The film of the week this time is BABY DOLL.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048973/

Elia Kazan is a fascinating director. Hollywood seems to have mixed feelings about him due to how he sold out many people in the entertainment industry during the red scare. Many talented people were blacklisted because of him, so naturally I can see why some would not be very enthusiastic about watching his films. Baby Doll is one of his that doesn't get a lot of recognition. It was written by the great playwright Tennessee Williams and it's was pretty out there for it's time. That is one of the aspects of Kazan's films that makes them stand out. Many of them were very ahead of their time or they used actors who were either not very well known or were mostly known for playing a certain kind of character. Baby Doll is about about a frustrated older man Archie Lee living in a crumbling Southern plantation. He manages to trick an old man into letting him marry his teenage daughter Baby Doll. She doesn't want him to touch her until she turns 20 and he promises to bring the plantation back to it's former splendor.

One day he burns down his competitor Silva Vaccaro's Cotton Gin and Silva comes to the plantation soon after looking for answers and see's her. This is a film about sexual repression, which got it a lot of bad press and controversy when it came out. It was Eli Wallach's film debut as Silva and he is brilliant. We hate him but he is also oddly compelling. Carrol Baker plays baby doll and she radiates innocence. Apparently Marylin Monroe was meant to play her role, but Kazan wanted a newcomer. We really feel for her as she is constantly surrounded by horrible men and her situation gets more and more desperate. This is actually more of a dark comedy that gets very goofy at times to be honest, which is good because it wouldn't really work as a drama.