Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

[LuvOrlando]

I was sad to hear about Elizabeth Taylor passing away so I popped in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' (Netflix instant) and I am trying to figure out what is going on between Brick & Maggie. Brick is an ex star football player who is now a raging alcoholic. It's plain they no longer consummate the marriage and that is a constant tension, it doesn't help that the lack of children, heirs, makes this plain for the rest of the family to know too. At first I thought they might be alluding to the idea Brick is gay but Maggie talks about their former love life & when Brick slams the door he lingers over her nightgown longingly, so I don't think it fits. Brick mentions the fact they agreed to certain terms to stay together when she famously calls it "sharing a cage" Maggie also talked about an old back injury. What is it they are dancing around? Did Brick suffer an injury that makes him unable to perform and he won't talk about it so he drinks or does drinking do this? I'm still watching and kind of confused

Excellent movie though even if I don't get all the sub-text.

 

[happygirl]

I was sad to hear about Elizabeth Taylor passing away so I popped in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' and I am trying to figure out what is going on between Brick & Maggie. Brick is an ex star football player who is now a raging alcoholic. It's plain they no longer consummate the marriage and that is a constant tension, it doesn't help that the lack of children, heirs, makes this plain for the rest of the family to know too. At first I thought they might be alluding to the idea Brick is gay but Maggie talks about their former love life & when Brick slams the door he lingers over her nightgown longingly, so I don't think it fits. Brick mentions the fact they agreed to certain terms to stay together when she famously calls it "sharing a cage" Maggie also talked about an old back injury. What is it they are dancing around? Did Brick suffer an injury that makes him unable to perform and he won't talk about it so he drinks or does drinking do this? I'm still watching and kind of confused

Excellent movie though even if I don't get all the sub-text.

They aren't really dancing around anything, It more of daddy issues. It will get to it It's a great movie!!

 

[tar heel]

In the play, it's suggested that Brick was bi-sexual.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Ah-ha, so maybe Skipper was part of a 3-way marriage? Now that must have been hard to get past the censors of that time. No wonder there is so much allusion.

I'm having a hard time with the Daddy issues though, its all very muddy so far and very hard to decipher. So far 'Big Daddy' and the brother seem to be more metaphors for the 2 different world's Maggie can choose from than real life characters. She continuously moves between the 2 worlds but Brick does not.

Fascinating

 

[IdesOmarch]

No no no no, I'm an expert on this movie, there is a part that they talk about Maggie (Liz Taylor) cheating on Brick with his best friend from the football days, and that is the source of tension between him. He had apparently "cut her off" because of the cheating. He forgives her in the end and they start to .......try to have a baby. Its a pretty good old movie. It was a Broadway play before it was a movie I believe.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I'm still watching & just got to that part. I still think it was a 3 way marriage, but more of the sort Princess Diana had with Charles & Camilla. Still, the closeness of the 2 men, to the point it would crowd out the wife, is a bit suspect.

 

[tar heel]

Repressed homosexuality is at the center of the play on which the movie is based, a theme Tennessee Williams used a good bit. I *think* Skipper may have even slept with Maggie to prove to her that he was not gay.

 

[NotUrsula]

Repressed homosexuality is at the center of the play on which the movie is based, a theme Tennessee Williams used a good bit. I *think* Skipper may have even slept with Maggie to prove to her that he was not gay.

Yes, in the play Maggie had seduced Skipper in an effort to destroy the friendship; it is implied that that was part of why Skipper killed himself. Not so clear was whether he had done it in remorse over sleeping with his friend's wife, or in despair that he would lose Brick over it. (What you don't see in the film is that Brick was jealous, all right, but it was Skipper that he feared losing, not Maggie, and of course that is what happened. Among other things, Brick blames Maggie for Skipper's suicide.)

BTW, in the play there is no reconciliation at the end. Brick keeps drinking, still rejects Maggie and leaves her hanging out to dry about the imaginary baby.

 

[IdesOmarch]

Yes, in the play Maggie had seduced Skipper in an effort to destroy the friendship; it is implied that that was part of why Skipper killed himself. Not so clear was whether he had done it in remorse over sleeping with his friend's wife, or in despair that he would lose Brick over it. (What you don't see in the film is that Brick was jealous, all right, but it was Skipper that he feared losing, not Maggie, and of course that is what happened. Among other things, Brick blames Maggie for Skipper's suicide.)

BTW, in the play there is no reconciliation at the end. Brick keeps drinking, still rejects Maggie and leaves her hanging out to dry about the imaginary baby.

I agree with this, I don't know how the play went, but I didn't really catch on to any gay theme. I think it may be more was his best friend, maggie sleeps with him, he commits suicide, Brick blames Maggie for all of it kind of thing. I liked the old man's character the best. He was really famous and I forget his name.

 

[happygirl]

I don't get the gay vibe at all. I have seen the movie 100 times. I think the issues were between Rick and big daddy

 

[happygirl]

I agree with this, I don't know how the play went, but I didn't really catch on to any gay theme. I think it may be more was his best friend, maggie sleeps with him, he commits suicide, Brick blames Maggie for all of it kind of thing. I liked the old man's character the best. He was really famous and I forget his name.

Burl Ives is the dad he's great

 

[NotUrsula]

I agree with this, I don't know how the play went, but I didn't really catch on to any gay theme. I think it may be more was his best friend, maggie sleeps with him, he commits suicide, Brick blames Maggie for all of it kind of thing. I liked the old man's character the best. He was really famous and I forget his name.

Um, no; there definitely IS a gay theme; Skipper wanted Brick and tried to tell him so in the infamous pre-suicide telephone call; but Brick denied it all.

The play is quite explicit about accusations of "sodomy" between Brick and Skipper. It is also a plot point that Big Daddy acquired the plantation by inheriting it from the previous owners, a pair of "bachelors" named Straw and Ochello. Big Daddy had been hired on there as a hand as a young man and worked his way up to overseer, and his bosses left it to him when they died, and there is an implication in the cellar argument scene that part of the reason for that was that Big Daddy might have also been the lover of one or both of them at one time. In his original stage directions for the play, about the set of Maggie and Brick's bedroom, Williams wrote:

It hasn't changed much since it was occupied by the original owners of the place, Jack Straw and Peter Ochello, a pair of old bachelors who shared the room all their lives together. In other words, the room must evoke some ghosts; it is gently and poetically haunted by a relationship that must have involved a tenderness which was uncommon.

Because of the censorship rules in place in the late 1950's, the movie had to settle for implying a whole lot of things that the play said outright.

 

[happygirl]

Um, no; there definitely IS a gay theme; Skipper wanted Brick and tried to tell him so in the infamous pre-suicide telephone call; but Brick denied it all.

The play is quite explicit about accusations of "sodomy" between Brick and Skipper. It is also a plot point that Big Daddy acquired the plantation by inheriting it from the previous owners, a pair of "bachelors" named Straw and Ochello. Big Daddy had been hired on there as a hand as a young man and worked his way up to overseer, and his bosses left it to him when they died, and there is an implication in the cellar argument scene that part of the reason for that was that Big Daddy might have also been the lover of one or both of them at one time. In his original stage directions for the play, about the set of Maggie and Brick's bedroom, Williams wrote:

Are we still talking about the same movie? where after he goes and confronts big daddy about all the problems he's having. After that him and Maggie are okay and are trying to make things work. In my mind there is no gay reference at all

Because of the censorship rules in place in the late 1950's, the movie had to settle for implying a whole lot of things that the play said outright.

Are we still talking about the same movie? where after he goes and confronts big daddy about all the problems he's having. After that him and Maggie are okay and are trying to make things work. In my mind there is no gay reference at all

 

[LuvOrlando]

Oh there is definitely some unspoken tension going on there, the whole front end of the movie was very cryptic. Things just went in a totally different direction when Brick & his Dad met in the basement but I'll have to pick up & read the play itself to see whats what. I just realized I never saw the play and think it might have been handled just like with My Fair Lady vs Pygmalion, where lots of details were left out and the ending was changed to make things more palatable to a particular audience.

 

[NotUrsula]

Are we still talking about the same movie? where after he goes and confronts big daddy about all the problems he's having. After that him and Maggie are okay and are trying to make things work. In my mind there is no gay reference at all

I think that's probably because of your age (I'm guessing here, but it seems like you haven't actually read the play.)

The thing is, in 1958 just about any American who had ever read a magazine or newpaper had heard about the homosexual subject matter in COAHTR. The play was banned in a whole lot of places; it was very scandalous at the time. When the movie was new the audience pretty much all knew exactly what was being hinted at. Someone who was not yet old enough to understand the scandal at the time would only know the rest of the story if she had read the play.

 

[eliza61]

I didn't see that one. I'll put it on the cue. Op, have you watched "who's afraid of Virginia Wolf?" whooo baby. talk about drama!

 

[happygirl]

I think that's probably because of your age (I'm guessing here, but it seems like you haven't actually read the play.)

The thing is, in 1958 just about any American who had ever read a magazine or newpaper had heard about the homosexual subject matter in COAHTR. The play was banned in a whole lot of places; it was very scandalous at the time. When the movie was new the audience pretty much all knew exactly what was being hinted at. Someone who was not yet old enough to understand the scandal at the time would only know the rest of the story if she had read the play.

I'm mid 30's, I haven't seen the play, but I don't get that vibe from the movie. I guess each person sees things differently

 

[tar heel]

From AMC's filmsite.org:

Because of strict censorship Production Codes in the late 1950s at the height of Hollywood's concern about film content, all references to homosexuality and four-letter words were deleted, watered down, or obscured from the shocking, original play, and the ending was considerably changed from the original Tennessee Williams play.

 

[LuvOrlando]

WOW, the original MUST have been loaded because as it is the film is extremely heavy.

The first time we saw it was because one of my DH's teachers assigned it in an Alcoholism class in John Jay so we focused mainly on that aspect. This time around I see so much more and now that you guys have said all this I simply must find it & read it!

 

[IdesOmarch]

I think that's probably because of your age (I'm guessing here, but it seems like you haven't actually read the play.)

The thing is, in 1958 just about any American who had ever read a magazine or newpaper had heard about the homosexual subject matter in COAHTR. The play was banned in a whole lot of places; it was very scandalous at the time. When the movie was new the audience pretty much all knew exactly what was being hinted at. Someone who was not yet old enough to understand the scandal at the time would only know the rest of the story if she had read the play.

So you're saying bottom line that in the original play, Skipper and Brick were hooking up on the down low, back in the day say in the men's locker room? I guess it makes sense now that I think about it, since Brick and Skipper sound like 2 gay porn stars.