Diagonaldi Very well executed

Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

ragpap93 Censorship or not it was okay. If they remove the homosexual theme today it would not have been received well. So if we ignore that for a second it is like one of those movies in real time where the scale is 1 minute in the movie equals 1 minute in the real world. At first you are aware that Brick's relationship with his wife is strained and the same goes to his relationship with his father. His father is dying and all family members have gathered like vultures. Brick's brother and family were shameless at it. If you hate the antagonists then its good acting. If you love the good guys despite their faults because they are relatable and seem human its a good plot and script. Bring back what we ignored and add whitewashing to its list of crimes then its just sad. If you can look past that then good for you.

Blueghost I kept seeing the beginning and ending of this film throughout the 70s on the weekend afternoon movie (Saturday or Sunday), and it was one of those "boring adult movies" about stuff that only adults care about.And then when I finally saw all of it when I was in college, I still didn't like it a whole lot. Newman's character poking fun at Taylor's bragging about places she's never been, and Newman getting called out on his short comings, all makes for an interesting character analysis if you're into that sort of thing.I guess the thing I find frustrating about so called classic films is that there's a lot of social taboos that people want to tiptoe around. Me, I just didn't get what the heck these people were hung up about. Apparently the lead characters liked one another but couldn't come to terms with their character flaws. The best I, as a casual viewer, can comment is say; "Oh well.", then change the channel and hope that Star Trek or something with a little more action or brain power was on.And no matter how well a film is acted or shot, if the story material is taboo and yet still vapid (or vice versa) I just don't let it register. I think of all the films that danced around sex in all forms, love in all forms, and whatever else, or even a failing marriage, money and lawyers, and I think to myself "Are these people for real?" And that's kind of the sense I get with this film. It needed an alien invasion, a dog fight, and a few more action sequences to spice it up. With apologies to Tennessee Williams, I think writing about hidden taboos and acts thereof is absolutely the dumbest thing in the world. People make up social codes, and seeing Taylor and Newman navigate their way around them to get to the core of what they want is a real bother and bore.I felt like jumping in, slapping a pair of handcuffs on both, and shipping them off on a two month cruise. But that's just me.Well shot, made for a late 50s early 60s audience, when the nation was grappling with sex and race as hot domestic social issues, it gives a window into what the film industry was addressing as a placebo to keep people from throttling one another. Otherwise I'd pass it up. There are better films out there.Watch at your own risk.

maxastree A classic film in terms of star power, and the flawless craft that went into it, but nowhere near as shocking, poetic or memorable as the earlier B&W Tennessee Williams adaptation A Streetcar Named Desire.Essentially, this film is a glitzy, upmarket rewriting of that films central themes and tropes, except focusing on a genteel family of well-to-do Americans; their family headed by a plutocrat of sorts, diagnosed with cancer, with his family of dysfunctional, permanently arguing offspring and in-laws bitching at each other over who will get his house, land and business interests after death.The film does achieve a kind of black comic tone during numerous scenes where Big Daddy essentially thinks his health is fine, but doesn't know the real diagnosis, and of course Elizabeth Taylor looks stunning, always lit and dressed perfectly, and occasionally shot with a soft focus lens that would look out of place nowadays, but isn't as disjunctive as the overcooked soft focus you'd see on, say, an early Star Trek episode.This movie is OVERRATED. I don't mean that in a bad way, the writing is great, the characterization and catharsis among the troubled offspring verges on a type of pop-psychoanalysis. The movies main problem is that is makes very heavy going of 'taboo' subjects like sex, alcoholism and repressed familial hatreds, that supposedly decent people "just didn't talk about" in the 1950s. The actors often seem to be shouting their emotions at the audience, not at each other, and the sheer volume of endless arguing and accusations among the hateful, greedy family members feels like an endless fever pitch where the director wants a big emotional forte every five minutes, practically like clockwork.As I mentioned above, the films essentially a recasting of Streetcar, but in a different setting, and numerous commentaries suggesting that Williams own dysfunctional, miserable family are projected in his writing work are quite obvious. Ultimately, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a good movie, but only if you haven't seen the earlier (and better) movie A Streetcar Named Desire. Lastly, the tone and personal drama approach of the film seems to have hit a commercial formula for popular drama that gets re-written and replayed practically every year, showered with awards no doubt, as pretend family members shout, emote and deliver extensive monologues baring witness to their inner lives, in a very, very direct and obvious manner. Good entertainment, but a bit middlebrow, too.

JohnHowardReid I tend to be a bit suspicious of pictures that came to our shores after a great deal of overseas pre-release ballyhoo. True, movies like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" did take in a wonderful amount of money, but usually not enough to match their domestic gross or land them in our top twenty. Word-of-mouth usually turned against these movies too. Whilst they often chalked up respectable city seasons, they usually died in the suburbs and ended up playing to empty houses in rural areas. My latest estimate: Boring. A few sexual references may have titillated patrons in 1959, but they certainly don't keep this dreary, photographed-stage-play alive more than fifty years later. Despite sterling efforts by most of the players, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" emerges as a dull, slow-moving picture, peopled with dull, painstakingly torpid caricatures mouthing dull, tediously uninteresting dialogue. We don't care a hoot why Newman isn't shacking up with Taylor. She's such a relentlessly brow-beating, yakkety-yakking shrew, we don't blame him for taking refuge in the bottle.The photographer tries hard to make Liz look glamorous, but he has his work cut out for him. Brooks' relentlessly routine direction with its monotonous parade of gormless close-ups doesn't help either. Nor do the very limited production values perk up any interest. Except for a few minutes of location filming, this picture is unadventurously tied to the Hollywood sound stage. The movie's theatre origins are also all too obvious. And then, to add insult to injury, what M-G-M has done is to take the guts right out of it. Symbolism is used with all the subtlety of a meat cleaver. Music is no asset either. The composer missed a grand opportunity to send the whole thing up by playing "That Old Feeling" under Taylor's constant whinges and "Ida" under Anderson's melodramatics.Finally, the ending. After Newman's endless talk of the sins of "mendacity" (don't worry, the word is defined for the benefit of those picturegoers who are not walking dictionaries), this ridiculous, negating-everything-that-has-gone-before-cop-out of a conclusion really puts the lid on this Cat.