skipper, who committed suicide, forms the core of the play.
This reason for dissatisfaction with the film adaptation on the part of the author of the play is actually voiced in the review of the famous Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefyodov, who at the same time suggests that "Kazan, who staged the production on Broadway, would not compromise (with the censors - FG), no matter how much he was given for cooperation with the Commission on Un-American Activities."
Yes, many assumed that Elia Kazan, whose production of the play in the theater was extremely popular, would direct the adaptation. But he refused, explaining his refusal by the fact that by that time he had already filmed two plays by Tennessee Williams - "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) and "Baby Doll" (1956) - and did not want the public to begin to perceive him purely as "co-author" of Williams. It is difficult to say how sincere Elia Kazan was, in this way explaining his refusal. But George Cukor, a famous gay, quite openly explained his refusal to shoot a film according to an emasculated script precisely because of the demands of the MGM film company to remove this homosexual subtext.
However, the film company MGM and Richard Brooks are quite understandable: after all, in American cinema from the mid-30s to the mid-60s, the so-called The Hayes Code acted which was a set of rules strongly reminiscent of our modern Russian laws on the prohibition of homosexual propaganda and the protection of the rights of believers taken together.
It is difficult to say for what reasons, but many famous and popular actors at that time, including Elvis Presley, Montgomery Clift and even Ben Gazzara, who played this role in the Broadway production, refused offers to play the role of Brick in the film. But with regard to the main female role - "Maggie Cats" - the situation was completely opposite. Many stars, including Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe, have applied for the role. And the role went to Elizabeth Taylor.
Perhaps, it was because of the fierce competition that Elizabeth Taylor did not allow herself to interrupt her participation in the filming for a day, even when her husband Mike Todd (the third in a row at that time) died in a plane crash. In no case can such behavior be explained by some insensibility of the Actress. On the contrary, the death of her husband had such an effect on her that she began to stutter. And only the need to pronounce her lines in a role with a southern accent forced Taylor to carefully control her speech and, thanks to this, avoid stuttering.
At the beginning of 1959, the film "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" received 2 nominations for the American Golden Globe Award, moreover, in the most important categories: Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Director. But in both nominations, Richard Brooks' film lost. As the Best Motion Picture - Drama to Stanley Kramer's "The Defiant Ones", as the Best Director Richard Brooks lost to Vincente Minnelli, director of "Gigi".
Later, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" received 6 Academy Award nominations. But had got none. In the most important nominations - Best Picture and Best Director - the American Film Academy again gave preference to the film "Gigi" and to the director of this film. In my opinion, the preference given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to Stanley Kramer's film is quite justified and understandable. But the preference given by the American Film Academy to the film "Gigi" (Do you remember this film? Did you like it?) is difficult to explain by artistic and creative reasons alone.
In the same 1959 the film "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" received 3 nominations for the British BAFTA Award, including the most important category - Best Film from any Source. But British film academics awarded their prize to the British film "Room at the Top" directed by Jack Clayton. And this despite the fact that the same film was awarded this award in the Best British Film nomination. However, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was in more than worthy company. Likewise, there were no awards for: "Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria)" by Federico Fellini, "Летят журавли (The Cranes Are Flying)" by Mikhail Kalatozov, "Smultronstallet (Wild Strawberries)" by Ingmar Bergman, "Ôporajito অপরাজিত (The Unvanquished)" by Satyajit Raj and others. Well, tell me that this is not xenophobia-light.
As mentioned above, Tennessee Williams' play was staged in the Soviet Union as well. True, it would be more correct to say that not the original of the play, but its version, brought in accordance with the requirements of the American "Hayes Code". The Williams' play was first staged at the Moscow Art Theater in 1976, then by Andrei Goncharov at the Mayakovsky Theater, and then the production of Goncharov was transferred to the TV screen in 1989. Perhaps, due to the fact that Williams' play "reached" a wide range of Soviet television viewers already at the end of perestroika, when true lovers of theater and film classics in the USSR already got the opportunity to get acquainted with the best works of world cinema thanks to VHS, the impression of the television movie was a little lower than from a Richard Brooks' movie. Or maybe this is due to the fact that the TV version took place already when the first performer of the role of "Cat-Maggie", the incomparable Tatyana Doronina, left the Mayakovsky Theater and was replaced by Alla Balter.
71% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" ratings from 8 to 10. Taking this into account and the above, the rating of Richard Brooks' film "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by FilmGourmand was 8,201, making it 471st in the Golden Thousand.
