DIRECTOR Richard Brooks
BOTTOM LINE: Written (with James Poe) and directed by Richard Brooks, this very respectable adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play opens with gay ex-athlete and football player Brick Pollitt (Paul Newman in his superstar breakthrough) pining and drinking in his bedroom for the memory of his best friend (read lover) and teammate Skipper, who has recently committed suicide. So, who can blame his wife Maggie (“the cat”), beautifully played by Elizabeth Taylor, who ain’t gettin’ any, when she says that she feels like the cat in the movie’s title? Meanwhile, downstairs, there is a party for Brick’s Daddy – that would be “Big Daddy” – played by Burl Ives in his most memorable movie role. With Judith Anderson as “Big Mamma,” Jack Carson as Brick’s brother, and Madeleine Sherwood as his awful wife and the mother of their five brats.
STREAMING: Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV
https://thebrownees.net/sixty-five-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1967
https://thebrownees.net/sixty-five-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1967-table-summary
https://thebrownees.net/fifty-two-post-hays-code-queer-films-released-in-the-decade-1967-1976
