Oh Elia. Elia, Elia, Elia.
This is Elia Kazan’s 1956 film Baby Doll written by Tennessee Williams (based on his short plays 27 Wagons Fulls of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short). The film stars* Carroll Baker as Baby Doll, a 19 year old girl married to the middle aged Archie Leigh Meighan, a cotton gin owner played by Karl Malden. In order to marry her, Archie Leigh promised Baby Doll’s now deceased father that she would remain a virgin until her 20th birthday (now two days away!). Baby Doll is utterly unexcited about the prospect of having to consummate her marriage with such a soggy excuse for a man and treats her husband with the utmost contempt. Crazed, sex starved, and broke, Archie Leigh sets fire to the gin of his main competitor in the cotton trade, Silva Vaccaro, a sicillian played by Eli Wallach. Vaccaro sets out for revenge and the delicious seduction of Baby Doll begins.
If you watch this movie late at night in the middle of summer, you will walk directly into a dream.
A hot, thick, wet, dream.
Your legs will become very heavy, you will throw off the sheets and open the window.
You will lean against the windowsill and look into the night. Look at the streetlight on the leaves on the oak tree. You will return to bed (your bare feet will be damp with sweat and they will stick to the wood floor).
You will lie on your back.
You will look at the ceiling.
You will be very, very, very horny.