Giant (1956) - Stevens' great-looking Texas epic

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Three attractive super-stars top a blistering landscape on this poster for George Stevens' Giant

We meet a marriage in Texas between a woman and a man who owns a quarter of a million acres of land there. An unloving marriage, which also turns problematic when employee Jett inherits land with oil.

 

Giant is written by Fred Guiol (The Nitwits (1935)) and Ivan Moffat (Bhowani Junction (1956)), adapting the same-titled 1952 bestseller by Edna Ferber (Saratoga Trunk (1941)), and directed by Californian master filmmaker George Stevens (The All-American (1932)), whose 23rd feature it was.

Elizabeth Taylor (Malice in Wonderland (1985, TV movie)) and James Dean (Studio One in Hollywood (1952-53)) are incredibly beautiful in this huge epic, and they act well, but Giant is a film that drifts aimlessly and quietly forward, as decades pass in the story, and the actors get grey or bluish hair, and their aging process makes one wonder.

Giant is a bit about racism; a bit about alcoholism; a bit about marriage. - Potent topics that are nevertheless presented without great weight. The photography, by William C. Mellor (Back from Eternity (1956)) and the production are nevertheless breathtakingly gorgeous. Giant is not a bore. But it also is not particularly exciting.

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 5.4 mil. $

Box office: 35 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 6.48 times its cost)

[Giant premiered 10 October (New York) and runs 197 minutes. Ferber's novel was based on an actual Texas ranch and its owner, as well as an oil tycoon she had once met.  Taylor was paid 175k $ for her performance; Hudson 100k $; Dean 21k $. Shooting took place in Texas, Virginia, Arizona and California, including Los Angeles, from May - October 1955. Dean passed away in a racing accident before the film was released. Different reports say that the film made 12 mil. $ in rentals in North America, and a 14 mil. $ domestic gross, while a third source lists its domestic gross at 32.6 mil. $. The 35 mil. $ total may be incorrect, but seems to back up that the film was largely an American crowd phenomenon, though it did generate 3.7 mil. admissions in France, where it was the 9th biggest seller of the year. It was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning one for Best Director. It lost Best Actor (Rock Hudson (All that Heaven Allows (1955)) and Dean, (his second posthumous nomination) to Yul Brynner in The King and I, Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge (Medical Center (1970, TV-series)) to Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind, Art/Set Direction - color to The King and I, Costume Design - color to The King and I, Editing to Around the World in 80 Days, Drama/Comedy Score (Dmitri Tiomkin) to Victor Young for Around the World in 80 Days, Picture to Around the World in 80 Days, and Adapted Screenplay to James Poe, John Farrow and S.J. Perelman for Around the World in 80 Days. It won 1/3 Golden Globe nominations and a David di Donatello award, among other honors. The film was distributor Warner Bros. highest-grossing until Superman (1978); and it inspired Dallas (1978-91). Stevens returned with The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Taylor returned in Raintree County (1957); Hudson in Battle Hymn (1957); Dean in The Big Story (1953-57); Giant was his last theatrical performance. Giant is certified fresh at 95 % with a 7.76/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Giant?

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) - He's GAY, ya get it?!?...

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The seething poster for Richard Brooks' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

QUICK REVIEW:

Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke (1967)) plays the son Brick, who has indulged himself into a liquor-based pit as the family patriarch, Big Daddy (Burl Ives) returns home to his 65 year birthday and finds his family in a thick haze of mendacity.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the grand, condensed family-melodrama adaptation of Tennessee Williams' celebrated, Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play, which controversially deals with a homosexual protagonist trapped in an unhappy marriage. This has been toned down beneath the floorboards in this the movie version, which seems contrary to the point of the whole film, and is sad, even to the point where Williams, who was gay himself, told people in line not to go see the film. Newman also was disappointed with the make-over.
Nevertheless the film is a great, gorgeous, multi-Oscar-nominated work with some societal critique in its edges and bitingly sharp dialog. The drama is intense to the point of high-pitched unreality, but the performances are great and the subtext bulging, so the parts stick together into a still rousing indictment of hypocrisy in the American nuclear family.

Burl Ives in the front in this still from Richard Brooks' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

The thunder roars, while Brick's corrupted brother, led forward by his devious wife 'Sister Woman' Mae (Madeleine Sherwood (The Changeling (1980))), rips and claws in their mother for the inheritance of their perishing giant of a father. Much in the film would have seemed sentimental twaddle, if it hadn't been for Ives' masterly performance that could just as easily have won him the year's Oscar, - if he hadn't won it already, for his performance in William Wyler's equally great The Big Country.

Paul Newman at the bottle, and Elizabeth Taylor letting him have it, in Richard Brooks' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Elizabeth Taylor (Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf (1966)) is also very good as the doughty 'cat', who is hanging on by her claws onto the burning hot tin roof of a torn family and a man who isn't meant to be with her.
Taylor most probably had a terrible time shooting the film, as she first got sick and then lost her husband Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash a couple of weeks into shooting. Less than a month later, she was back on set like a real trooper.
The film is directed by Philadelphia-born movie-maker Richard Brooks (The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)).

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 2.3 mil. $
Box office: 11.2 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Ever seen a stage production of it?
Comparisons and other comments are welcomed