Suddenly, Last Summer
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Movie Reviews of Suddenly, Last Summer
Movie Review: Southern Gothic Drama Gone to Seed?
Summary: 4 Stars
I finally in 2005 see this movie released in 1959. I'm not sure what to say. The good: Elizabeth Taylor. Although she has taken a lot of criticism over the years for some of the bad movies she has made, she does a fantastic job of acting here. She even looks less than 100% beautiful when she is first seen in a hospital gown, and that takes some doing by the makeup department. It's always good to see that she sometimes is a fine actor. The not as good: Katharine Hepburn is of course one of our finest actors, but this is not her best role. You can see the beginnings here of the over-the-top performances that she often gave in later years. Montgomery Clift as Dr. Cukrowicz is wooden and just does a lot of staring. Finally, the "what is going on" here? Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams co-wrote the screenplay from a Williams play so they get most of the credit or blame, depending on your point of view. Of course the writers had to get around the censors-- Vidal had suffered greatly for his honest writing in THE CITY AND THE PILLAR-- so we have all this secrecy about Hepburn's (Mrs. Venable) son Sebastian who died "suddenly last summer," the cause of his death and the effect of his death on Catherine (Ms. Taylor). There seems to be a bit of incest-- emotional if not physical-- a hint that Sebastian may have had a thing about young men ("we procured for him"), and the ending that pretty much defies description. While I cannot conceive that Williams was striving for camp, since his own sister had one of the first lobotomies in the country-- Ms. Venable, along with the consent of Catherine's mother, wants that surgery performed on Catherine-- nevertheless, much of this movie comes across as less than serious, to say the least.
Query: Would we have seen so much of Ms. Taylor in that white bathing suit in the famous beach scene that supposedly took place in 1937 or 37? And would a physician have received no reprimand for kissing a patient the way Clift sucks face with Ms. Taylor?
Of course no American playwright has produced more fragile women characters than Tennessee Williams. We can add two more to the list; but for me, they do not work as well as some of the others, Blanche and Maggie, for instance.
Less than perfect Williams, however, is still entertaining.
Movie Review: Will Elizabeth Taylor have the labotomy ?
Summary: 4 Stars
I came across this movie quite by accident. I was requesting another Katharine Hepburn film I thought would be Summertime (1955), but this film came up instead. Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) begins with Montgomery Clift as a doctor who performs labotomies on people under primitive hospital conditions. He believes in giving people the mental peace they need. He makes a requested house call to an eccentric woman of means (Katharine Hepburn). She has plenty of money and is in care of her deceased son's estate. His home has a backyard full of unique trees and plants, including carnivorous. The land looks like a tropical forest. Her niece (Elizabeth Taylor) is at St. Mary's, a custodial home for the insane. She has fits of violence and babbling. Sebastian, the deceased son, his death has been a mystery or rather the whole story has not been told. Elizabeth Taylor knows but can't remember...yet. She must now be sent elsewhere, the home can no longer take care of her. So this aunt would like her niece to have a labotomy that the doctor performs. I will not reveal anymore of the plot, but this film is a must-see. I'm not much of a Katharine Hepburn fan, but boy I sure was hooked on every word she said and her performance in this film is outstanding and superb. Hepburn was 51 years of age. Elizabeth Taylor was 26 years of age. Mercedes McCambridge plays Mrs. Holly. Gary Raymond plays "George Holly". "Miss Foxhil" is played by Mavis Villiers. Elizabeth Taylor was nominated for Outstanding Actress for an Academy Award. This film was nominated in Art Direction--Set Decoration for a black & white film. DVD offers Widescreen or Full-Screen.Movie Review: What does Cathy know? What happened last summer?
Summary: 4 Stars
"Suddenly Last Summer" (1959) is a strange, dark movie, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and based on a play written by Tennessee Williams. This film touches many subjects that where highly controversial at the time it was made, for example mental illness, homosexuality and cannibalism. Truth to be told, a lot is to be inferred, and not much is shown. However, the fact that the characters hardly ever mention things that so obviously have to do with what happens makes those themes stand out even more.
The central question in this movie is, of course, "what happened last summer?", and the spectator will be immediately drawn into the mystery. Unfortunately for us, the only witness to what happened is Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), a beautiful and traumatized young woman who became mentally unbalanced after witnessing the death of her cousin Sebastian Venable. Her aunt, wealthy Mrs. Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), thinks that Catherine should be lobotomized. That is the reason why she urges neurosurgeon Dr. John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) to perform the operation. However, Dr. Cukrowicz believes that his patient may not be mad, after all, and that Mrs. Violet Venable might want the lobotomy in order to destroy Catherine?s mind. But what does Cathy know? What happened last summer?
On the whole, I think that you will like this movie, if you don?t mind the somber tone that pervades it. Recommended!
Belen Alcat
Movie Review: Florid and fevered, it is Williams' Southern Gothic at its full flavor...
Summary: 4 Stars
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...
Movie Review: Disturbingly Williams
Summary: 4 Stars
Williams is known for his vividly drawn, peculiarly repressed characters, of the flavour of incesteous love, but this added hints bizarre decadence and canibalism seems to be one of his most extreme. The hole film has a claustophobia feel about it, the ultimate secret of the last summer replusive, yet the strong performance keep you hypnotised. This was a pairing of Cliff and Taylor (romatic interests off screen at the time) after the filming of RainTree Country. Their offscreen romance was witnessed by the small town Danville, Kentucky as was the night Cliff recked his car. His performances after that period were 'affected' by his addiction on painkillers. The cast battled each other, battled the director, and maybe ulimately, it contributed to the emotionally taught potboiler.
Taylor is superb is one of her typically overrought performances, Helpbern perfect as the controlling, overly domanant, maybe incesteous mother of the dead Sebastion, willing to sacrifice the sanity of her neice in order to keep a shrine to her son's memory, Cliff shows the strain of the constant pain, but delivers a very credible performance as the doctor trying to decided just who is sane and who is not.
Most definately NOT for everyone.