84
Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe New York TimesBosley CrowtherBurl 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!
- 100Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenTennessee 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.
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineThe 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.
- 90Village VoiceVillage VoiceThe 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.
- 90Time OutTime OutAs 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.
- 80In his four earlier films, Williams seemed to need a warmup of two backward steps before he could take one step forward, but at least the movement was visible and real. This time, Adapter-Director Richard Brooks has been able to put very little motion in his motion picture. His Cat is a formaldehyded tabby that sits static while layer after layer of its skin is peeled off, life after life of its nine lives unsentimentally destroyed. But in Williams, Brooks has a rare playwright who can make his static electric, and a blinkered grope toward the past as suspenseful as a headlong crash into the future.
- 60Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrThe material has been bowdlerized to the point of abstraction, which makes Richard Brooks's sweaty, emphatic direction look a little silly—there just isn't that much to get worked up about. But Burl Ives and Judith Anderson are highly entertaining as the nightmare parents, Big Daddy and Big Mama, and Jack Carson has one of his last good roles as Newman's competitive older brother.
- 50LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenLarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenThe performances are sweltering...This isn’t a good thing. Yes, it’s fitting for the setting – a humid, suffocating Louisiana mansion where the family of an ailing tycoon (Burl Ives) connives to inherit his fortune – but the overall result is like watching a melodrama in a sauna. It’s just too much.