Product Description Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman star in this classic drama based on Tennessee Williams' play. The film follows events which transpire one long, hot Southern evening when the family of plantation patriarch Big Daddy (Burl Ives) gathers in Mississippi to celebrate his 65th birthday, despite his ailing health. Both of the big man's sons are there for the party, but only one of them - lawyer Gooper (Jack Carson) - is keen to inherit the family fortune; the other, Brick (Newman), a former high school athlete who now drinks constantly and refuses to sleep with his wife Maggie (Taylor), couldn't care less. Nevertheless, Maggie would like to see some of the money, believing that it might offer some recompense for the coldness of her marriage, and Big Mama (Judith Anderson), the boys' mother, has always favoured Brick out of the two. As the night wears on, the temperature rises, skeletons emerge from closets, and the family tensions get closer and closer to breaking point. From Amazon.co.uk Cat on a Hot Tin Roof offers a smouldering, angry Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie, the feline in question. Paul Newman is her ex-athlete husband, Brick Pollitt, an alcoholic who frustrates and disappoints his wife and his overbearing father, Burl Ives, the vulgar patriarch of this positively Gothic Southern family whose children return to the nest like vultures when they learn he is dying of cancer. Infidelities, addictions, latent homosexuality, depression, unrequited love and mendacity are woven into this powerful adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Though it was somewhat whitewashed by Hollywood, the sentiment remains powerful due to the provocative performances. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor and Actress for Newman and Taylor. -- Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com Synopsis Thrilling performances by Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, and Burl Ives make this adaptation of Tennessee Williams story about a wealthy plantation owner succumbing to cancer, one of the most acclaimed movies in history.

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