As his family await patriarch Big Daddy's return from a clinic to celebrate his 65th birthday, Maggie wants her husband Brick but he has retreated into alcoholism, viewing her with disgust, still unsure of her involvement in his friend Skipper's suicide.
This unhappiness is exploited by Brick's older brother Gooper and his wife Mae in their attempt to become Big Daddy's successors.
Big Daddy and his wife Big Momma are told all is well but Gooper and Brick find out he is dying from inoperable cancer.
Brick refuses Maggie's pleas to get closer to Big Daddy and when they confront each other about Brick's drinking, he inadvertently reveals that his father is dying.
Ultimately it's Maggie who seizes her moment to triumph...
Shelf or charity shop? Currently residing in the limbo of my DVD plastic storage box, I will keep it to watch Elizabeth Taylor's wonderful performance as Maggie - even more pronounced against Paul Newman's sullen Brick - and Burl Ives' Academy Award-winning turn as Big Daddy, but will always shake my head over the eternal absurdity of what can be said on a stage cannot be said on the screen of the cinema next door. Also annoying is how in the last moments it is Newman's Brick who put's Maggie's plan into action, not her.
No comments:
Post a Comment