Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Classic Movie Ahead Of It's Time!

I finally got the chance to see this movie in it's entirety on Turner Movie Classics a few weeks ago and enjoyed it so much, I purchased the DVD here at Amazon! A very deep, somewhat dark movie (which I love) with solid performances by Ms. Taylor (absolutely beautiful!), Montgomery Clift (filmed after his unfortunate car accident, so sad!), Katherine Hepburn and Mercedes McCambridge (a big change of character from Johnny Guitar!).

Get ready for a 1950's film addressing homosexuality, aging, religious beliefs and mental institutions..............how times have changed as far as films addressing this touchy issues!

Very well done, don't miss this one! August 10, 2008

Not bad! But not astoundingly wonderful either.

I was recommended this film not long ago and finally watched it tonight. I think the person, who recommended it to me, gave away too much of the story which more than likely deflated the last 20 minutes for me.
I guess I am being overly fastidious when it comes to facts but I don't recall Spain having a city named "Cabeza de Lobo." I've even tried to google it with not much success. Was it fictional? Okay that's fine but I don't remember Spain having historical "temples" either. They have very old churches and cathedrals which are catholic. I was impressed how Elizabeth and Katherine pronounced Cabeza like a Spaniard as in "Cabetha." And I thought to myself, "way to go ladies with your "Castilian accent!"
The horrendous act that follows in this scene remind me of what would more logically happen in historic Mexico or certain parts of Latin America, not Spain. I don't want to give away details for the few of you who haven't seen this film already so you'll just have to watch it in order to know what I'm referencing. :)
I thought all performances were quite good. Some people harp on Montgomery Clift for not doing so well, accusing him of being like "cardboard." But that's how a lot of doctors generally are, in real life so many lack emotion. In contrast I thought he was a doctor who truly "cared."
Without giving away much of what "Suddenly, Last Summer" focuses on I would like to recommend "The Children's Hour" with Shirley Maclain and Audrey Hepburn. The story has a similar scandal dealing with the same topic and is so very well done. It's a gorgeous black and white film as well and all the performances are mesmerizing. It sort of reminds me of an old black and white Twilight Zone movie with its haunting like style. May 28, 2008

eh...

Interesting movie, sad, a little depressing. I had to buy this for a film class. Didn't love it for its entertainment value. It was thought-provoking. February 12, 2008

JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ, OPUS 16

***** 1959. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this adaptation from Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer. earned three nominations for the Academy Awards and Elizabeth Taylor a Golden Globe. Outstanding screenplay by the American writer filled with symbols and cymbals. Masterpiece. January 12, 2008

Suddenly, an outlaw film!

If there was something interesting to remark about this bold and brave decade of the Fities was the fact many overlooked issues were exposed for the posterity. This film is part of the sextet of demolishing movies (The man of the golden arm, Baby Doll Butterfly 8, A long and hot summer and Anatomy of a murder).

"Suddenly last summer" was an audacious step in those times in which certain aspects of the intimate life had to be enclosed.

But the brilliant intelligence of the author, made of this existential dramatis personae, a distant consequence and not the primary plot, and he focused around the position of domination of a very wealthy Southern matriarch, her supposedly mad niece and a neurosurgeon.

The dialogues are pieces of the play. They reveal, suggest and mask the used conventionalisms, the well exposed moral codes, the well known device of transfer of blame. However the neurosurgeon is aware there is something nasty beneath the speech and decides to find out much more the words may describe.

Tennessee Williams was a sharp writer, and like a prominent artist, you may not conform yourself with a lineal approach. Obviously, the author proposes us the words may even disfigure not only a human life, but the most important (thinking at a major level) the relevance of the speech as lethal weapon in order to destroy the reputation of any human being (the black list of the previous decade, perhaps?).

At the dramatic resolution, we are aware what really happened and whosoever was out of the real context in this world, when our venerable matriarch's projects, and the embodiment of her elusive fantasies on the own neurosurgeon in the last sequence, in which we may watch her as Gloria Swanson in "Sunset boulevard", a lonely and disassociated woman trapped in her vanished dreams.

Potent and mature film, and even though at this historical moments you might regard it out date, think it twice due Philadelphia in 1993, caused a very similar impact.
December 14, 2007

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