This is Elia Kazan’s 1956 film Baby Doll written by Tennessee Williams (based on his short plays 27 Wagons Fulls of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short). The film stars* Carroll Baker as Baby Doll, a 19 year old girl married to the middle aged Archie Leigh Meighan, a cotton gin owner played by Karl Malden. In order to marry her, Archie Leigh promised Baby Doll’s now deceased father that she would remain a virgin until her 20th birthday (now two days away!). Baby Doll is utterly unexcited about the prospect of having to consummate her marriage with such a soggy excuse for a man and treats her husband with the utmost contempt. Crazed, sex starved, and broke, Archie Leigh sets fire to the gin of his main competitor in the cotton trade, Silva Vaccaro, a sicillian played by Eli Wallach. Vaccaro sets out for revenge and the delicious seduction of Baby Doll begins.
