Baby Doll is a 1956 black comedy/drama film directed by Elia Kazan. It was produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams, and adapted by Williams from his own one-act play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. It stars Karl Malden, Carroll Baker and Eli Wallach, in his feature-film debut, and features Mildred Dunnock and Rip Torn. The film was controversial when it was released, provoking a largely successful effort to ban it, waged by the National Legion of Decency. Nevertheless, the film received nominations for major awards. Elia Kazan won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director and the film was... nominated for four other Golden Globe awards, as well as four Academy Awards and four BAFTA Awards awards, with Eli Wallach taking the BAFTA prize for "Most Promising Newcomer to Film." The film is credited with originating the name and popularity of the babydoll nightgown, which derives from the costume worn by Baker's character. In the Mississippi Delta, failing, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin-owner Archie Lee Meighan has been married to pretty, empty-headed 19-year old virgin Baby Doll Meighan for two years.
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