Vintage original 11x14 in US lobby card from the classic 1950's comedy/drama, BABY DOLL, released in 1956 by Warner Bros. and directed by Elia Kazan. Featuring a screenplay by Tennessee Williams, a child bride (Carroll Baker) holds her husband (Karl Malden) at bay while flirting with a sexy Italian farmer (Eli Wallach). The cast includes Mildred Dunnock, Lonny Chapman, Eades Hogue, and Noah Williamson.

As indicated in the center of the bottom border, this is lobby card #1 from the set of 8 cards. The image features an exterior shot of Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden) kissing his young bride, Baby Doll (Carroll Baker), on her neck as he taunts Silva Viccaro (Eli Wallach), who watches the couple. It is unrestored in very good condition with a large and small crease on the top left corner with signs of wear around them; creases of varying sizes on the right corners; a chip on the bottom left corner/ and smudges within the borders. The color tints are fresh and vibrant without any signs of fading.

Baby Doll marked the film debut of actor Eli Wallach. In retrospect, Wallach called the film "one of the most exciting, daring movies ever made." But he added, "People see it today and say, 'What the hell was all the fuss about?'" Tennessee Williams' first choice for the title role was Marilyn Monroe (who was straining to improve herself as an actress at the time and wanted the role badly), but Elia Kazan preferred newcomer Carroll Baker, whose work he was familiar with from the Actors Studio in New York. According to Baker's autobiography, Monroe acted as an usherette at the premiere, which was a benefit for The Actors Studio. The working titles of this film were "Twenty-Seven Wagon Loads of Cotton" and "Mississippi Woman". In her autobiography, Carroll Baker reports that on her last day of shooting, Elia Kazan offered to change the film's title from "Mississippi Woman" to "Baby Doll", her character's name, as a "present" to her. Marlon Brando turned down the role of Archie Lee Meighan. 


When the film was released in 1956, it was enormously controversial for its extremely risqué subject matter. The Catholic Legion of Decency condemned the film for its "carnal suggestiveness." Cardinal Francis J. Spellman condemned the film in a stunning attack from the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral two days before the film opened. He said that the film had been "responsibly judged to be evil in concept" and would "exert an immoral and corrupting influence on those who see it". He exhorted all Catholics to refrain from patronizing the film "under pain of sin." Cardinal Spellman's condemnation of the film led to the Legion of Decency's first-ever nationwide boycott of an American-made major studio film. All over the country, almost 20 million Catholics protested the film and picketed theaters that showed it. The Catholic boycott nearly killed the film; it was can-celled by 77% of theaters scheduled to show it, and made a meager $600,000 at the box office. The film was also condemned by Time Magazine, which called it the dirtiest American-made motion picture that had ever been legally exhibited. Surprisingly, despite the film's sordid elements, the Production Code Administration gave it a seal of approval, but only after nearly a year of arguments. This was one of many examples of how the lax attitude of new Code official Geoffrey Shurlock, the successor at the PCA to the strict Catholic militant Joseph I. Breen, would lead to a schism with the Legion of Decency, and to the PCA's own downfall over the next few years. After this film, the PCA drifted farther and farther away from its traditional guidelines until it was replaced by the MPAA ratings system in 1968.