Baby Doll (1956, Elia Kazan) (Patreon)

62/100

Second viewing, last seen 1995. All that I really remembered were the title character's infantilized aspects—her nickname, obviously, but also that she's introduced sleeping in a crib and sucking her thumb, then spends most of the movie being terrorized(/seduced) by much older men. Baker's performance turns out to be a good deal wilier than such over-the-top trappings would suggest, though it's not entirely clear to me whether she's interpreting Baby Doll as written or imposing her own force of will upon the role. Probably the former, but revisiting A Streetcar Named Desire not long ago did this film no favors—that's just a much stronger text, built upon heartbreakingly recognizable emotional fragility. And Kazan's direction is accordingly more robust, such that this film feels considerably stagier to me than that one, even though both are fundamentally single-set affairs. (Baby Doll does benefit from being shot at an actual 19th-century plantation house, of which Kazan takes full advantage. But no composition in particular wowed me.) The extent to which this whole conflict is simply a business feud gone savage—it's kind of the same basic narrative as Tin Men, now that I think about it, though I haven't seen Levinson's film in decades and their respective tones are certainly very distinct—makes its psychological aspects seem retroactively paltry, at least compared to Blanche and Stanley and Stella's near-operatic turmoil. That's the danger of attempting to recapture lightning in a bottle: You're directly inviting comparisons that are damn hard to live up to. 

Still, there's no shame in making a solidly good movie rather than a near-great one. The heart of Baby Doll is its lengthy mid-film Baker-Wallach duet—apart from a couple of brief interludes, it's just the two of them for 45 straight minutes, with Vacarro scheming to get an affidavit signed but also, even as he's overtly abusive, showing Baby Doll more respect and consideration and kindness than she's accustomed to, causing her to fall for him. That's an incredibly tricky balancing act, made all the more astounding when you consider that it's being executed here by two actors with little or (in Wallach's case) no experience with big-screen acting. (Admittedly, Wallach had already won a Tony by this point—for a Williams play, in fact, The Rose Tattoo—and appeared on television a bunch of times, but movies are quite a different animal.) It wouldn't be accurate to say that the power dynamic keeps shifting, as Vacarro remains consistently in control, but Baby Doll parries enough of his attacks, and ignores enough of his feints (I honestly don't even understand what he seeks to accomplish by sneaking in and doing poltergeist-y stuff), to keep the match arresting and the outcome uncertain. Malden's significantly less impressive to me, as he usually is (speaking of how stage acting doesn't always translate well to the screen, though AMPAS voters clearly disagreed with me)—overly inclined to pop his eyes and bellow, devoid of any subtlety. But Archie's over-the-top, sweaty awfulness does provide necessary scaffolding for what happens between the other two, with Baby Doll's naïve hope for deliverance via asshole reminding me of the sad eulogy that Susie delivers for Junior at the end of Miami Blues: "He always ate everything I ever cooked for him. And he never hit me." The tyranny of a life that's engendered rock-bottom expectations. 

Kind of remarkable: All three principals lived to be at least 92, Baker's age as I write this. Malden died at 97, Wallach at 98. What's the opposite of a curse? 

Also, Baby Doll was another notable actor's movie debut, and I did not recognize him at all. Not even in a "that guy looks vaguely familiar" sort of way. Once alerted, the eyes (and eyebrows) were unmistakable, but his voice was so radically different at that age that he seems like an entirely different person. It's much easier to ID him in a still photo.