Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) User Reviews (158)

Suddenly, last summer in Cabeza de Lobo

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 18 October 2005]

"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.

(POSSIBLE SPOILER)...Gothic decadence gives Taylor and Hepburn striking roles...

[Doylenf · 7/10 · 13 July 2006]

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.

good adaptation of Williams play

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 23 November 2006]

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.

Unsung, surreal masterpiece

[robb_772 · 10/10 · 16 February 2008]

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.

Lots of Symbolism, Dramatic Performances, Frightening Visuals.

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 6 August 2012]

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.

Thinly veiled story about the unspeakable!

[MickeyTo · 31 March 2000]

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!

Flamboyant Southern Gothic Tennessee Williams Served Up by Masters

[EUyeshima · 7/10 · 18 July 2006]

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.

One of the better film versions of a Williams classic

[ian_harris · 8/10 · 2 June 2003]

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.

Talk is never cheap when sourced from Tennessee Williams.

[hitchcockthelegend · 7/10 · 12 November 2008]

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

The love that dared not speak its name.

[jpseacadets · 10/10 · 17 February 2005]

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

Over-the-top entertainment

[tamara-54 · 7/10 · 17 October 2005]

*Spoiler warning* This is a movie you can't take seriously, but you can enjoy all the same if you approach it with an awareness that it IS Tennessee Williams and it is lush and lurid, with gorgeous dialogue that is totally unbelievable coming out of the character's mouths. It is a fun and entertaining movie to watch, with emotions running high and emoting even higher. Kate Hepburn and Liz Taylor are both mesmerizing; Monty Clift didn't stand a chance, poor guy.

I thought that the final scenes with Liz over-acting her little heart out could have been more suspenseful had the script not given away Sebastian's secret so early in the movie. I also believe that some reviewers of this film underestimate just how much the first audiences viewing the film understood what was going on. Maybe it wasn't talked about openly, but it is my impression from histories and diaries I've read that most adults were aware of homosexuality and I suspect they caught on as quickly as we do today to just what Liz was talking about in that scene in the sun-room when she makes it clear that she and Violet were "bait" Sebastian used to get his hooks into kids.

I also disagree with the reviewer who said Sebastian's death was a "gay-bashing". I don't believe the boys killed Sebastian because he was gay. It was extremely common in those days (and maybe still today- I don't know for sure) for men vacationing in Europe to solicit sex from younger men in places like Italy and Greece.

I think the boys killed him because he was a mean, evil SOB. Catherine all but said so, at one point. He was clearly, like his mother, a user who took from others without giving anything back. I don't believe this movie is making a universal statement that homosexuality is evil and gay characters should die horrible deaths. I think THIS particular gay character, who was seriously screwed-up and all but emotionally suffocated by his mother, was killed because of the way he treated people, not because he was gay. True, a lot of movies at the time showed gays in the worst light possible; but I don't get the impression that Williams, in this, was saying homosexuality was evil, even if he was conflicted, himself.

Don't expect a work of art, going into this movie. The symbolism isn't subtle; it knocks you over the head again and again. There are a few boring moments where the dialogue tends to get repetitive and runs on a little interminably. Those particular moments I passed just enjoying Hepburn's and Taylor's acting, or over-acting as the case may be.

No shoot-outs or car chases, just good acting

[ksdilauri · 10/10 · 19 November 2022]

The psychological dramas that Tennessee Williams specialized in were not for everybody, but there was more than enough audience--then and now- to make them timeless. Some film versions of his work hold up better than others; this one maintains its emotional power, in spite of the screenplay being trimmed to adapt the subject matter to 1959 audiences. The performances are superb in spite of it: few but Kate Hepburn could have delivered Violet's flowery (sorry, I couldn't resist) dialogue as believably as she does here. Taylor turned in yet another excellent, Oscar-nommed performance after a string of consecutive hits, and really should have won for this. It's a thinking-man's melodrama, so it won't entertain anyone looking for action, but if you appreciate good acting and writing in older films, give it a watch.

Mercurial cast and handling should have resulted in a more gripping melodrama

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 29 September 2005]

Wicked Katharine Hepburn tries preventing her hysterical niece (Elizabeth Taylor) from telling the grisly details about her son's bizarre demise; she hopes to have the girl lobotomized, but a sympathetic doctor would rather hear the truth. Tennessee Williams' play was watered down by Hollywood, but even still it isn't one of the great playwright's better works. Taylor is gorgeously photographed and works hard at her "revelation" sequence, but screenwriter Gore Vidal has her covering the same territory again and again, constantly repeating the film's ungainly title. It's a kick to see La Liz matching tics with Katharine Hepburn, regal and eccentric and vulgarly decadent, but poor Montgomery Clift is out of it as the doctor who intercedes. Picture has a very handsome production design, some good and/or interesting bits, and enough curiosity value to keep one watching. But considering these high-powered talents, it should have certainly been stronger. **1/2 from ****

"Insane is such a meaningless word ..."

[majikstl · 3/10 · 12 August 2005]

It became the vogue in the 1960s for mature actresses to prolong their shaky careers by a movie or two by appearing in horror films. It is significant that, as the youth culture was taking over the medium and society in general, Hollywood opted to show former icons of the silver screens in roles that often cruelly revealed their ages as terrorized victims of violence or equally terrorizing purveyors of violence. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Olivia de Havilland, Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Shelley Winters and even Debbie Reynolds gave it a shot and, surprisingly, some of their movies were really pretty good: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?; HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE; WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? and ROSEMARY'S BABY.

The ever classy Katharine Hepburn is generally thought to have avoided such films, but in reality she was part of the vanguard in 1959 having contributed SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER to the genre. Oh, SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER does pretend to be anything but a horror movie and bears the pedigree of being a high-toned art film. In addition to Hepburn, the cast includes Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift; the script is by Gore Vidal from a play by Tennessee Williams; and it is all delivered under the direction of Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Such talent, plus the droningly pretentious dialogue concerning art and insanity, create the illusion of serious drama, but this is nonetheless a freak show horror movie that simply lacks the good grace to include any genuine suspense.

Traipsing around her Gothic manse with all the coy sinister villainy of a Vincent Price, Hepburn plays Violet Venable in a performance that is so deliciously awful that it flirts with being pure camp. She plans to commemorate her grown son's untimely death by having her niece lobotomized. It seems her niece, Catherine, played with breathless hysteria by Taylor, knows the wicked truth about the life and death of Violet's only child, Sebastian: he was a "poet," a code word for homosexual. Though, depending on how you decipher the film's confusing dialogue, he could also be a bisexual, a pedophile, a rapist and/or a victim of incest. Apparently, Sebastian used his mother as a "procurer" of young boys (how young is left vague) -- though just why a wealthy, handsome, educated, globe-trotting sophisticate like Sebastian would need his mommy to get him playmates is not at all clear -- unless mommy was a playmate too. When Violet got too old to attract worthy young twinks, Sebastian enlisted the aid of Catherine (which makes a tad more sense, given Taylor's well-known gift for cultivating friendships with various gay men, including costar Clift).

Anyway, as pointed out in the book and movie THE CELLULOID CLOSET, Sebastian is portrayed as a monster and in scenes that echo the climax of FRANKENSTEIN, he is either literally or metaphorically "cannibalized" by a band of street urchins he had unwisely attempted to victimize. But if Sebastian is The Creature, then it follows that Violet must be his Dr. Frankenstein, a madwoman with the compulsion to play God. The film's unspoken evil is often thought to be homosexuality, but in reality it is incest. Violet catered to Sebastian's homosexual desires as a way of being part of his sex life and she wants Catherine destroyed because she thinks of her as a rival for Sebastian's affections, even posthumously. It all goes beyond kinky and straight to just plain weird.

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER could have been an intriguing dark comedy, but as it plays hide and seek around the central issues it raises, it becomes a confusing morass of suggested perversions and sordid behaviors, made all the more obscure by a film production code that refused to admit the existence of the very issues the film tries to exploit. Add this to the fact that both of the women in question could be totally bonkers -- they are, after all, creations of Tennessee Williams -- and what is fact and what is bombastic silliness is further confused.

To a great degree, SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER is a distorted funhouse mirror image of Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO. Hitchcock, however, had the good sense to first craft a nifty little thriller and to save the twisted Oedipus backstory for his shocking ending. SUMMER talks all the psychological matters to death, yet manages the amazing feat of never actually discussing anything with any clarity. With some effort, this sort of peek-a-boo game-playing with the dialogue could have been amusing, but the only humor here is unintentional, provided by the overwrought performances.

It is alleged that Williams wrote the original play on orders from his psychiatrist as a way of dealing with his own conflicted feelings over his homosexuality. Such psycho-sexual therapy is best left to dream diaries rather than stage plays, let alone big budget motion pictures, though amateur Freudians would no doubt have a field day analyzing (or chuckling over) all the film's simplistic symbolism. (Violet's concern over the care and feeding of her carnivorous Venus Flytrap would be touching were it not so, well, creepy.)

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER is a really bad movie. It is a mystery that leaves most of its questions unanswered and supplies an explanation for its main puzzle that is, to say the least, ridiculous. The production is obviously hamstrung by the censorship of the era, but even if were made today with complete freedom, it would still be more befuddled than bold. Williams clearly had issues in that, assuming Sebastian was his alter ego, he made one of the screen's first clearly homosexual characters to be both a villain and a victim, both omnipresent and totally invisible, both predator and prey. As a pseudo horror film SUMMER has little of relevance to say; but as a look into Williams' psyche it might be quite frightening.

I wonder what Tennessee's psychiatrist had to say about it?

Brilliant Script by Gore Vidal

[drednm · 9 August 2005]

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.

Intensely shocking, you'd think it almost taboo for 1950s movies

[ppilf · 9/10 · 23 June 2017]

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.

Born to play Tennessee Willams

[MOscarbradley · 8/10 · 2 November 2006]

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.

Tennessee Williams tale of homosexuality, Southern aristocracy and madness

[jmtpubs · 7/10 · 17 February 2014]

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.

Tennesse Does it Again

[millerbn · 8/10 · 12 October 2006]

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.

Terrifying, actually

[xan-the-crawford-fan · 7/10 · 3 September 2021]

Elizabeth Taylor starts off wooden and ends up overacting. Katharine Hepburn warbles her way through her lines and bites some heads off. Montgomery Clift just sort of stands there as the two divas (Kate and Liz) clash in a battle of overacting and melodramatics. Everyone else does an OK job.

I have read the play by Tennessee Williams a couple of times, but the movie is better. After Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Williams didn't really have any good plays. He had bled his formula of "in the hot, blistering south, all the women are nutjobs/narcotics/faded southern belles and all the men are homosexual/maybe homosexual drunken selfish brutes" pretty dry. But, to be fair, where do you go after The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire back to back?

Elizabeth Taylor is pretty good in her role, even if at the start she's a bit "I...am...mentally...ill..." and by the ends she's a bit "THEY TORE HIM TO PIECES AND THEY ATE HIM! ATE HIMMMMM!" . Reportedly she drew her emotions from the final scenes from the recent death of her third (of seven) husband Mike Todd, said to be the only one of the men she married that she truly loved (other than Richard Burton). The way she acts, even if it is is bit schizophrenic, makes you care for her character.

Katharine Hepburn plays an evil variation on Katharine Hepburn. I've always wondered why she didn't play more evil characters ("Let's lobotomize my niece so we can hide the fact that my son, the homosexual sexual predator, got eaten by cannibal Spanish children!"), but this film partly explains why. She makes Bette Davis in Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte look like a sane, sprightly philanthropist.

Montgomery Clift is good, despite not having much to do and coming across as rather wooden. He was a good actor (better than Brando, definitely), so he does the best he can. This film was after his car accident, so he is a bit disfigured, but not a lot. He's still quite handsome, actually.

Some of the acting is fairly campy, but the roles are written so they are that way. How else do you play a crazy old bean who likes to wear white and has an elevator (and a creepy garden) in her house? And wants to lobotomize her niece?!

A few plot points are outdated, including the treatment of the mentally ill (that scene where Elizabeth Taylor tries to commit suicide by leaping off the railing in the mental hospital is probably the scariest scene in the film.)

It's still a good, if flawed, film, but better view as a schlock horror versus as a serious drama (à la H...HSC).

Watch this one and Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte back-to-back. Good old schlocky fun!

One of the Scariest Films I've seen

[Galina_movie_fan · 9/10 · 9 November 2005]

"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.

Dinner Chimes at Cabeza de Loco.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 13 June 2007]

Neat set decoration on display here as Aunt Violet Venable (Hepburn) takes Dr. Cucrovitz (Clift) on a tour of Sebastian's, her deceased son's, botanical gardens while trying to persuade him to perform a lobotomy on her niece Cathy (Taylor) who is making a nuisance of herself. The indoor gardens are a vast place filled with primitive plants that were once eaten by the dinosaurs -- the first dinosaurs, the herbivorous ones, not the flesh-eating dinosaurs that came later. Aunt Violet demonstrates the feeding of a carnivorous plant, the "aptly name" Venus flytrap, whose diet of live flies must be flown in at considerable expense during the winter months.

Well, to let the cat out of the bag, Aunt Violet promises to fund a new building devoted to psychosurgery at Cucrovitz's underfunded state hospital if only he will do a slice-and-dice number on Catherine's frontal lobes and "cut those lies out of her mind." The lies, as it turns out, aren't really lies. For years, first Aunt Violet and then Catherine acted as bait for attractive young men, whom Sebastian would then seduce -- two tummlers, one replacing the aging other. The operation does not take place.

I don't know about Aunt Violet but Catherine would have made pretty good bait. When we first meet Elizabeth Taylor she is a patient in a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of dementia praecox (schizophrenia). She apologizes to Clift for her appearance. They don't let her groom herself. However, she looks okay. Her eyes are properly colored and though her hair is a bit messy and her dress a little drab, she has a magnificent bosom and a face that would light up a room. Clift himself was staggeringly handsome a few years earlier but had since been in a car wreck that ruined his good looks even as it cemented his friendship with Taylor, his co-star in George Stevens' superb "A Place in the Sun." His acting, however, is up to par, despite the fact that by this time Clift was bombed and strung out from morning till night. Can't imagine how he remained so thin.

The story is engaging, no doubt about it. Rich Aunt wants troublesome niece silenced by what amounts to medical murder. Lobotomies are no longer used, having been replaced by powerful and (mostly) effective anti-psychotic drugs. They were pretty brutal anyway, taking away extreme anxiety and the distress associated with terrifying symptoms, but also leaving behind little more than a raw and bleeding stub of the patient's original personality. This film is set in 1937. Two years later, the innovator responsible for lobotomies, Egon Munoz, won a Nobel prize in medicine for it.

There's a problem with the screenplay. Williams' best play was "Streetcar Named Desire." It was studded with short and flowery phrases, sometimes extending into brief, intense monologues. ("Don't you just love these long rainy afternoons in N'Awlins? When an hour's not just an hour but a little piece of eternity dropped into our hands -- and who knows what to do with it?" That's Blanche, just before she puts some moves on a teen aged boy.) In this film the flowery speeches come more often, and they're longer. Only a few minutes into the story and Aunt Violet is carrying on about the baby sea turtles being eaten by birds on the beaches of the Galapagos Islands. Catherine's big Reveal about Sebastian's homosexuality and his recruiting tactics is split into two parts. It's all a bit much, and these long speeches constitute an extreme demand on the performers. Hepburn is up to it because hers is shorter. Taylor gives it her best but it's almost too much and a viewer can sense the effort being put into it, the rising, almost hysterical pitch.

The story lacks Streetcar's sense of place too, the ambiance. Arnold Malcom's scores have done yeoman work in other films, like "The Bridge on the River Kwai," but Streetcar had Alex North's slouching, slightly menacing Southern rhythms and this film needs such support badly. Here we feel uneasily that Aunt Violet should be slashing her way through the jungle behind William Holden.

Well, those speeches may be long and difficult to read out for the audience, but what imagery. And Williams scores some points in the dialog. Sebastian makes a point of producing one poem every nine months, the length of human gestation. Clift: "I hope they weren't hard to deliver." And Taylor has a line about people being like children, trying to spell God's name with the wrong alphabet blocks.

Not Williams' best, but by no means a clunker.

Florid and fevered, it is Williams' Southern Gothic at its full flavor...

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 8/10 · 12 June 2005]

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-aware…For 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

Give Me a Break

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 20 September 2006]

One has to wonder if Tennesse Williams had plum run out of ideas when he resorted to writing this ridiculous piece of Southern Gothic claptrap. I don't know if any actors could put this material over, but the ones gathered for this filmed version certainly can't. No doubt audiences at the time were fainting all over themselves at the subject matter -- homosexuality, cannibalism, lobotomies. Choose your psychological depravity, it's here. But now it all just seems so SILLY.

All of the actors take the affair dreadfully seriously, and I don't know whether that makes the movie better or worse. Katharine Hepburn is the only one who you might suspect is in on the joke. She does an impersonation of Katharine Hepburn doing an impersonation of a loony Southern matriarch who likes to fondle venus fly traps while talking about turtles having their bellies plucked out by seagulls. Her nose pointed at the ceiling while delivering all of her lines in that haughty Eastern aristocratic accent makes you wonder if she showed up on the set, realized what she was in for, and decided to have some fun with it. Montgomery Clift delivers a zoned-out performance and wanders through the film like a zombie -- with all the talk about lobotomies, you wonder if his character has already had one. And it's a wonder there was any scenery left after Elizabeth Taylor was done chomping up her role as the young lass who saw her gay boyfriend eaten by a bunch of Italian hunks. Can't imagine why she would have any neuroses after that.

Ah, well. For all of its ridiculousness, "Suddenly, Last Summer" does have a certain fascinating quality about it, mostly due to its lurid subject matter. You keep watching to see how much farther over the edge the film can possibly go. This doesn't make it a good movie, but it does make it watchable.

Grade: B-

Puh-leese

[Holdjerhorses · 2/10 · 29 June 2007]

"Suddenly, Last Summer" is one of those works of art that make idol-worshippers look like idiots.

First, the script. By 1959, Tennessee Williams was worshipped as a sort of Golden Calf of poetic Southern Gothic depravity. His "memory play," "The Glass Menagerie," in 1944 was sheer genius that holds up as powerfully today as it did originally.

"A Streetcar Named Desire", just three years later, is also powerful, yet already exhibits a self-conscious straining for effect that would finally grow laughable in the excesses of "Orpheus Descending" ("The Fugitive Kind") and "Suddenly, Last Summer." At the climax of "Orpheus," there's a clown and a calliope and a gang of redneck castrationists bent on mutilating the Marlon Brando character's manhood.

At the climax of "Summer," Catherine (the Elizabeth Taylor character) shriekingly recounts the stalking, dismemberment and cannibalism of her gay cousin, Sebastian, by the underage Spanish boy-urchins she was unwittingly helping him procure -- thus saving herself from a lobotomy ordered by her loony aunt Violet (the Katharine Hepburn character), who immediately goes over the edge.

Got all that?

This isn't High Art. This is melodramatic Soap Opera written in sometimes glorious but more often precious "poetry" and Symbolism with a capital "S." These are the deliberately "shocking" plottings of a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who debuted at his peak (with "Menagerie") and went downhill from there.

The characters in "Summer" simply don't exist outside of Williams' fevered imagination.

Ever meet a gay guy whose Mother "procured" young boys for him, because she was "attractive" (or looked like Katharine Hepburn)? No. You haven't. Young boys aren't attracted to old mothers.

And what kind of Mother, or cousin (the Elizabeth Taylor role) would "procure" young boys for Sebastian in the first place? Even in 1937 (the setting of the play), it would take about five minutes to know what's going on and refuse to be any part of it.

But no. In Tennessee Williams Land, it's not about reality. It's about the words. It's about "art" and "poetry" versus the animal debasement of "real life" (Stanley in "Steetcar"). Sebastian writes one perfect poem every summer, dedicated to Violet, his mother. They're a "couple."

Too bad there wasn't PFLAG in 1937.

We're supposed to be so transfixed by Williams' language that we ignore the ludicrous characters and plots.

Back then they seemed shocking. Today they're just silly and overwrought.

The cast -- Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, et al. -- are fine. Actors LOVE Tennessee Williams. "His lines are so beautiful."

Yes. And so phony.

In the end we're stuck with an unbelievable script about unbelievable characters in unbelievable situations speaking unbelievably pretentious "poetry." For all the ostensibly fiery theatrics, there's nothing there except sheer artifice on everybody's part.

Just a talented ambitious wordsmith on a cultural lucky streak who's managed to bamboozle the public and some fine Hollywood actors into chewing up the scenery by convincing people that any of this is somehow profound. Or even Art.

It's not. It's pretentious self-impressed trash on every level.

Except for 27 year old Elizabeth Taylor in that bathing suit.

THAT'S art.

Tennessee Williams had nothing to do with that.