Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Online

1959 Elizabeth Taylor Katharine Hepburn Montgomery Clift Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Original Title :: Suddenly, Last Summer
Genre :: Movie / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Year :: 1959
Directror :: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast :: Elizabeth Taylor,Katharine Hepburn,Montgomery Clift
Writer :: Tennessee Williams,Gore Vidal
Budget :: $3,000,000
Type :: Movie
Time :: 1h 54min
Rating :: 7.6/10

The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Online

A wealthy harridan, Violet Venable, attempts to bribe Dr. Cukrowicz, a young psycho-surgeon from a New Orleans mental hospital that is desperately in need of funds, into lobotomizing her niece, Catherine Holly. Violet wants the operation performed in order to prevent Catherine from defiling the memory of her son, the poet Sebastian. Catherine has been babbling obscenely about Sebastian's mysterious death that she witnessed while on holiday together in Spain the previous summer.

Complete credited cast:
	Elizabeth Taylor	-	Catherine Holly
	Katharine Hepburn	-	Mrs. Venable
	Montgomery Clift	-	Dr. Cukrowicz
	Albert Dekker	-	Dr. Hockstader
	Mercedes McCambridge	-	Mrs. Holly
	Gary Raymond	-	George Holly
	Mavis Villiers	-	Miss Foxhill
	Patricia Marmont	-	Nurse Benson
	Joan Young	-	Sister Felicity
	Maria Britneva	-	Lucy
	Sheila Robins	-	Dr. Hockstader's Secretary (as Sheila Robbins)
	David Cameron	-	Young Blonde Interne

Because of years of alcoholism and prescription drug abuse, Montgomery Clift was considered uninsurable due to chronic ill health. Ordinarily that would have meant he would have been fired and replaced, but his good friend Elizabeth Taylor saved his job by insisting she would not do the film without him.

Screenwriter Gore Vidal credits film critic Bosley Crowther with the success of this film. Crowther wrote a scathing review denouncing the film as the work of degenerates obsessed with rape, incest, homosexuality, and cannibalism among other qualities. Vidal believes advertising such salacious detail made audiences flock in droves to the film.

According to author Garson Kanin in his memoir "Tracy and Hepburn", Katharine Hepburn was reportedly so furious at the way Montgomery Clift was treated by Sam Spiegel and Joseph L. Mankiewicz during the filming that, after making sure that she would not be needed for retakes, she told both men off and actually spat at them (although it remains unclear just which one of the two she spat at, or if she spat at both.)

In a 1960 interview John Wayne criticized Sie kamen nach Cordura (1959) and this film as "poison polluting Hollywood's moral bloodstream." The latter, he said, was "too disgusting even for discussion."

According to Mercedes McCambridge, she would ride to the London set of this film in the same car as Montgomery Clift. Clift always insisted that the driver stop by Wormwood Scrubs prison, so that Clift could scream out the car window at the convicts behind bars.

In Catherine's climactic monologue, Elizabeth Taylor (who had recently been widowed) used the emotions of her husband's death in order to create the acclaimed performance. However, she was only able to do one take as she could not stop crying after completing the first.

Eddie Fisher, who was married to Elizabeth Taylor at the time, appears uncredited as one of street urchins who beg Taylor for a morsel of bread.

The filmmakers were given special dispensation by the Breen office so that the homosexuality of Sebastian Venable could be "inferred, but not shown."

One of the few classic films to address smoking as an addiction that can affect the mood or attitude of the smoker.

Peter O'Toole did a disastrous screen test. In fact it went so badly, when O'Toole was in the running for the lead in Lawrence von Arabien (1962), producer Sam Spiegel (who had produced "Suddenly..." and was producing "Lawrence...") didn't want anything to do with O'Toole again.

Patricia Neal played the lead role to so much acclaim on the London stage she was sure she would be given the part in the film adaptation, even without her agent promoting her the job. She then woke up in shock to find Elizabeth Taylor had been assigned the role.

Elizabeth Taylor chose this as her first film after her contract with MGM ended. She used her power as a top box office draw to insist that Montgomery Clift also be cast.

Vivien Leigh rejected the role of Violet Venable before Katharine Hepburn was cast.

The only film for which Elizabeth Taylor and 'Katharine Hepburn (I)' competed with a co-star for the same Best Actress Academy Award. However, the award went to Simone Signoret.

Inside a library at St. Mary's, an obscure latin quote etched into the stone on the mantle says "SI OVA SA A SINANT". The haunting translation is Yes, This allows.

This is one of only five films to receive two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. In this instance, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor were so nominated. The other four films were Alles über Eva (1950) for which Anne Baxter and Bette Davis were nominated, Am Wendepunkt (1977) for which Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine were nominated, Zeit der Zärtlichkeit (1983) for which Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger were nominated and Thelma & Louise (1991) for which Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were nominated. Of the actresses in question, MacLaine is the only one to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for the relevant performance.

This was not a happy production for Katharine Hepburn. It kept her from her lover, Spencer Tracy who was critically ill at the time (years of drinking, smoking and pill-popping were starting to take their toll), she disliked the way director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was favoring Elizabeth Taylor and treating Montgomery Clift, and she hated the film's final shot of her which was done in harsh light without make-up.

Screenplay writer Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams' partner Frank Merlo may briefly be glimpsed among those observing Montgomery Clift operate in the opening sequence.

The last of three films that Elizabeth Taylor made with Montgomery Clift, following Ein Platz an der Sonne (1951) and Das Land des Regenbaums (1957).

Any publicity mentions of the film being shot in Spain were deleted at the Spanish government's request who didn't care for the depiction of a young man being mob murdered.

The allusion to Herman Melville and the Galapagos islands refers to the "The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles", a series of "sketches," or short prose works, about the Galapagos Islands written primarily from Melville's own experience sailing around the islands.

Although Tennessee Williams receives screen credit, he had nothing to do with the film.

Tennessee Williams was not a fan of the film and hated the way it had reworked his material.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz later admitted that he thought the source material was badly constructed and based on pop psychology.

Malcolm Arnold was originally hired to write the music score but found the material so unsettling that he withdrew from the project.

The second of three Tennessee Williams that Elizabeth Taylor starred in. The first was Die Katze auf dem heißen Blechdach (1958), the last was Brandung (1968).

Montgomery Clift found the part extremely demanding and would have to film many of his scenes in small increments. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was very annoyed by this and repeatedly asked producer Sam Spiegel to fire Clift.

In the French-dubbed version, made in 1960, the name of Katharine Hepburn's character was inexplicably changed from "Violet Venable" to "Valérie Venable".

This film was an adaptation of a one-act play by Tennessee Williams that was originally performed Off-Broadway on a double bill with another one-act play by Tennessee Williams, "Something Unspoken". The double bill was presented under the title of "Garden District" and opened on January 7, 1958 at the York Playhouse in New York. The original stage production of "Suddenly, Last Summer" starred Anne Meacham as Catherine, Hortense Alden as Mrs. Venable, and Alan Mixon as George Holly. This same double bill of one-act plays was presented on Broadway, again under the title "Garden District", in 1995. This production starred Elizabeth Ashley as Mrs. Venable, Jordan Baker as Catherine and Mitchell Lichtenstein as George Holly. This version opened Oct 10, 1995 at the Circle in the Square Theater and ran for 31 performances.

Shot over a period of five months.

Remade as a TV movie in 1992 with Maggie Smith, Joely Richardson and Rob Lowe.

In the Italian post-synchronized version of the film, the actors are dubbed by: Lydia Simoneschi (Elizabeth Taylor), Andreina Pagnani (Katharine Hepburn), Giuseppe Rinaldi (Montgomery Clift), Giorgio Capecchi (Albert Dekker), Rosetta Calavetta (Mercedes McCambridge), Massimo Turci (Gary Raymond) and Wanda Tettoni (Mavis Villiers).

In the French post-synchronized version of the film, the actors are dubbed by: Claude Winter (Elizabeth Taylor), Claire Guibert (Katharine Hepburn), Bernard Noël (Montgomery Clift), Serge Nadaud (Albert Dekker), Claude Daltys (Mercedes McCambridge), Jean-Pierre Duclos (Gary Raymond), Lita Recio (Mavis Villiers), Hélène Tossy (Joan Young) and Michel Gudin (David Cameron).

Margaret Leighton was considered for the mother role.

Two previous Tennessee Williams screen adaptations, Endstation Sehnsucht (1951) and Die Katze auf dem heißen Blechdach (1958), had both hinted at the homosexuality overtly mentioned in the plays. This one goes a little further but is still fairly coy in terms of explicitness due to the Production Code. They were a little more lenient on this adaptation, as Sebastian's fate (ie, murder) shows the perils of living a gay life.

User reviews

Umrdana

Katharine Hepburn is a wealthy woman who uses her checkbook in the hopes of having her niece lobotomized in "Suddenly, Last Summer," a 1959 film directed by Joseph Mankiewicz and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, and Mercedes McCambridge. Hepburn plays Mrs. Venable, whose son, Sebastian, died the previous summer of a heart attack. However, her niece Cathy, who accompanied Sebastian, has had a sort of breakdown and is institutionalized. Mrs. Venable wants Cathy lobotomized. Before doing so, however, the gifted surgeon (Clift), sent there by his boss as Mrs. Venable dangles money for the hospital in front of him, becomes determined instead to find out what happened and how Sebastian really died.

This is a film that would never be made today - it's character-driven and has too much dialogue. It's a shame because the dialogue is excellent. A previous Mankiewicz film, "All About Eve," is word-rich as well, and there the dialogue sparkles. Here it is more poetic. And, like "Eve," the great roles are the womens.

Though references to homosexuality are only inferred, this film and the much more poorly adapted "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" hold up very well today. With homosexuality much more discussed, the role this plays in both plots is very obvious, at least to this viewer. In "Suddenly, Last Summer," Sebastian's proclivities are evident from the beginning as Mrs. Venable describes an almost husband-wife relationship with her son, claiming to the surgeon that Sebastian was "chaste" and that her relationship with him was enough for her son.

One of the comments here mentioned that "Cathy is crazy, like all Williams heroines." But in truth, Cathy like Blanche is disturbed (though Blanche may be a little closer to being nuts) and both are "put away" to shut them up - Blanche for her accusations against Stanley and Cathy because she knows how Sebastian really died.

Katharine Hepburn gives a brilliant performance as Mrs. Venable - charming but made of steel, her anger and jealousy toward her niece just barely beneath the surface. Elizabeth Taylor gives one of her best performances under the strong direction of Mankiewicz. Taylor was blessed with great beauty but alas, not a great speaking voice. However, she is nevertheless very effective, particularly in her long, harrowing monologue near the end of the film.

Clift's passive portrayal of the surgeon is problematic, and one wonders why he was cast. The opening scene in which he performs an operation had to be redone many times because of his drunkenness and codeine addiction - he was washing down the pills with brandy; his voice quavers, he is unsteady on his feet, and his eyes are glassy. He comes off a little better in the previous year's "Lonelyhearts," though in that film, he actually winces in pain when he has to sit. While Clift had the support of his fellow actors, he had none from Mankiewicz and producer Sam Spiegel. Had it not been for Elizabeth Taylor's insistence, he would have been replaced. It seems cruel (as it did to Hepburn at the time) but Mankiewicz was trying to make a movie and Spiegel wanted it to be on budget - Clift's addictions and physical problems weren't helping. He couldn't remember lines; when he finally said them, he was often inaudible; and he was always late arriving on the set. Fortunately for audiences, this wasn't his last big-budget role. Under the direction of Elia Kazan, he would do the magnificent "Wild River" and seemingly be more in control.

Despite this, "Suddenly, Last Summer" is an excellent, disturbing film, and is highly recommended. It's not Williams' best play, but it is served well in its film adaptation.

Diab

Long-fabled as one of the most bizarre films to come out Hollywood during the years of the Production Code's strict enforcement, SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER is a riveting psychological drama that remains absolutely gut-wrenching even after nearly fifty years since it's original release. Screenwriter Gore Vidal takes Tennessee Williams' one-act play and runs with it, fleshing out the central characters and expanding the story's central arc. Vidal had the seemingly impossibly task of taking a tale involving homosexuality, incest, pedophilia, and even cannibalism and presenting it all in a manner that would be acceptable to the rigid Production Code, yet still coherent to the average film audience. Not only did Vidal succeed victoriously, but the slightly ambiguous nature of the film's climax and denouncement actually makes the twice as unsettling and disturbing.

With relatively few characters to populate the story the performances are absolutely crucial, and the tight-knit cast delivers the goods in spades. Long after many of her acting contemporaries of the thirties and forties had been forgotten, Katharine Hepburn continued to reign supreme on the silver screen and her sublime performance as the manipulative and cunning Mrs. Venable ranks among Hepburn's best work of the decade. The wounded vulnerability of a post-car accident Montgomery Clift serves him well in a difficult role as the middle man between the film's leading ladies, and the still-handsome actor provides a humane, completely genuine performance that supplies viewers with level-headed window into the off-kilter story. Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge and Gary Raymond also excel in minor roles.

The film's biggest surprise, however, is the exceptional portrayal of Elizabeth Taylor in the film's central performance. Although usually somewhat of an uneven actress, Taylor completely nails a dauntingly difficult role in a complex, multilayered performance that deservedly won her a Golden Globe Award as well as her third consecutive Oscar nomination. During the film's climatic revelation, Taylor lets out a series of bone-chilling screams that I could never imagine coming out of any other actress. Not only does it remain Taylor's finest performance (which is a considerable achievement when one considers that WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF is also on her resume), but it is also a performance that simply could not be bettered.

Although perhaps he could never surpass 1949's A LETTER TO THREE WIVES or 1950's ALL ABOUT EVE in the eyes of most viewers, SUMMER contains some of the finest work of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz' legendary career. Brilliantly combining southern Gothicism with straight-faced psychodrama and even grandiose horror, Mankiewicz stitches the various seemingly disparate threads together in a harrowing, yet perversely satisfying whole. Even the lengthy, sometimes criticized flashback sequence is an absolute tour de force of film-making that leaves viewers emotionally exhausted as one experiences the on screen turmoil more than simply watching it. An often unheralded classic, the film remains of the most sorely underrated films of its era.

Zulkigis

"Suddenly, Last Summer" was perhaps Tennessee Williams most autobiographical play. Mr. Williams never forgave his mother for letting his sister Rose undergo a lobotomy to "cure" her anxiety problems, something that he dealt with in this work, as well. As a play, this was done Off-Broadway, something unheard in those days about the work of one of last century's best regarded playwright. It proved to be a great artistic success for the author, even with a cast of non stars in it. In fact, "Suddenly, Last Summer" was paired with a shorter play, "Something Unspoken", under the title "Garden District".

Joseph L. Mankiewicz, one of the best directors and writers that ever worked in Hollywood, undertook the direction of Gore Vidal's screen adaptation. In a way, it must have been a daring decision to bring it to the movies, since the play speaks about things that in the theater it could get away with, but in the movies, a different medium, and with the censure of those years, not even a distinguished team as the one assembled here, could get away with a movie that seemed to be years ahead of its time. The film is set in 1937.

If you haven't seen the film, please stop reading here.

We meet young doctor Cukrowicz at the start of the film as he is about to perform a lobotomy on one of the patients in the public hospital, where the lights go out during the operation. The ambitious director, Dr. Hockstader, wants to send the young doctor to talk to Mrs. Violet Venable, one of the richest ladies in New Orleans, because she is interested in donating money toward a hospital's improvements, with the caveat that her young niece, Catherine, undergoes the operation. Evidently, she has been "babbling" all kinds of nonsense and has been diagnosed suffering from schizophrenia.

What Mrs. Venable doesn't tell the young doctor is the reason why her niece is acting in such a strange manner. During the visit, she speaks of her dead young son, Sebastian, who died tragically, suddenly, last summer of a heart attack. Violet doesn't go into details, but it seems there is much more to the story than she tells Dr. Cuckrowicz. Mrs. Venable talks about her summer trips with Sebastian and the horrible experience she had in the Galapagos watching the young turtles rushing to the sea falling prey to the predatory black birds that seem to cloud the sky.

That there's something more, is clearly noticed by the young doctor when he meets Catherine, the lovely young woman being kept in another hospital's mental ward. Catherine comes across as quite sane, which poses a moral dilemma for the Cukrowicz, who is under pressure to rush Catherine's lobotomy. Since he has so many doubts and in trying to see what's wrong with the girl, he hears about how Catherine and Violet have served as procurers to the late Sebastian.

The climax comes as a family reunion in which Dr. Cukrowicz gathers in the Venable mansion's patio all the people involved in the case. It is in this setting that he is able to extract from Catherine's memory what she has kept bottled up there. In a sequence that plays as a film within Catherine's mind, we watch the horrors this young woman went through when the situation gets out of hand between Sebastian and the young men of Cabeza de Lobo, where they had spent part of their vacation.

Tennessee Williams, the playwright, and Gore Vidal, the adapter, both spent time in Italy. It's somehow disorienting that Catherine is talking about Amalfi and changes to another location, the scene of what appears to be the martyrdom of Sebastian, paralleling the life of the saint of the same name, to Cabeza de Lobo, which sounds more as being set in Spain than in Italy. Nevertheless, these starving children Sebastian lures to him by using his gorgeous cousin in revealing swimsuit, are key to what happens to him in that shocking day.

Katherine Hepburn is about the best thing in the film. She plays a refined and dignified wealthy New Orleans matron with great assurance. Ms. Hepburn gave an understated performance showing a restraint that with some other actress might have develop into caricature. Her Mrs. Venable is a woman whose sorrow for the lost of the son knows no bounds and is trying to shut up the only person that knows the truth about what really happened to him.

Elizabeth Taylor makes an invaluable contribution to the film with her luminous portrayal of Catherine. She was seen in the film at the height of her beauty and youth. Ms. Taylor, in one of her best appearances in any film, is convincing as the young woman who has been traumatized by what she had witnessed that fateful summer.

Montgomery Clift, who has the lesser part of Dr. Cukrowicz, does what he can with his role. Mercedes McCambridge, on the other hand is perfect as the ambitious poor relative without scruples, who will do anything to receive the crumbs of her richer relative and couldn't care what happens to her daughter.

This film was ahead of its times and still packs a lot of power because of the direction of Mr. Mankiewicz and his stellar cast.

MisterMax

While the symbolism here is about as heavy as a sledgehammer, it's offered in such artfully poetic style that only writers of the caliber of Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal could give us. What they have done is provide KATHARINE HEPBURN with a role that fits her like a glove and where her mannered acting sits comfortably on a role she was born to play. She is totally mesmerizing as Mrs. Venable, a woman who has lavished all her hopes and dreams on her only son only to have them all swept away on a brutal summer day, "suddenly, last summer", under the hot Mediteranean sun. She gets to spout the most poetic dialog in the film, with ELIZABETH TAYLOR not far behind, especially during their frequent monologues.

This leaves MONTGOMERY CLIFT, as a surgeon who is asked to perform a lobotomy on Miss Taylor, hovering in the background and looking like a frightened sparrow most of the time, although it is he who uncovers the truth about last summer. Mr. Clift must have been at a difficult phase of his own personal life because he performs in a stiff, robot-like manner that makes him seem dubious as a skilled surgeon with steady hands.

All of this is highly melodramatic as only Tennessee Williams can muster, while at the same time affording us the luxury of watching two commanding performances from Hepburn and Taylor that were justifiably nominated for Oscars.

The tale seems burdened by too much heavy-handed poetry but somehow it holds the attention because of the forceful acting by a fine cast. Mercedes McCambridge is a standout as Taylor's mother in the sort of fluttery, birdbrain role one might suspect would be offered to Billie Burke if this had been filmed in the 1940s.

By the end of the film, Miss Hepburn is so far removed from reality that she thinks Dr. Sugar (Montgomery Clift) is her son Sebastian and seems more like a candidate for lobotomy than the plucky Miss Taylor. Taylor never quite has the air of vulnerability that the role demands, but she gives a colorful, if strident, performance as the poor victimized girl who was used as bait by her playboy cousin.

Nafyn

The moral majority's campaign to censor anything on the movie screen considered too taboo had an incredible impact on Hollywood during the 1930's right through to the 1970's. Censors went through Hollywood scripts, tearing out anything considered unspeakable, no matter how important it was to the plot at hand. It became an art form of sorts, for Hollywood film makers to veil their nasty little subjects so that the censors (who weren't that bright anyway) couldn't find it, but so that a smart audience could. Suddenly Last Summer is a classic example of this art in action.

Tennessee Williams was the toast of Broadway in the 1950's, with his melodramatic plays that often tackled heavy subjects such as addiction, adultery and in the case of this story, homosexuality. Katherine Hepburn plays a classic Tennessee Williams vamp, Violet Venable, a lady of means who is mourning the loss of her son. She has sought the help of a psychiatrist, played by Montgomery Clift, as she would like to have a lobotomy performed on her niece, who is apparently off her rocker (as most of Tennessee Williams' ladies are) and is spouting nasty rumors about the dead son.

Like most of Williams' work, Suddenly Last Summer flows along with over the top dialogue, the kind that actors love to sink their teeth into. I have not seen the original stage play but I suspect that this screenplay has been severely hacked to obliterate any talk of homosexuality. Venable's son was murdered while on vacation in Europe. If you take the dialogue literally you might believe that he was murdered for his religious convictions. If you read between the lines you will see that this was clearly a gay bashing.

Hepburn and Taylor both shine in their roles, that seem almost custom made for them. It's rare that Hepburn is cast as a villain, however, her performance leaves me wondering why she hasn't done it more often. Taylor's hyper-active hyper-ventilating, Catherine Holly works well here. Her own brand of melodramatic acting seems to compliment Williams' work.

Clift was a tad cardboard in his role as the psychiatrist, however, it is still interesting to watch this performance that was filmed after his face-altering car accident. One might think that he recently underwent a lobotomy. On the other hand, he is competent, and the performances of the actresses more than compensate.

Suddenly Last Summer works as a film, but I am hesitant to recommend to everyone. This is not an action flick, by any means, but rather a character piece. Scenes are long and they require your concentration, as important statements can be found between the lines. For fans of any of these actors, this is a must see!

MrCat

Being an admirer of both Monty Clift and Tennessee Williams, I went to see this film with great anticipation. I was eighteen at the time and topics such as homosexuality were taboo in the cinema back then. But with the by Tennessee Williams attached to it, I expected to be confronted with material, characters and situations that challenged my sheltered mind. But with "Suddenly, Last Summer," I was amazed to learn that Williams surpassed even himself! From the very beginning, I beheld a Katharine Hepburn playing a character so bizarre and cryptic, that it bordered on the comical. Even Monty Clift, his youth and tender looks despoiled by accident, pills & booze, looked tired. But Liz Taylor seemed perfectly okay, her beauty never more radiant. The only thing wrong with her character was her sanity. Apparently she witnessed something so awful the summer in question happening to her cousin Sebastian, that it drove her over the edge of sanity into madness. But the eccentric aunt and the deranged cousin aren't the focal point of this grim tale. Sebastian is the one who motivates all the others. The one we are tantalized with and shocked by and made so mysterious, that we don't even get to see his face, hear his voice or learn what made him the way he was. He's always shot from behind, as if to see his face might just make the audience care about him, know his humanity and, possibly, even sympathize with him. Sebastian was made to be abstract, and censorship being what it was, that made the producers breathe easier. Although he meets a horrible death at the hands of some Third World beach boys, he's not meant to be the victim of the film. Instead, his pretty cousin is the one who must be sacrificed to protect the memory and reputation of her cousin. Mama wants it that way and what Hepburn wants, she gets, even going so far as to blackmail two doctors to silence her niece! Mama Hepburn, to me, is the real monster of the film and Taylor her helpless victim. Made helpless by the need for secrecy at all costs. If anything, this tale can be about how an obsession with secrecy leads to madness.

As for Sebastian, we are supposed to think he got what he deserved. As for me, the movie left me emotionally drained. The predatory beasts unleashed, the primeval garden(replete with insect-devouring plants), the attempted suicide and gang rape by loony inmates of Taylor.... the long speech at the beginning about swooping blackbirds preying on baby turtles that Hepburn delivers, all made me limp at the end. Hepburn and Taylor both received worthy Oscar nominations for their work. The set designer as well for the foreboding lunatic asylum and simmering garden; the primitive operating room where lobotomies are performed - - all excellent. Rent the video if you can. But remember, this is set in 1937 when homosexuals weren't getting elected to Congress. Remember, also, that Sebastian is a martyr if only because he was before his time. Just like the saint he's named after.

I was made to realize above all else from this film that there is a beast that lurks in our unconscious mind; a remnant from our prehistoric past; and of which we are reminded by the frequent animal imagery used in this film. Something to think about whenever we see the strong preying upon the weak. To quote a line from the film: "Nature is not made in the image of man's compassion."

- Sound Track

Faehn

Film versions of Tennessee Williams great plays can be a little frustrating, especially for those of us lucky enough to have seen a fine production of the play on stage. I saw a fine production of this piece in London in 1999, with Sheila Gish as Mrs Venable, Rachel Weisz as Catherine and Gerard Butler as Doctor Cukrowicz.

But this film version is actually extremely good. The cast more or less speaks for itself. Katherine Hepburn is not quite as repulsive as I imagine Mrs Venable to have become, but this is a movie version after all and somehow Katherine Hepburn seemed to become increasingly ghastly as the movie goes on - strong work on her part and the Director's part I shouldn't wonder. Taylor and Clift are predictably good.

Most Tennessee William's plays had their endings tampered with for Hollywood and this piece is no exception. However, there is only a subtle difference between the ending of the film and the ending of the play, unlike the cringe-inducing changes to some ("Streetcar" and "Cat" being the main offenders).

This is not William's best-known piece, but it is one of my favourites and this film version also slots in right up there with the very, very best.

Well worth seeing, is this.

Zuser

I recommend that you don't read this review if you haven't seen this film, but intend to. This film is all about suspense that builds to a shocking end. It is usually classified as a mystery, but could almost rank as horror.

"Suddenly, Last Summer" is an excellent film made by talented movie professionals, and it deserved all the accolades and awards for which it was nominated and won. However, I'm always surprised by some people who attempt to gloss over, or even deny, the extremely harsh subject matter of its story. Plain and simple, the story is based on a wealthy man who was secretly a homosexual child molester – an intense subject for 1950s movies. This man also possessed a lurid charm, and was loved and respected by family and community. The man spent much of his life traveling extensively overseas, secretly using his inherited wealth to lure young poor foreign boys into sex, until one summer his criminal escapades came crashing down in a bizarre dramatic and gory end that resulted in his death. The movie starts at the point of his death, and this post plot is perhaps most shocking of all: his wealthy mother (played by Katharine Hepburn) had actually assisted him in his past crimes, and after his death she takes extreme felonious measures in a desperate attempt to bury her son's dark secret.

Playing the villain in a movie was a departure for Hepburn, but she performed it with her usual perfection, as proved by both her and Taylor's nominations for best actress.

Even today this would be a gritty subject for a movie; so it must have been really taboo in the 1950s. It is my understanding that even Tennessee Williams (author of the original play) was not happy that it was made into a movie. I don't think a movie like this could easily be made today, and be as successful. It is certainly not for children, although they'd probably watch it without understanding its full implications. But I don't like adults who try to hide this movie's subject matter, and pretend it's about psychiatry, because it's not.

This film also exemplified the social activism of Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn, both women ahead of their time, both considered this film important in dealing with unpleasant truths, something neither woman shrank away from during their careers. Both women were also expressly angry with director Joseph Mankiewicz's ill treatment of actor Montgomery Clift during the filming of this movie. Clift was going through a tough time, having recently suffered his infamous car accident. I think Clift cast as Dr. John Cukrowicz was one of the key elements to this film's success.

Delalbine

Superb acting by Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Montgomery Clift spark this nifty adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play. This Southern Gothic tale is worthy of Flannery O'Connor as it pits innocent Catherine against her aunt Violet as they battle over the memory and reality of Sebastian Venable.

With hints of incest and homosexuality along with family jealousies and squabbling, the women go at each other as they each go after the new doctor from Chicago (Clift). Violet wants the girl committed to an asylum where she will be given a lobotomy. The girl battles back as she recalls the real truth about Sebastian. Her greedy family (Mercedes McCambridge, Gary Raymond) are perfectly willing to sacrifice Catherine for a chunk of money. Everyone is a vulture in this story. The asylum is run by another greedy man (Albert Dekker) who only wants Venable money for a new hospital wing.

After Sebastian casts aside mother (Hepburn) for his summer trip and takes Catherine (Taylor), the older woman starts working to get her revenge. But when Sebastian dies, she goes into mourning as well. Complicated story of innuendo and symbol, one is never quite sure what happens to Sebastian who is symbolically eaten by the boys he has sexually preyed on (heavens to Michael Jackson!). But the sight of his death drives Catherine nuts. The mother of course is in denial of every unsavory trait Sebastian possessed.

Brilliant, florid dialog and two wonderful, long soliloquies by Hepburn and Taylor are highlights. The symbolism is fairly obvious but works well within the context of Southern Gothic. All the supporting cast is fine. Taylor and Hepburn earned best actress Oscar nominations. Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, and his partner, Frank Merlo, are in the opening surgery scene. A fascinating story and some great performances.

Special mention must be made of Gore Vidal's brilliant screenplay, expanding the one-act play by Tennessee Williams (who had nothing to do with the screenplay, despite his billing). Vidal perfectly captures the cadence of Williams' speeches and maintains the Gothic mystery Williams was trying for. Vidal lost his chance for an Oscar nomination after the film Catholic Church attacked the film his its implied (gasp!) tale of homosexuality.

I'm a Russian Occupant

This screen version, by Joseph L Mankiewicz, of Tennessee Williams' play isn't as highly thought of as it should be. It's not a classic and on occasions it comes over as crude and stilted, but it also has many fine things going for it. Although he never really opens it out, Mankiewicz gives it a fluency that isn't at all theatrical and although he often films scenes intimately and between only two characters, he ensures it is photographed and cut in a very cinematic fashion.

Unfortunately, one of the two people on screen during these 'cinematic' sequences is Montgomery Clift who is at his worst here. It was after his accident and he looks as if he's in pain. When he walks it's as if there is a board up his back and he talks as if out of the side of his mouth. Luckily, with him in these scenes is either Elizabeth Taylor or Katharine Hepburn or both and when they are on screen you don't pay too much attention to Clift.

Dilys Powell said Elizabeth Taylor was born to play Tennessee Williams and she was right. Indeed this may be her best performance after "Virginia Woolf". Catherine's lines don't have the kind of poetry in them that Violet Venable's does but Taylor finds a poetry of her own in her readings. She builds on her long speech at the end and is very moving, even if Mankiewicz can't resist 'showing' us, in flashbacks, what Taylor is telling us, as if he doesn't trust an audience to sit still and just listen to Taylor. (They would have to in the theatre).

As Violet, Hepburn has the showier part and she milks it for all it's worth. It's a great piece of acting because Violet never seems to be acting, though she tends to think of her life as a kind of performance, something she has passed on to her homosexual son, Sebastian. (If the old adage, 'my mother made me a homosexual', has any validity you don't have to look any further than here). She enters from above, descending in her small baroque lift, and Hepburn can see the comic potential in such an entrance. Moments later, however, she is recounting how the sea-turtles were devoured by flesh-eating birds in the Galapogos, and you can see just how dangerously unstable this woman really is.

Any film that has acting of this calibre automatically qualifies as worth seeking out, (you forgive the lame work of Clift and Gary Raymond and draw a blind over Mercedes McCambridge, though Albert Dekker is very fine), but this qualifies on other grounds; as one of the better Tennessee Williams adaptations, (he co-wrote it with Gore Vidal), as a flawed, dated but strangely fascinating example of how Hollywood viewed homosexuality at the time, (negatively, naturally, but any face, no matter how horribly distorted, so long as it was in the public gaze, was better than no face at all), and as a serious addition to the Joe Mankiewicz canon.

Watikalate

"Suddenly, Last Summer" brought Elizabeth Taylor her third Oscar nomination, and she probably should have won (though winner Simone Signoret's performance in "Room at the Top" was also outstanding). Taylor is awesome in this film ----- most notably in the final twenty minutes, which she virtually dominates. This entire scene was reportedly shot in one take, which makes sense, since the character begins with a narrative and gradually builds to an emotionally shattering climax. Taylor's previous film, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", was also Oscar caliber, but this performance is even more impressive. The 1960 Oscar for "Butterfield 8" was probably a consolation prize for the Oscar she should have received for either of these two previous films.

Ramsey`s

Acted with violent enthusiasm by Liz Taylor and Katharine Hepburn as the arch-rivals for the savagery poet, "Suddenly, Last Summer" is a steamy blend of venality and insanity, a truth and falsehood of a very high order

Her homosexual cousin used her as a procuress; her vindictive aunt demands that she be given a lobotomy: Liz is again the unappreciated beauty But she's also the abandoned innocent, a girl fighting to remember what happened to her cousin Sebastian Venable died suddenly, in North Africa, during the summer

Taylor's performance is like a melody, rising toward the end to an emotional crescendo of desperation and release And Taylor handles it expertly; she is ironical, self-deprecating, and self-awareFor all that Catherine Holly starts out as a neurotic kid in the woods, she ends the film as a courageously woman set free by her confession

The film belongs to the women; even McCambridge, in her relatively small role, has a showier part than Clift's Clift is thoughtful, considering, and considerate Hepburn's performance is quite restrained Feeding insects to a carnivorous plant in a gesture that is a metaphor for the incestuous nature of the relationship with her son, Hepburn is all cool rationally and sweet reason Violet Venable is an expert at getting her own way and Hepburn makes her most outrageous actions seem those of a moderate and kind-hearted woman

Stonewing

It's hard to take your eyes off an impossibly beautiful, 27-year old Elizabeth Taylor, especially in her skintight white bathing suit, and the fact that she gives a powerhouse performance, likely her best prior to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", is reason enough to watch this 1959 Gothic melodrama from the fulsome pen of Tennessee Williams. She plays Catherine Holly, a mentally unstable young woman traumatized by a violent incident which ended with her cousin Sebastian's death last summer in a Mexican beach resort.

Trapped in a mental hospital that recalls the bowels of the asylum presented in "The Snake Pit" ten years earlier, she cannot remember what happened and is constantly drugged but manages to exhibit enough credibility to make Dr. Cukrowicz assess that she may not be disturbed enough to warrant a lobotomy. The procedure is being pushed by the late Sebastian's grande dame mother, Violet Venable, who wants to silence Catherine lest she reveal the shocking secrets of Sebastian's life and death. A doyenne of New Orleans society, Mrs. Venable dangles a tempting carrot of a $1 million donation to Cukrowicz's hospital for brain research if the lobotomy is done.

As was common under the production code in the 1950's and similar to what was done to dilute Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", the film only alludes to Sebastian's homosexuality, using rather graphic symbolism to bring across the dramatic tension of the situation. In this case, it works because it's consistent with the Baroque style of the entire movie. Taylor goes toe-to-toe with the formidable Katharine Hepburn playing against type as Mrs. Venable, a cold and manipulative character whose flamboyant hypocrisy hides her own unsteady state. Each actress gets a showy monologue with Catherine's climactic description of that infamous summer the true capper of the story.

Saddled with the purely observational role of Cukrowicz, Montgomery Clift seems rather passive as he has to explain the more convoluted plot points in a becalmed manner. Co-adapted for the screen by Gore Vidal and Williams, the film is dialogue-heavy as most of Williams' works are, and director Joseph Mankiewicz ("All About Eve", "A Letter to Three Wives") is a master at this type of character interplay. Jack Hildyard's crisp black-and-white cinematography works well for this story as color would have emphasized the melodramatic excesses (note how pale Taylor's violent eyes look). The only notable extras on the 2000 DVD are some vintage photo stills. Unfortunately, this film was not included as part of the recently released, six-film Tennessee Williams Film Collection.

Monam

A mother is desperate to save the reputation of her dead son. So to do this, she wants to have a lobotomy performed on her niece who knows too much about her dead cousin. She offers lots of money to a local mental hospital if they will perform the operation, putting an idealistic young doctor in a very difficult position. Mama is Katharine Hepburn; Niece is Elizabeth Taylor; Doctor is Montgomery Clift. Writers are Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. Mama has kept her dead son Sebastian's garden exactly the same since his death (complete with Venus Fly Traps and other exotic plants you've never seen in your life.) She tells the doctor that on one of their many vacations, her son claimed to have seen the face of God. Not really the face of God, have you, but the symbolism of death, his own death, and a scary sub-reality that can only come from the mind of one of the greatest playwrights of any time, Tennesee Williams.

The play "Garden District" was probably something that was very difficult to adopt to film, that's why Gore Vidal (recently deceased as of this writing) came in to assist him. This is a story that is certainly not for all audiences, and those expecting Elizabeth Taylor to be like she was as Maggie in Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" won't find that here. Hepburn, too, has crossed the line from her witty comedies with Spencer Tracy into the bizarre, a tale of carnal lust that uses the tale of sea turtles burying their eggs in the sand and the flesh-eating birds who wait for them to hatch, as well as tales of using beautiful women to procure, and the eventual cannibalism that destroys its dead protagonist.

"Huh?" you ask. In this viewing (out of about half a dozen), I had to research other people's thoughts on the film as well, and came up with the thought that people will see things differently, as they do in many of Tennessee Williams' writings. Having seen most of his work, I can only conclude that he was writing through a tortured soul, even as a genius though as they say, every genius has some touch of madness.

The performances are outstanding, although some may see them as a lot over the top. But seeing Taylor and Hepburn together is a film lover's dream, and they play well off of each other, with Montgomery Clift (still recovering from that dreadful car accident) forced to be more of an earpiece to their dramatics. This asks the question, "Who really is sane?", and gives some frightening visuals of an old fashioned Bellevue like mental institution. The sight of a delighted crazy woman rocking violently as everybody laughs at the sight of Taylor threatening to jump off a stairwell may give some people nightmares, yet you feel strangely sad for the crying man whose cards fell when Taylor made her way onto the stairwell of the men's recreation area. Mercedes McCambridge is believably befuddled, although I had a hard time accepting her as Taylor's mother.

Dilmal

In 1930's New Orleans, a wealthy and eccentric older woman named Mrs. Venable (Katharine Hepburn), wants a surgeon (Montgomery Clift) to perform a lobotomy on her niece (Elizabeth Taylor), for reasons that become clear toward the end of the film. This macabre Tennessee Williams story, with overlapping adult themes, must surely have been a shock to audiences in 1959. The film provides a great vehicle for the talents of both Hepburn whose acting is engaging, and Taylor whose performance is superb.

The Mankiewicz script is very talky. The characters of both Hepburn and Taylor engage in lengthy and at times tedious monologues. In all that talking, at least there are some really good lines. My favorite is near the beginning. In a nonchalant tone, Mrs. Venable tells us about the daily vicissitudes of Lady, the Venus flytrap that Mrs. Venable keeps in her garden. "Lady must be kept under glass, and while she is under glass, we have to provide her with flies, flown in at great expense." Priceless.

As one would expect for a film derived from a stage play, cinematography and music are less important than dialogue and acting. "Suddenly Last Summer" is worth viewing for its unusual story, and for the acting accomplishments of Hepburn and Taylor.

Hellmaster

Catherine Holly, played by the indelible Elizabeth Taylor,is a woman whose conscience and memory continue to cast a foreboding shadow. Enshrouded in her memory is the unforgettable realization to which she came, suddenly last summer. Katherine Hepburn plays somewhat of a southern anchoress, Mrs. Violet Venable,whose only repose comes from memorializing her late son Sebastian in the fantastic jungalesque garden he created. On the surface Sebastian seems pensive, sincere, and wise; however, Holly knows a secret, a disturbing secret about the late Sebastian that Mrs. Venable must suppress at all costs. It remains in the hands of Dr. Cukrowicz, Montgomery Clift, to extract this secret from Holly's memory, before the secret is lost forever. I enjoyed this movie, and it kept my attention even though I had read the play I knew the outcome. It is another fine story from the mind of Tennessee Williams. The movie sticks to the play unlike other Williams' movies, like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The only problem is that like so many other Tennesse Williams'stories, depravity and decadence are central themes, which make it difficult at times to really like any characters or develop a fondness for the story itself.

virus

New Orleans, 1937. Doctor Cukrowicz is summoned to the home of Violet Venable, he is encouraged to go by his father who sees a ripe opportunity to get a significant amount of funding directly out of the rich widow. Venable tells Cukrowicz of her niece, Catherine, who has been diagnosed as having a mental disease that causes her to have outbursts etc. She wants Cukrowicz to carry out a lobotomy on Kathryn without question. However Cukrowicz meets with Catherine and finds her trapped behind memories that she won't let herself remember. He tries to draw out whatever her stepmother is so desperate to have cut out.

I watched this with no prior knowledge of what it was about or any of the hidden themes that are brought out after viewing. I suspect I was able to come to it `clean' as a result. The plot starts simply and I wasn't sure where it was going. Then Mrs Venable is introduced and we learn of her desire to have Catherine lobotomised. This is followed by the question what happened to Sebastion (Venable's son) that has sent Catherine mad and sent Mrs Venable to the point where she wants to cut it out of her memory. This question looms large over the film and is very effective in driving the plot forward.

The clues are given all along to what a messed up situation the whole thing is and the final 15 minutes are powerful despite some weaknesses. The plot has talked up the romance part of the film between Catherine and Dr Cukrowicz, I assume to try and cover the unpleasant business and make it easier on a fifties audience, this takes away a little bit but didn't distract me too much from the central tale.

Hepburn is magnificent in her role and her opening scene does much to captivate you for the rest of the movie. Taylor is good but at times feels too polished to be in her character's predicament. Clift was too stale for me and didn't really stand out when placed beside these two actresses going hell for leather for their roles.

Overall I enjoyed this film. The tension of the central questions is built on well with mystery and dark secrets hinted at constantly. The underlying themes add to it but you don't lose anything if you don't see them and the dark secret is powerful and meaningful even if it must do well by the censors of the day. Glad I stumbled onto it.

asAS

I was immediately captivated by Katharine Hepburn's early monologue and the astonishingly well written play (Tennessee Williams) and screenplay (Gore Vidal) held me agog until Elizabeth Taylor's towards the end. It is an amazing start and a triumphant end whilst almost everything in-between is as good. The dialogue simply tingles the spine with its humour, doom laden gothic horror and barely believable implied depravity. I once thought fans that spoke of 'loving' a certain actress and being able to watch/listen to them all the time were having me on, if not themselves, but I have it for Elizabeth Taylor. I watch in awe as she spills out her character and imbues already dramatic scripts with even more involving and inspiring emotions. And, she looks fantastic. I thought she looked amazing in the early institution scenes and then she is glammed up! A great play given the very best treatment here and if Montgomery Clift was suffering during his performance he is still very effective in what he is asked to do, which as it involves mediating between the two ladies is no mean feat. Excellent.

Mezilabar

I have been watching movies since the early 1950s, and the title "Suddenly, Last Summer" has bounced around my brain a number of times, but until I watched it yesterday on the "Movies!" channel I had no idea what it was all about or who was in it.

It is set in 1937 New Orleans for some reason, but nothing of that city is shown and it was likely filmed in a studio somewhere. As it begins we learn that a young doctor has perfected the technique of performing partial brain lobotomies as a way to calm otherwise crazy people, where conventional treatments do not work.

Now along comes a rich older woman who wants to hire the doctor to do the procedure on her 20-something niece, she is convinced that the young woman desperately needs this. Remarkably the girl's mother seems anxious to go along with it, perhaps because of the large sum of money she stands to gain.

All of this very distasteful because as soon as we meet the young woman, as the doctor also discovers quickly, there really isn't anything wrong with her. So what is this "lobotomy" all about? That is the real mystery here.

Elizabeth Taylor, looking beautiful in her mid-20s, is the young woman Catherine Holly. Her rich aunt is Katharine Hepburn as Mrs. Violet Venable. The young doctor is Montgomery Clift as Dr. Cukrowicz. Even though I was already familiar with all the actors, I had not seen much of their work in movies. It was a pleasure to see all three of them. The acting is fine but some of the 1950s melodrama gets a bit much, especially when the characters are talking in circles while carefully avoiding discussing the actual issue at hand.

SPOILERS: Ms Venable just wanted to shut Katherine up to protect her poet son Sebastian who died "suddenly, last summer", while on a trip to Spain with Katherine. The official cause was heart attack, but when pressed to remember we see a reenactment, Sebastian was a homosexual and his mother didn't want that to be generally known. He would spend his time at the beach attracting young men and in a strange finish to his life he was chased and then the young men tore at his flesh.

Jark

Suddenly, Last Summer is a dark tale involving a New Orleans matriarch whose twisted relationship with her only son results in his murder. The matriarch is willing to spend millions in order to rewrite her son's history, and those millions are earmarked to go toward lobotomizing her niece, who knows the truth.

The dysfunctional relationship between Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) and her late son Sebastian is apparent during her initial consultation with a neurosurgeon, played by Montgomery Clift. She speaks of Sebastian in the present tense, and it becomes obvious that Sebastian, rather than her late husband, was her primary love interest.

Elizabeth Taylor portrays Catherine, Ms. Venable's niece, who was with Sebastian when he was killed. Catherine is well aware of Sebastian's sexual preferences and her statements to that effect provide the impetus for Violet to insist on ensuring her silence. She first has her admitted to a private sanitarium that has a "no visitors" policy; then she contacts Dr. Cukrowicz and insists that Catherine needs a lobotomy in order to be "at peace." In the end, Cukrowicz puts the pieces of Catherine's alleged "hallucinations" together, injects her with truth serum and allows her to tell the story of Sebastian's death, hinting that the reason he was killed was because of his sexual involvement with one or more of the young men he used Catherine to attract.

Freudian imagery abounds throughout this movie, which is something that may be lost on modern audiences and may well offend those who are gay. The Freudian concept that homosexuals are made, not born, by being in the presence of an overbearing, controlling female is reinforced in several scenes: Violet maintains a Venus flytrap that she pampers in a glass house while feeding it live flies; Violet describes a journey to the Galapagos Islands during which "flesh eating birds" attack newly hatched sea turtles and devour them. Violet embodies the devouring female archetype, and the fact that she followed Sebastian to Asia when he decided to become a Buddhist monk instead of remaining with her dying husband makes this even more clear.

Overall, the movie is well made, although Clift's character tends to be more subdued than would be expected and it's difficult to make Taylor's character less than glamorous. It makes no judgments toward homosexuality; rather, it depicts how the denial of reality can destroy those who insist on whitewashing the truth.

Gralinda

What you must know, if you haven't seen this, is that "Suddenly, Last Summer" is film noir in the extreme. You must be in the right mood for some serious drama before watching this. And don't expect some cutesy, happy ending. If that's what you want, watch "Harvey."

Harvey and Suddenly, Last Summer are polar opposites of the same theme: A family member wanting to commit a relative to an insane asylum for questionable reasons. The parallels are so distinct I wonder if Tennessee Williams set out to do this.

I see no one else has written a review since Elizabeth Taylor's death on March 23, 2011. Some people assumed that a woman with such flawless beauty could not possibly also be blessed with great acting talent. I was never one of them, and this movie certainly proves she was a great actress.

We all know of the difficulties child actors have transitioning to adult roles, even for great ones such as Margaret O'Brien or Shirley Temple. This movie illustrates the challenge: You must also be able to convey adult emotions like anger, fear, terror, sometimes even madness. Taylor comes through in spades.

It is interesting comparing the performances of Taylor and Katherine Hepburn, who normally is renown for her radiance and vitality. Here it is Taylor who exudes vitality, while Hepburn appears to be a sparkling personality with an empty soul. This was surely deliberate and took great acting skill, not to mention humility to stand in Taylor's shadow.

What I admire about Taylor's performance is its many layers. We hear about her long before she appears on screen, that she is a basket case in need of a lobotomy. And at first we might believe this to be true, but gradually she transforms her character as the truth unfolds. We learn that she is acting crazy, more or less deliberately, but why? It is not clear whether she wants Clift to believe her to be sane or insane, or even whether she might actually want the lobotomy, though in the end she fights against it with every ounce in her.

The problem is Taylor doesn't even know the truth herself, is afraid of the truth, but must face it, or face a lobotomy, a powerful incentive. What you get is a multi-layered, dynamic performance. It reminds me of Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop, another great beauty who did really have great acting ability. The madness of the scenario brings to mind Shakespeare, and Taylor's acting rises to the Shakespearian level.

The threat of a lobotomy provides a powerful driving force in the plot, but what really charges it up is the issue of Hepburn's potential donation of $1 million if the lobotomy is performed. Now you have the issue of misuse of psychiatric diagnostics for money, for prestige, for social convenience. Not every psychiatrist would have had the integrity of Clift to insist on digging for the truth.

As Taylor's character unfolds, we see a very real, very alive human being whom we can relate to. Taylor has produced such empathy, it is we who are threatened with a lobotomy, and all the horrors this would mean. This is not electroshock therapy, a more common cinematic device, but a method to keep the body alive while killing the mind, a truth we suspect, and she realizes as she looks down into the pit of mad women. The movie is becoming a living nightmare.

And so we find a very beautiful, privileged actress who somehow finds within herself the full breadth and depth of human experience, much as Marlon Brando did.

Taylor did not live a charmed life. Despite the beauty, talent and glamor, she had more than her share of tragedy and illness, though this came later. She was also the first great movie star to allow her real private life to be covered in the press honestly, without the PR hokum. I don't think that it was because she craved fame, which she had since she was a child, unlike some some modern celebrities without a fraction of her talent.

What you see in Suddenly is a very open, honest, vulnerable Taylor who is able to project her humanness onto the screen. This isn't something you can fake. Elizabeth Taylor was a great actress and a fine human being who lived an extraordinary life.

You won't soon forget Suddenly. But you might need an antidote for its bitterness. I suggest you follow it by watching Harvey.

Mikarr

"Suddenly, Last Summer" - is one of the scariest films I've seen. Directed in 1959 by Joseph Mankievitz and based on one of Tennessee Williams' plays, it deals with very disturbing topics. Elizabeth Taylor is sensational, playing Catherine, the girl who may have lost her mind after having witnessed her cousin's bizarre death that occurred "suddenly, last summer" during the vacation. Katherine Hepburn is magnificent as his adoring mother who wants the disturbing memories been surgically removed from the girl's memory.

Production design, set decorations, and costumes are absolutely stunning. Both, Hepburn and Taylor received very deserving Oscar nominations for the best leading performance.

Thetahuginn

As with many works by Tennessee Williams, this is a tale of "devourment". The universe of Tennesse Williams was not a kind or forgiving place. Very little redemption here, for viewers who require a story with a happy ending.

Mother Nature, God, the "natural order of things", are all consuming ferocious entities. Violet Venable's monologue regarding the consumption of Galapagos sea turtles by swarming birds of prey offers the prescient philosophic foundation of this theme. Remember, this is a one- act character study, eventually cinematized by Mankiewiscz. Therefore, the author can't invoke too many plots and sub-texts

Just as the Venus Fly trap plant in the Venable garden devours to survive, Catherine's brain will be surgically devoured to serve the needs of her aunt. Sebastian devoured his procured "boys" to serve his own sexual needs, and they in-turn, devoured him. The instruments of devourment here are money, sex, rich co-dependent mommies, curvacious cousins, medical science's need for new funds, etc.

The brilliant story repeatedly utilizes the obvious metaphor of "devourment", to present this theme. The language is quite literal and should be construed as such! No need for much interpretation or reading between the lines. Again -- we are dealing with what was originally a one-act play.

Ironically, the work's author, Tennesse Williams; and the the lead cast members -- Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor --must have felt similarly "consumed" in puritanical Hollywood and the restrictive political times of this type of consumptive, controlling, and cruel universe.

Adorardana

...how impressed, shocked, sad, touched, concerned and ALIVE I have been, after having watched this movie! In my dreams the scenes came back again - but please don't misunderstand me: it was not like the coming back of scenes while having a nightmare. I have lived this movie again: Katherine Hepurn as mother (Mrs. Venable), who decided to continue life in a white world of lies after her son's (Sebastian's) death . This white silhouette of Sebastian...whose favorite color was also white. This (white) shiny world that got smaller and smaller. WHITE - what a sad color it can be...

Sebastian Venable, it was decided by the producers, would not appear in the flesh. He was to be "a glimmer, an occasion for memory". This faceless creature is finally destroyed by an angry mob of street urchins in a climax not much different from that of James Whale's "Frankenstein", in which the peasants pursue the monster to the top of a hill, where fire engulfs him. Anyway, you really MUST have seen this movie! Mentally, you'll die again and again and then you'll be born again and again.

"Homosexuality" had to be explained to Actress Katherine Hepurn (I'm not talking about the content of the movie now...). She flatly refused to believe that such people existed. In years later, Mrs. Hepurn has been a vocal opponent of homosexuality, linking it with other social "ills" of society (Thank you Katherine for becoming an actress without political influence and not the first lady!).

And the last thing I have to say: Elizabeth Taylor - words can not express her shown talent, and how beautiful she looks here - so, let me close with: it is an honor to sit in the audience...

Sti

Millionairess, Violet Venable is obsessed with her now dead son, Sebastian. Sebastian met his untimely end whilst on vacation with his cousin Catharine, an end that has sent Catharine almost to the edge of insanity. Violet, very concerned about Catharine and her hurtful ramblings, enlists brain surgeon Dr Cukrowicz to see if he will perform a lobotomy on the poor girl, but as Cukrowicz digs deeper, motives and facts come crashing together to reveal something far more worrying.

As one expects from a Tennessee Williams adaptation, this picture is very talky, perhaps borderline annoyingly so? Yet it has to be said that for those willing to invest the time with it, the pay off is well worth the wait. Suddenly Last Summer is an odd mix of campy melodrama and Gothic horror leanings, a mix that personally doesn't quite hit all the intended spots. It could have been so different, tho, for if Gore Vidal and Joseph Mankiewicz had been given free rein back in this day of code restrictions, well the picture would surely have been close to masterpiece status. This adaptation only gives us little snippets on which to feed, we are aware of the homosexuality of the departed Sebastian, and other hints that come our way include incest, sadism and dubious class issues, but ultimately such strong material is never fully formed.

Elizabeth Taylor owns the picture as Catharine, sultry with heaving bosom, she does an excellent line in borderline nut case, all woe is me martyrdom and her final scenes are what pays the viewer off for their patience. Katharine Hepburn plays Violet and manages to chew the scenery and spit it out, it's an elegant performance but you really want more than we actually get! Montgomery Clift is the good doctor, not one of his better performances because he isn't asked to expand the character, just say his lines right, look baleful from time to time and play off Taylor's lead, job done really.

It's a recommended film to a degree, certainly one that simmers with an almost oppressive feel, but if the film is one to revisit often? Well that's up for debate and dependant on the viewer's inclination towards dialogue driven film's. 7/10

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