Overview

Baby Doll is a 1956 American dramatic black comedy film directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Carroll Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach. It was produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams. The plot focuses on a feud between two rival cotton gin owners in rural Mississippi; after one of the men commits arson against the other's gin, the owner retaliates by attempting to seduce the arsonist's nineteen-year-old virgin bride with the hopes of receiving an admission by her of her husband's guilt. Filmed in Mississippi in late 1955, Baby Doll was released in December 1956. It provoked significant controversy, largely due to its implied sexual themes. An effort to ban the film was carried out by the Roman Catholic National Legion of Decency, though responses to the church's condemnation of the film were varied among Catholic laity and other religious institutions. Despite moral objections to the film, it was largely well-received by critics, and earned numerous accolades: Kazan won the Golden Globe for Best Director and the film was nominated for four other Golden Globe awards, as well as four Academy Awards and four BAFTA Awards awards, with Wallach taking the BAFTA prize for Most Promising Newcomer. Culturally, the film has been credited with originating the name and popularity of the babydoll nightgown, which derives from the costume worn by Baker's character. Additionally, it has been named by film scholars as one of the most notorious films of the 1950s, and The New York Times included it in their Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. In the Mississippi Delta, failing, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin owner Archie Lee Meighan has been married to pretty, empty-headed 19-year-old virgin Baby Doll Meighan for two years. Archie Lee impatiently waits for Baby Doll's 20th birthday just a few days away when, by prior agreement with Baby Doll's dying father, the marriage can finally be consummated. In the meantime, Baby Doll sleeps in a crib, because the only other bedroom furniture her husband has in the house is the bed in which her husband Archie sleeps. The lack of furniture is due to Archie's poor financial state. Every single character in the film is in a poor financial state: It is a very realistic film regarding the destructive sociological consequences of having a whole community entrenched in poverty. She's also seen sucking her thumb while sleeping in the crib, as Archie, an alcoholic, spies on her through a hole in a wall of their decrepit antebellum mansion, Tiger Tail. Baby Doll's senile Aunt Rose Comfort lives in the house as well and is tormented by Archie Lee.

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