“A droll and engrossing carnal comedy. . . . Kazan does some of his finest work here.” Pauline Kael

Tiger Tail, a dilapidated antebellum manor, is the fitting site for Tennessee Williams's menagerie à trois, deemed “salacious” by the Catholic National Legion of Decency. The featured threesome are Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden), a bigoted, cotton gin operator; his wife, Baby Doll Meighan (Carroll Baker), a vacuous nineteen-year-old vamp; and Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach), a Sicilian émigré and Archie's archrival. Draped in her trademark nighties (which became a midfifties rage), Baby Doll sleeps alone in a crib because she can't cotton to commingle with her soused spouse. When the rivalry between gin operators becomes heated, smooth-talking Silva tries to move in on Archie's bit of cotton candy. Shot on location in Benoit, Mississippi, director Elia Kazan focuses his Northern eyes on the Deep South-the rampant xenophobia, the disenfranchised farm laborers, the “colored only” water fountains, the endemic illiteracy. When the furniture from Archie's mansion is repossessed, it's as though cotton culture itself has been living on borrowed time. “Tiger Tail” stands empty save for sulky Baby Doll who declares, “we got nothin' to do but wait for tomorrow and see if we're remembered or forgotten.”