Review of Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) by Jamie B — 01 Nov 2009

Based on the play by Tennessee Williams (my favorite playwrite), this one has it all. 1st we have the domineering, nearly incestuous machinations of Violet (Katherine Hepburn), who is almost desperate in her refusal to acknowledge the homosexuality of her son Sebastian, who remains faceless in the film, underscoring the perceived shame of his "unnatural" desires.

We also have Elizabeth Taylor turning in an amazing performance as the veluptuous and tortured cousin Catherine, whom Aunt Violet has institutionalized and wants to have labotomized to prevent the true nature of Sebastian's demise being revealed.

Then we have Montgomery Clift as the psychiatrist who eventually drugs and hypnotizes Catherine to discover the hideous truth, that Sebastian used her beauty to lure young men into his orbit and seduce them. When Elizabeth Taylor (as cousin Catherine) recounts the tale of Sebatian's demise she is at once rabid and pathetic in her hysteria. Given the time it was made, the movie version of this play does gloss over the lurid details of Sebastian's death, that he was murdered and then cannabalized by a group of these young men.

So, again, this one has it all for Tennessee Williams fans. The vivacious temptress. The domineering matriarch. The poetic, self-loathing homosexual. Madness and sex...all set against a lush Lousiana backdrop. Powerful stuff indeed.