Production
Although the film's title card says "Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll", and the film is based on Williams' one-act play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, in his autobiography director Elia Kazan claimed that Williams was only "half-heartedly" involved in writing the screenplay, of which Kazan himself actually wrote the majority. The film was shot in Benoit, Mississippi in the J.C. Burrus house, built in 1848, the only antebellum house in Bolivar County. Other locations were Greenville, Mississippi and New York City. According to Kazan, Williams did not stay long while the film was shooting in Benoit, because of the way people looked at him. Some locals were used for minor roles, and one, "Boll Weevil" not only acted but was the production unit's utility man as well.
The working titles for the film included the name of the play and "Mississippi Woman"; actress Carroll Baker claims that Kazan changed the title to Baby Doll as a present to her. Although Baker was Kazan's first choice for the role, Williams would have preferred to see Marilyn Monroe get the part.
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
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“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)