Suddenly Last Summer
The action is set in 1937. Violet Venable (Katherine Hepburn) is the wealthiest woman in town (the movie hints that the town is New Orleans, but this isn't entirely clear). She is a widow and last summer her only son, Sebastian, died, supposedly of a heart attack, while on vacation with his cousin, Katherine Holly. Mrs. Venable claims that Katherine, who is her niece by marriage, has been mentally deranged since then.
Mrs. Venable wants to enlist the services of Dr. John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) to perform a lobotomy on Katherine to control her "violent" behavior. In return she would endow the state mental hospital where he works with one million dollars for a new facility for neurosurgery. The hospital is antiquated and inadequate. The doctor who runs the hospital wants the money very badly. Dr. Cukrowicz is also deeply frustrated by the poor conditions in which he has to operate. Katherine's mother (Mercedes McCambridge) and younger brother, George (Gary Raymond) have been advised by Mrs. Venable that they can have $100,000, bequeathed to Katherine and George in Sebastian's will, but only if they agree to the surgery being performed on Katherine. Thus, it is to everyone's benefit for Katherine to be lobotomized, except Katherine.
Dr. Cukrowicz agrees to meet with Katherine in the private Catholic facility where she is currently being held at the direction of Mrs. Venable. There he finds that she was deeply upset by being seduced by a married man who then slighted her. She became very depressed after this incident and was only brought out of her depression by her cousin Sebastian asking her to travel with him the summer before. She knows that Sebastian died during this trip in a town called Cabeca de Lobo but cannot remember the details. She takes a liking to the doctor and is more than happy to be moved from the Catholic facility to the state asylum where he works.
Confronted with Mrs. Venable's efforts to have her lobotomized, Katherine accuses Mrs. Venable of essentially wanting to shut her up about the fact that Sebastian used both women as bait to lure men who Sebastian would then prey upon sexually. Contrary to Mrs. Venable's story that she had not gone with Sebastian the previous summer because her health was poor, Katherine contends that Sebastian took her instead because Mrs. Venable had become too old to attract "the better fish". Mrs. Venable accuses Katherine of contributing to Sebastian's death because, unlike Mrs. Venable, Katherine could not cajole Sebastian into writing his yearly summer poem about his travels and a poet must write to survive.
After the administration of drugs Katherine eventually recalls that Sebastian was, in fact, killed by the local youth in Cabeca de Lobo who stalked him and then ate him, an event she witnessed. At this revelation, Mrs. Venable loses all contact with reality and addresses the doctor as if he were Sebastian. Clearly, Katherine is sane, her aunt is not.
It's difficult to fathom how a movie about a predatory gay man whose mother is in love with him and who ends up being eaten by native youths taking revenge for his sexually preying upon them could be so deathly dull. But it is. The movie was adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams by both Mr. Williams and Gore Vidal. I think Gore Vidal is a total genius but I guess there was only so much he could do with the turgid material he had to work with.
The movie gets off to a poor start, consisting of many lengthy and convoluted speeches by Mrs. Venable, with the poor doctor playing straight man. We have to learn all about Sebastian through her deluded eyes. It's torture to listen to, slow torture. The pace improves when Katherine shows up. But we are treated to not one but two snake-pit type scenes in which she first stumbles into the room where all the insane men are at the state asylum and then deliberately walks into the room where the insane women are with the intention of killing herself.
Even the profoundly melodramatic scene in which Katherine finally recalls what happened to Sebastian is too drawn out to sustain the suspense. But Liz sure does scream her head off when she finally remembers what she saw, which is the highlight of this Southern Gothic atrocity. In short, I can't recommend it although there are moments of unintentional humor, such as when Katherine Hepburn keeps saying the phrase "more debris", with an accent inexplicably on the first syllable of debris so that she pronounces it "DEB-ree". Hilarious. Oh, and this movie did result in one of the many delightful bon mots in Boys in the Band. At the end of dinner in that film the lead character announces to his gay male party guests that they "have just eaten Sebastian Venable".
He plays Katherine's boorish, insensitive, self-centered, bumpkin brother pretty well. As Mrs. Venable says as she shoos him and his mother out of her house in an early scene "Aren't they awful?" George has absolutely no compunctions about pushing Katherine to have the lobotomy so he can get the money his aunt has promised. As he so thoughtfully tells her "I hear it doesn't even hurt". So, he's quite despicable in this one and does a great job at it. His southern accent is a little hit and miss, unlike Ms. Taylor's which is excellent. Otherwise, I can't fault his performance in this mess.
Montgomery Clift had a terrible disfiguring car accident about two years before this movie was made and actually seemed to have trouble moving some of the muscles in his face as a result. He wasn't hideous because of it but he had been so perfectly beautiful before that it is a bit of a shock to see how he looks in this film. Both Liz and Katherine look great. Gary looks totally gorgeous in this. His hair is in a neat, conservative cut and he's incredibly handsome in Sebastian's expensive suits that Mrs. Venable grudgingly lets George have. He looks exquisite.
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