Suddenly, Last Summer [HD]

Had An Unforgettable Summer? It Can't Compare To Cathy's!
Tennessee Williams SOUTHERN GOTH masterpiece a la dark black and white Hollywood film style with Joseph (All About Eve, Guys & Dolls) Mankiewicz at the director's helm and screenplay adapted by Gore Vidal.

Elizabeth Taylor plays beautiful and crazy Cathy and Mercedes McCambridge (the actress who provided the voice of the demon in The Exorcist) plays her protective mother. Katherine Hepburn is Auntie Venable and wants niece Cathy to have a lobotomy to help her forget what she witnessed in regards to her son and Cathy's cousin, Sebastian and his untimely & somewhat mysterious "death" involving Sebastian's sexual secrets...

This all happened in front of Cathy's young & virginal eyes, "Suddenly, Last Summer". Last summer, Cathy and Sebastian travelled to Europe on an extravagant, decadent & obviously quite hedonistic vacation. Mrs. Venable was already quite traumatized by a baby sea turtle massacre last summer on the Galapogos Islands and Kathy was raped that very...

SOUTHERN GOTHIC HORROR....
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...

The strength of the performances make this film sizzle
This 1959 film starred both Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn. Each is a fine actress in her own right. But put them together, and the screen just sizzles. Each one has long monologues lasting for more than 15 minutes, but, because of their talents, I was riveted to my seat the entire time. Adapted from a play by Tennessee Williams who was joined by Gore Vidal in writing the screenplay, it's a strikingly weird story set in 1937 New Orleans and deals with the sensitive subjects of insanity, lobotomy and cannibalism.

When we consider that the film was released during a time of high censorship, we have to applaud the writing, which had to conform to the guidelines of the time. Perhaps for this reason though, some of the story is not quite crystal clear. But this doesn't matter, nor does it matter that the Southern accents seem either non-authentic or missing altogether. That's because of the strength of the performances. And not every detail has to always be tied up in a...

Click to Editorial Reviews