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Baby
Doll (1956)
In director Elia Kazan's scandalous, pot-boiling,
condemned and censored film (for its time) by the Legion of Decency:
- the first sensational image of white-trash, 19 year-old
'baby doll' child bride "Baby Doll" Meighan (Oscar-nominated
Carroll Baker) sucking her thumb in a childlike crib while being
spied upon through a hole in the adjoining wall by sexually-frustrated
husband Archie (Karl Malden)
- vengeful Sicilian Silva Vacarro's (Eli Wallach in
his screen debut) numerous seduction scenes of Baby Doll - in the
back seat of a rusty, wheel-less Pierce-Arrow, in a double-seated
swing in the yard, in an adjoining room where he kissed her under
a switched-off bare bulb as Archie spoke on the phone nearby, and
at the stark dinner table when they shared hunks of bread dipped
in raw greens
- Baby Doll's trip to town with Archie and her demands
for an ice cream cone
- in the child's nursery - the memorably lewd sight
of Vacarro mounting and sitting astride a small wooden hobby horse
- rhythmically rocking back and forth on the tiny toy whose head
was hardly visible between his legs - he playfully gyrated back and
forth to the raunchy accompaniment of the rock song "Shame on
You"
- Vacarro's attempt in the attic to get Baby Doll to
sign papers against her husband regarding arson
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Baby Doll on Crib
Sucking Thumb
Vacarro's Seduction of Baby Doll
Vacarro on Hobby Horse
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