Baby Doll by Tennessee Williams

"We got nothing to do but wait for tomorrow. And see if… we're remembered or forgotten". 
                     --Baby Doll (Carroll Baker), in the film, Baby Doll

Tennessee Williams' movie, "Baby Doll" first portrays the main character Baby Doll, as a child-like bimbo who is using her husband Archie Lee by not letting him have sex with her, even though they are married. Archie Lee made a promise to Baby Doll's father before the marriage that he would wait until she was 'ready'. Now deceased, Baby Doll's father can no longer protect her from her own promise that she wait until she's twenty-years-old before consummating her marriage, as her twentieth birthday draws near in a matter of days. 

It turns out, Baby Doll's husband is a lot older than she is, a much older man who 'wooed' her and promised her father to take care of her, by putting her in a famous mansion. The story takes place in the south, so the question of a much older man marrying a young girl is never questioned, just taken for granted. Famous mansion turns out to be a run-down barely-standing mess, next to a bankrupt cotton gin that's in danger of closing. 

The story is immediately rife with tension. A husband who lusts after his young wife yet never consummates the marriage. A young bride who obviously has no attraction to the old husband and constantly berates him, makes fun of him and complains all the time. Tennessee Williams sets up a good trap. Yet there's more as a stranger enters the plot, to seduce Baby Doll, and is in turn seduced by her. The foreign stranger, Silva, is a rival, not just in love but in business, as his cotton gin rivals that of Archie Lee--thus setting up more tension.

Baby Doll, the movie, is surprisingly funny and makes fun of all the character's foibles, which there are quite a few. Baby Doll (Carroll Baker) is seen as a spoiled brat with no education whose only asset in life is her good looks and girl-like charm with a voice that is oddly womanlike. Archie Lee (Karl Malden) is an old pro-white southern fool, like a cuckold, that the whole town makes fun of. Silva (Eli Wallach), is a Sicilian foreigner who has made a lot of money taking the cotton gin business away from other people yet suffers constant derision due to the fact that he's a 'stranger' (Italians were looked down upon and called a wop, a derisive term). The time takes place in the south when Franklin Delano Roosevelt is President and there is still segregation. (Baby Doll was filmed in 1956, not long after a fourteen-year-old black boy was lynched for whistling at a white woman). 

It's hard to describe who is in the wrong in this story, when all of them can be seen in a negative light. What is surprising is that in the end, there's no real conclusion yet the audience can tell that these characters have been changed--given a whole new outlook that may change their formerly selfish personalities.

Baby Doll is left at the end, to fend for herself, as the two men who were seen fighting for her are gone. She is left alone with her Aunt, who is in a way already gone, due to her deteriorating mind. It is at the end of this story that Baby Doll finally grows into womanhood and says something absolutely opposite of her former character, something very profound and surprisingly deep--one of those insightful views on life that Tennessee Williams manages to sneak into his character's speech. 

"We got nothing to do but wait for tomorrow. And see if… we're remembered or forgotten". --Baby Doll

Although I don't think Tennessee Williams was ever a feminist, those words echo the life of women in any age. It may be that in this story, Baby Doll is only desired because she is a child-like creature with no education but full of girlish seduction. The character, Baby Doll, says to Silva of all the times she's been with boys--that she finds them childish, as an excuse as to why she married a much older man. Would Baby Doll be desired as much if she had been an older woman? A woman with children, and possibly educated? The answer is most likely not. There would be no titillation, no forbidden desire, no trespass. Silva runs his risk of taking Baby Doll away from Archie Lee, something that was never his to begin with, his child-like bride. But perhaps for Silva, the game would be over once he has had his prize, Baby Doll. 

It was thought in 1956, that the character Silva actually slept with Baby Doll. However, due to the obvious storyline, it would seem he did not. Since Baby Doll has been denied reaching womanhood, the only question is, will she try to be a real wife to her husband Archie Lee, or leave him? The story never answers this. Baby Doll is left alone, no longer an object of attraction, but left alone with her Aunt, a person who may resemble her future self--an old, childless, crone who has gone out of her mind and is in danger of being thrown out of the house.

There's no question that Baby Doll starts off as a spoiled brat, someone uneducated, who can't fend for herself. She talks of her Daddy a lot, in a sense using him as a shield and one who protected her and fawned over her until he died. Now with Archie Lee, she senses she has lost her former protector and uses the only weapon she has left, her body and wit, to keep Archie Lee at bay. Baby Doll is as helpless as her given name and seems to be trapped indefinitely in the role of a Baby Doll. 

Then along comes a stranger, someone who may offer her a way out, and someone definitely more attractive. He seduces her, something she has never experienced and she tries to play hard-to-get but fails miserably. Alas, Silva's goal is not to get her to bed, but to get her to sign as a witness that Archie burned down his cotton gin. Silva is not there to rescue her, he is only using her and she has no clue. Archie is later taken to jail at midnight, after trying to shoot Silva, thus unable to consummate their marriage. In the end Silva is gone. 

It's a mistake to think this film is similar to Lolita, when it can't compare to the complexity of the characters or honesty of the time. Baby Doll makes no apologies for its story, no main character dies or is really punished for what they have done. Even though the film was nearly pushed into obscurity due to the censorship of that era and by the Catholic church, four Academy Awards were nominated--1956 Nominations: Best Actress (Baker), Director (Kazan), Screenplay/Adapted (Williams), and B&W Cinematography (Boris Kaufman). Both Carroll Baker (Baby Doll) and Kazan (Elia Kazan, Director) earned Golden Globes, and Eli Wallach (Silva) received a British Academy Award. 

The only bad part of this film is that it's in black and white and that it sounds a bit silly when Silva is talking to Baby Doll about her blue clothes--when the audience clearly can't see any color. There is bad dubbing in some of the speech and you can tell the sound has been added afterward. 

Also, the scenes of sexuality were a bit harsh, not because of their blatant show of passion but because of Silva's rough handling of Baby Doll, as he 'caresses' her neck with his fingers wrapped around her and flicking at her with his riding crop as she goes into the house. There's also a scene where they play hide-and-go-seek, where he catches her and pins her with his foot on her stomach. It's nothing too violent but it does seem there's something dark hiding underneath. 

Canadian Home Video rates the movie as PG while the American version seems to retain its original 1956 rating of R. Distributed by Warner Home Video Inc., a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. Castle Hill Productions is also mentioned. www.warnervideo.com