Suddenly, Last Summer
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Movie Reviews of Suddenly, Last Summer
Movie Review: Eventually, Last Century
Summary: 5 Stars
While the over-subtle handling of the film's unstated theme (h_o_m_o ... well, you know! wink! nudge! ... let's just call it That Subject we didn't discuss cinematically for the better part of the 1900s) may be anathema to modern sensibilities, "Suddenly, Last Summer" remains a dynamic film because of the talents involved in its production. Based on the play by Tennessee Williams, it boasts a screenplay written by Williams and Gore Vidal, was directed by the ever-stylish Joseph L. Mankiewicz ("The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "All About Eve"), and features an incredible cast led by Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn. Miss Taylor, looking every inch A Movie Star (her beauty is almost impossible to describe), gives a forcefully raw performance in the role of Catherine Holly, whose cousin Sebastian died under mysterious circumstances while the two of them were traveling abroad; while Miss Hepburn, every inch An Actress, is equally fascinating in the role of Sebastian's manipulative mother, Violet Venable. These two actresses, each arguably the biggest star-icon of their generations, are introduced in long individual sequences, and when they finally confront one another, the thespic sparks really begin to ignite the screen! Both received Best Actress Oscar nominations for their performances, and either would have been a worthy winner, but Simone Signoret got the trophy for "Room at the Top", possibly in part because Taylor and Hepburn split the votes.
The DVD is yet another example of why Columbia/Tri-Star is the best company at packaging its classic films. The disc offers: both widescreen and full-frame formats; theatrical trailers for this movie and three others ("Pal Joey", "Queen Bee", and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"); a video montage featuring production photographs and scene stills backed up with voice-overs from the soundtrack; a small selection of original release advertising materials; and brief talent files on the director and stars. A superlative disc in both content and presentation, this is one DVD that surely belongs in your classic cinema collection!
Movie Review: Fabulous Performances
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is a unique opportunity to see Katherine Hepburn in one of her best performances as Mrs. Violet Venable, a hypocritical, tyrannical and snobbish power monger of the old South. She is considering doing a lobotomy on her niece, Catherine Holly for fear that she could reveal the 'scandalous' life that led to her son Sebastian's savage death. As in many ways the mainstream culture in America would rather be lobotomized than accept the nature of homosexuality, this movie is a strange allegory for much more than a Southern Gothic scenario of horror and madness.
The most interesting things about this movie are outside the range of the camera: The great character of Sebastian, which sounds fascinating from the descriptions, and how Montgomery Clift, himself a tortured homosexual, felt about playing the role of the conscience in this movie that deals with his situation in the oblique manner that was only possible then to escape censorship. I find it fascinating that even today very few in the 75 reviews here even mention that homosexuality is a component in this film,not only because Sebastian is the central character to the story but because his mother and cousin can not be fully understood outside of the context of gay culture. Everything about the movie reverts to this theme: the exotic garden, once tended by Sebastian and now maintained by his mother, the baroque elaboration of Mrs. Venable's language and her exquisite manners, the perfect beauty of the crazed cousin in her 'Parisian' dress, the elaborate gilt bronze elevator in the house shared by Sebastian and his mother that is a reference to the Byzantine throne: all of these details are classic components within the structure of gay culture and identity.
Elizabeth Taylor is compelling as the maddened Catherine. Montgomery Clift's performance is not one of his best, and though he still looks handsome the face definetly shows the signs of the extensive repair after the accident and the more extensive, permanent damage from drinking and drugging that would kill him.
Movie Review: Suddenly, an outlaw film!
Summary: 5 Stars
If there was something interesting to remark about this bold and brave decade of the Fities was the fact many overlooked issues were exposed for the posterity. This film is part of the sextet of demolishing movies (The man of the golden arm, Baby Doll Butterfly 8, A long and hot summer and Anatomy of a murder).
"Suddenly last summer" was an audacious step in those times in which certain aspects of the intimate life had to be enclosed.
But the brilliant intelligence of the author, made of this existential dramatis personae, a distant consequence and not the primary plot, and he focused around the position of domination of a very wealthy Southern matriarch, her supposedly mad niece and a neurosurgeon.
The dialogues are pieces of the play. They reveal, suggest and mask the used conventionalisms, the well exposed moral codes, the well known device of transfer of blame. However the neurosurgeon is aware there is something nasty beneath the speech and decides to find out much more the words may describe.
Tennessee Williams was a sharp writer, and like a prominent artist, you may not conform yourself with a lineal approach. Obviously, the author proposes us the words may even disfigure not only a human life, but the most important (thinking at a major level) the relevance of the speech as lethal weapon in order to destroy the reputation of any human being (the black list of the previous decade, perhaps?).
At the dramatic resolution, we are aware what really happened and whosoever was out of the real context in this world, when our venerable matriarch's projects, and the embodiment of her elusive fantasies on the own neurosurgeon in the last sequence, in which we may watch her as Gloria Swanson in "Sunset boulevard", a lonely and disassociated woman trapped in her vanished dreams.
Potent and mature film, and even though at this historical moments you might regard it out date, think it twice due Philadelphia in 1993, caused a very similar impact.
Movie Review: mommy can't accept sonny boy's lust life.
Summary: 5 Stars
A wonderful , black and white, old -school hollywood dramatic film where the tragic , gruesome death of a pampered poet , Sabastian, is told by the two women who he used as bait to attract his special brand of 'mouthwatering" rough trade. Katherine Hepburn creates an unforgettable character as the wealthy, pampered, imperial mother (in full high camp-mode) who refuses to accept her precious son's erotic addiction...and the ultimate price he paid for it. A spectacularly comely Elizabeth Taylor, flashing eyes, wasp waisted and full bosomed, is perfect as the younger woman who Sabastian traded in his mother for when she became much too old to attract (and therefore to bait) his brand of 'delicious" thugboy-toys. He was no fool...he understood what bait needed to be. She had the grave misfortune to have witnessed that horrific final attack which brought Sabatian's life of romantic, artistic leisure (somewhere on a sunbaked ,exotic island) to a sudden, unthinkable end. (An island where the rough young lads must have been even hotter than that merciless tropical sun).
Violet, the mother, spends much of the movie trying to get a doctor to perform a lobotomy on miss Taylors' character in order to stop her from "babbling" about Sabastian's
preferred tastes in pleasures of the flesh....and his shockingly violent end.
Montgomery cliff plays the doctor who ends up refereeing these two extremely watchable old-school drama queens . He's the least effective casting choice, much too weak and fey and
he seems more "intrigued" by Sabastian's "adventures" than appalled by them. It was hard NOT to imagine the doctor as Sabastian..especially since Sabastian's face was never shown in flashbacks...a great directorial choice.
In conclusion, a rather controversial and somewhat vague story done up old hollywood style leaving plenty of room for one's imagination to fill in the blanks.
Movie Review: SOUTHERN GOTHIC HORROR....
Summary: 5 Stars
Watered down film version of Tennesee Williams' stage play that contains one of the most horrific storylines brought to the screen at the time (1959). Katharine Hepburn is memorable as the very weird Mrs. Violet Venable, a wealthy New Orleanian matron who keeps a monstrous jungle of carnivorous plants on her patio grounds. She attempts to procure the services of a new young neuro-surgeon (Montgomery Clift) with a radically new method of lobotomy to lobotomize her supposedly mad niece Catherine (a stunning Elizabeth Taylor) to shut-up her ramblings about the death of Violets' son, Sebastian, who died a grotesque death "suddenly last summer". Of course, Catherine isn't mad but still in shock since she witnessed Sebastians' death. While showing her "garden" to the doctor, Mrs.Venable relates a morbid story of she and Sebastian witnessing baby turtles being devoured by sea birds as they scrambled for their lives to the ocean. This tale is allegorical to the way Sebastian died but Mrs.Venable is in extreme denial about the nature of his death and the twos' true relationship. The doctor begins interviewing Catherine and discovers the truth through the use of truth serum. Sebastian was a sexual predator who used his mother while they vacationed to attract young men and when Violet was no longer young or pretty enough he turned to Catherine. This leads to the horrible revelations about his death that Violet Venable is determined to stop Catherine from revealing---even if it means a lobotomy. This is amazing subject matter for the time and daringly brought to the screen. The film is somewhat stagily done but fascinating to watch thanks to the awesome performances of Hepburn and Taylor. Essential viewing for truly off-beat psycho-drama and what could be gotten away with in 1959 when handled properly. Give this one a good watching.