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Albert Dekker, David Cameron, Elizabeth Taylor

This black-and-white film adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Southern gothic play is perhaps more famous for the rumored off-screen shenanigans of its stars than for its over-the-top repressed sexuali...( read more  read more... )ty (only Williams could pull off that paradox, and pull it off he does). Supposedly, stars Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor battled for screen time; Hepburn warred very publicly with director Joseph Mankiewicz; and a postaccident Montgomery Clift relied heavily on painkillers and support from friend Taylor during the grueling shoot. Even this, however, cannot top the events of the film itself, revolving around the unseen playboy Sebastian and his mysterious death, which has something to do with young boys, a decadent European vacation, and Taylor in a provocative wet, white bathing suit. To give away the plot would spoil the fun, but suffice it to say that what Taylor saw was so horrible it drove her nuts, and Sebastian's mother (Hepburn) wants her to have a lobotomy in order to keep it from coming out; Clift is brought in to do the procedure. It's all a hoot and a holler, but as played by the two leading ladies (both of whom nabbed Oscar nominations), it's also compelling, chilling, and utterly gothic. Taylor gives a fierce performance, as the climaxing monologue that reveals Sebastian's "secret" rests entirely on her shoulders, and Hepburn plays brilliantly against type as Sebastian's manipulating, overbearing mother. Only Clift, saddled with a dreary character in charge of plot exposition, fails to deliver. Adapted by Gore Vidal. --Mark Englehart

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83% liked it

5,532 ratings

Unrated, 138 min.

Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Release Date: December 22, 1959

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DVD Release Date: August 15, 2000

Stats: 340 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (340)

  • groaningbitch
    February 9, 2009
    groaningbitch
    "suddenly, last summer" is another cinematic adaption from tennessee willaims' tale of subdued lust channeled thru auto-eroticism, and the catatonic revelation shows williams' conventional stance of guilt against homosexuality since its gay protagonist appears obscurely "faceless...( read more)", incurring the doom to be devoured and sliced into pieces which adds up a gothic aroma of god's merciless condemnation against incest and onanism.

    letting alone the vying feud between its stars: clift, taylor and hepburn. (the recovering clift from disfiguration and alcoholism shuns aside insipidly as taylor and hepburn are eager to monopolize the screen time), the movie is dialogue-driven (just like any classic movie based upon williams' plays) under narrowed indoor spots which creates an adequate claustrophobic fright which fits the story, particularly the artificial prehistorical garden of sebastian's residence.

    it's a story about a psychiatrist(clift) who is urgent to gather the one million to build up the public hospital from a rich widow, miss violet(hepburn), who is over-obsessed with her demised son, sebastian, meanwhile he doesn't wanna perform the cruel lobotomy to the rich widow's niece, katherine, (played by taylor, who is the witness to sebastian's death, who might expose the sordid details within violet and sebastian) against his conscience. the mere alternative is to find out how sebastian died last summer, so the desperate psychiatrist must exert himself to obtain the fund from one woman; truth from the other.

    the riveting aspect would still be tennesse williams' two archetypes of genders. as for the male protagonists, williams favor to mold homosexual males with a genteel soul of poet intimated by the gluttonous desire of the strong females, OR muscular brutes with lush physicality contempt women in an earnestly misogynistic way. commonly, willaims' woman characters are all voluptuous powerful females who suffer from the void of sexual consummation, promiscuous but eternally dissatisfied by their intense want of sex.

    sebastian is the most frequently mentioned name in the script, and it seems like everything whirls around this enigmatic sebastian whose existence could jeopardize the inward peace of these two dynamic women, but the obliterated cameo of sebastian leaves audience more space of imagination (just like rebecca in hitchcockian fable) as the non-existent homme fatale who brings ill-fate to hot-headed passionate women.

    as freud once remarks, homosexuality might be rooted from the manipulation of an overbearing parent who views her son as the substitute lover so the man cannot romance or exercise his lust to any other woman since it would be like betraying mother whom he loves and hates terribly in the same time and "suddenly, last summer" seems like a perfect exemplification for this complex. it also reflects williams' paradoxical denial to his own inclination since he chooses to terminate sebastian, an attractive poet who turns his own mother and cousin into his pimps, in a horrid method of pessimistic fatalism as the vultures in the blue sky are destined to consume the newly born infants of sea turtles, a horrific analogy of nature's brutality against all the living things, including the misanthropic poet who covets other men.

    but williams does have sparing mercy for katherine who represents his miserable sister who gets lobotomized for good, so katherine survives wholesomely while the domineering violet flops into the prey of insanity as williams' simmering grudges against maternity.
  • mjgildea
    May 8, 2007
    mjgildea
    The movie's not amazing but Liz Taylor was. Great performances but otherwise it's not a necessity.
  • graveling861
    April 12, 2009
    graveling861
    I got something out of this movie but I'm not sure what it was. It had moments I guess but very over-the-top.
  • kluroda01
    November 23, 2009
    kluroda01
    awesome classic movie.. that is surprisingly VERY dark and disturbing!!
  • philpenny1
    November 17, 2009
    philpenny1
    Williams, Mankiewicz, Hepburn, Taylor and Clift. Even if it was bad, it would still be good.
  • gultenreiz
    November 13, 2009
    gultenreiz
    Based on a play by Tennessee Williams, "Suddenly, Last Summer " is about Catharine Holly, that descend into madness after her cousin is murdered.
    Seems that while they were in Europe, something horrible happened that triggered this unfortunate event. The thing is, she not real...( read more)ly insane, but her aunt, a very influential woman, tries to convinces doctors that Catharine needs a lobotomy, beeing despaired that anyone would found out about her late sons homosexuality.
    The rest of the movies revolves around Catharine and her tryings in convincing anyone that shes not demented.
    Well, I didn't buy it, I think would've been way easier for Violet Venable (Hepburn) to buy Hooly's silence, and send her away, why go all that trouble and buy everyone else around her?
    And, as usual, Elizabeth Taylor is overracting, while Montgomery Clift is stiff and not showing that much. Hepburn is good, but she always is.
    The interesting fact is that Williams' sister Rose was compelled to undergo a lobotomy at the instigation of their domineering mother.
  • MetalMario2
    October 4, 2009
    MetalMario2
    Elizabeth Taylor actually outperforms Katharine Hepburn here.
  • SageSlowdive
    August 24, 2009
    SageSlowdive
    Very good Tennesse Williams drama.
  • jam233
    August 19, 2009
    jam233
    So very Tennessee Williams. Powerfully acted, what an amazing cast. Katherine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor give amazing performances. Very heavy drama, at times disturbing and certainly controversial, especially for 1959. Great direction.
  • risingstar9k
    June 25, 2009
    risingstar9k
    Stellar cast. Stellar acting. Stellar movie. Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor don't miss a beat, and Katherine Hepburn falls perfectly in place in this twisted drama.

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  • Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Mercedes McCambridge are all in the cast of  Answer »
  • Richard Burton appeared with his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, in all of the following films except ...  Answer »
  • What did Sebastian die of in "Suddenly Last Summer"?  Answer »
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