Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
A rich, sharp-tongued and very eccentric widow will make a huge endowment to his hospital if the prominent neurosurgeon will lobotomize her young, beautiful cousin and stop her from saying those horrible, insane, obscene things.
What sort of things? About how the widow's son Sebastian died in Spain the previous summer. Mom, like everyone else, was obsessed with and completely devoted to the pan-sexual little god. By persistent inquiry the doctor finally discovers the awful, unspeakable truth:
spoiler
Sebastian used women as lures, bait to draw in young men (and boys?) When his mother became too old he switched to his young cousin, flaunting her on the beach, nearly naked, and causing riots. He went too far, and his young targets eventually dealt with him.
There is an early hint as to his interests when we visit his study and see all the male nude art. The same gimmick was used for comic effect in Death at a Funeral (2007).
It's been a long time and I remembered only fragments of an avant-garde, Production Code-straining film with that horrific climax and Elizabeth Taylor's wrenching breakdown as she remembers and tells the story. Now I'm more aware of a one-act play stretched out to feature film length, with very long dialogue passages.
And yet:
Katharine Hepburn delivers insane matriarchal dominance with remarkable skill. This made me wonder what Traci Lord from The Philadelphia Story (1940) would be like when older. That crazy? When the doctor arrives at the mansion and visits the hothouse (featuring Venus Flytrap, naturally!) I was reminded of Marlowe in the opening scenes of The Big Sleep (1946).
It is hard for me to be objective about Elizabeth Taylor during this era: she's still just 27 here. If I had only fetched her a glass of water once I would still be talking about it. What is a beautiful and sexy actress supposed to do: pretend that she isn't, or capitalize on those traits to the exclusion of all else? She might go a third way, less definable, more mysterious. That is what Taylor did.
Montgomery Clift is the brain surgeon with frightened eyes who is perhaps out of his area as a therapist. This is after Clift's auto accident and he struggled as an actor, addicted to drugs and alcohol. It is said that director Mankiewicz was particularly brutal towards him.
From a play by Tennessee Williams, adapted by Gore Vidal, set in New Orleans, you know this is going to be deep in Southern Gothic territory. Neither writer was happy with the results. Nor were the critics.
Malcom Arnold began the score but dropped out when he found the story too disturbing. It was completed by another composer.
Photographed by Jack Hildyard (The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Sundowners (1960), The Wild Geese (1978)).
Available on Blu-ray from Twilight Time. No extras apart from an isolated score.
