Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

A formaldehyded tabby that sits static while layer after layer of its skin is peeled off, life after life of its nine lives unsentimentally destroyed.

An intense, important motion picture.

Burl Ives and Judith Anderson are highly entertaining as the nightmare parents, Big Daddy and Big Mama, and Jack Carson has one of his last good roles as Newman's competitive older brother.

As so often with adaptations of Williams, it frequently errs on the side of overstatement and pretension, but still remains immensely enjoyable as a piece of cod-Freudian codswallop.

What a pack of trashy people these accomplished actors perform!

...like watching a melodrama in a sauna. It's just too much.

Classics-loving teens will appreciate family melodrama.

It is a fine piece of acting by Paul Newman, the Southern gentlemen portraying his fragile and haunted character with an unparalleled amount of soul, which he had imbedded in many of his characters.

The performances are the thing in this film version of the Tennessee Williams stage triumph, led by Ives, repeating his stage role like a force of nature.

Director Brooks skilfully elicits the best from his performers and script with the result that there were Oscars nominations for all concerned.

Richard Brooks' screen version of Tennessee Williams' play is compromised (no mention of homosexuality), but it's well directed and deftly acted by Paul Newman and Liz Taylor, both at their sexiest.