Critic Reviews
84
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
12(75%)
mixed
4(25%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 16 Critic Reviews
100
Burl Ives, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Judith Anderson, Jack Carson and two or three more almost work and yell themselves to pieces making this drama of strife within a new-rich Southern family a ferocious and fascinating show. And what a pack of trashy people these accomplished actors perform!
100
Tennessee Williams’ study of a crumbling Southern patriarchy is riveting stuff. Although the word homosexuality is never uttered, this Hollywood reworking brings a certain understanding of the son’s latent “immaturity” and his wife’s childlessness. Bolstered by extraordinary performances, this tale’s a summer sizzler.
100
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.
100
Strongly scripted and deliciously acted, full of riveting confrontations as the emotionally intense events unfold. Though a feline Elizabeth Taylor overplays her role, Paul Newman is excellent as her brooding husband, but it's Burl Ives as dying patriarch 'Big Daddy' who's the ultimate revelation. [13 Aug 2006, p.10]
100
A searing portrait of the human condition. [12 Oct 2007, p.B6]
91
The manipulative Maggie, irritated by the heat and by Gooper and Sister Woman’s ”no-neck monsters,” is among Taylor’s most accomplished creations and earned her a second Oscar nod; the performance has an inner coil in it, as if something were ready to spring at any second.
90
Taylor has a major credit with her portrayal of Maggie. The frustrations and desires, both as a person and a woman, the warmth and understanding she molds, the loveliness that is more than a well-turned nose – all these are part of a well-accented, perceptive interpretation.
90
The 1958 film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is not a good adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s play of the same name. But as a portrayal of the depths of loneliness we create for ourselves, and an example of the power of star performance, it’s a great film.
90
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.
90
An intense drama of 12 harrowing hours in the life of a voracious Southern family in conflict. [10 June 1990, p.4]
