Suddenly, Last Summer

Fasten your seat belts! A lurid, ferociously over-the-top Southern Gothic psychodrama co-penned by Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams (from the latter’s play), Suddenly, Last Summer was described in a 1960 Time review as “the only movie that has ever offered the paying public, for a single admission, a practicing homosexual, a psychotic heroine, a procuress-mother, a cannibalistic orgy and a sadistic nun.” Now that’s bang for your buck, especially with Taylor, Hepburn, and Clift heading the stellar cast! Liz is a young woman driven insane after witnessing the terrible death of her cousin Sebastian during a European vacation. Kate is her overbearing Southern-Belle aunt — Sebastian’s mother — who is seeking to get Liz lobotomized lest she reveal the sordid truth about Sebastian’s demise. Monty — here in the throes of a prolonged, post-auto-accident substance abuse problem that has been called “the longest suicide in Hollywood history” — is the neurosurgeon being pressured to perform the surgery. Producer Sam Spiegel described the film as “an adult horror picture” and somehow got it approved by both the Legion of Decency and the Production Code Administration. Hepburn and Taylor won Oscar nominations; veteran Joseph Mankiewicz went on to director Taylor in 1963’s epic financial disaster Cleopatra. B&W, 35mm. 114 mins.