Mildred's Fatburgers
  • Home
  • The Blog
  • Clips & Quotes
  • Blogathon Archive
  • Contact

Sebastian and Violet, Violet and Sebastian

5/12/2015

7 Comments

 
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
Psychodrama: Swimsuit Edition

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

I considered posting this review on Mother's Day, because nothing says "mom" like a Southern Gothic tale about an aging matron's massive Jocasta complex. But it seemed more fitting to pick Katharine Hepburn's birthday, because her performance as Violet Venable, the mother in question, in the screen adaption of Tennessee Williams's play, Suddenly, Last Summer, is one of her best.

Mrs. Violet Venable, monied New Orleans widow, has lost her beloved only son, Sebastian, a handsome, sophisticated, low-output poet, to a freak "heart attack," while he was on vacation in Spain with his young cousin, Cathy (
Elizabeth Taylor). Ever since this summer vacation, Cathy has been in residence at a psychiatric facility run by crabby nuns, having lost a number of her marbles after witnessing Sebastian's death...of a "heart attack." No one knows what really happened and Cathy's "obscene ramblings" haven't made it any clearer.

Aunt Violet is concerned that her niece's mad chatter is casting aspersions on Sebastian's reputation, so she elicits the help of a young lobotomist, Dr. Cukrowic (
Montgomery Clift) to perform his specialty operation on Cathy to help her calm the hell down and shut the hell up. You see (thinks Violet), if Violet had gone traveling with Sebastian -- as they did and had done for years and years, as friends, not mother and son, companions -- none of this would have ever happened and Sebastian's summer poem would be written and done.

To sweeten the deal, Violet has offered her sister-in-law (Cathy's mother), Grace Holly (
Mercedes McCambridge), some much-needed cash to grant consent to the operation and maybe even persuade Cathy to go willingly. Dr. Cukrowic, observing all these maternal maneuverings and not entirely convinced Cathy is all that nuts, would rather find out what the girl witnessed and perhaps help her past the trauma with therapy, rather than cutting out bits of her frontal cortex; indeed, he seems to be the only one who finds that solution extreme.

In spite of the intense pressure -- from Mrs. Venable and the hospital administrator who has also been promised money if the operation goes through -- Dr. Cukrowic puts Cathy in a hypnotic state to get to the truth. And the truth is that Sebastian was a (barely) closeted homosexual, who used his beautiful mother and later his stunning cousin, to attract pretty young men on their travels to have sexual relations with him. In Sebastian's opinion, Violet had become too old to be of any use to him in that endeavor, so he asked young Cathy to be his summer companion instead. Cathy eventually figured out what he was up to, but before she could beg off, the Terrible Thing happened and suddenly, last summer, Sebastian died. And Violet never forgave Cathy her youth and usefulness to Sebastian.

I am not going to reveal how Sebastian died, because it is worth all the strange late 1950s ideas of mental illness (particularly that experienced by the ladies) and pointless references to this all happening in 1937, to watch it unfold. The screenplay was written by Gore Vidal, so it's crackling with just the right amount of mean, and the set design is other-worldly. You've got teeming, jungly, lush New Orleans (and that's just the interiors) set against white hot beaches of coastal Spain.

Elizabeth Taylor is OK in the role of Cathy, but her best contribution to the picture was in lobbying director
Joseph L. Mankiewicz to hire her friend Monty Clift in the role of the lobotomizer. Suddenly, Last Summer was shot just two years after the terrible car accident that left Clift with painful, disfiguring injuries to his face. He had since become addicted to painkillers and had been self-medicating with alcohol, making him unreliable and all but unhireable as a performer. Mankiewicz apparently made Clift's life miserable on set, which upset everyone, especially Katharine Hepburn, who had theretofore respected and liked Mankiewicz.

The film is strange, but very much worth seeing. It's streaming on you-know-what-largest-South-American-river for a nominal rental fee.
If ever I held a Hollywood Mental Illness Film Festival (and one of these days...), this would be right up there with The Snake Pit (1948).

Just Because, But Mostly for Hayes's Hepburn Impersonation

Picture
This post is my contribution to The Great Katharine Hepburn Blogathon, sponsored by the great Margaret Perry.

Please take a moment to read through the other entries, and wish Miss Hepburn a very happy 108th while you're at it.


7 Comments

    About Mildred

    I'll do just about anything a movie tells me to do. Unless it tells me wrong...

    Then I get cranky.

    But go ahead, like me on Facebook.

    RSS Feed

    Visit Mildred's profile on Pinterest.

    Proud Member Of

    Picture
    Classic Movie Blog Hub Member

    Archives

    May 2019
    December 2017
    October 2017
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    Agnes Moorehead
    Akira Kurosawa
    Alan Mowbray
    Albert Salmi
    Alice Terry
    Aline MacMahon
    Allen Jenkins
    Alloy Orchestra
    Anna Massey
    Ann Dvorak
    Anne Bancroft
    Anne Baxter
    Anne Revere
    Anne Shirley
    Ann Miller
    Ann Sothern
    Anthony Quinn
    Anton Walbrook
    Arthur Penn
    Art Linkletter
    Arturo De Cordova
    Audrey Hepburn
    Baby Peggy
    Barbara Bel Geddes
    Barbara Stanwyck
    Barton MacLane
    Basil Rathbone
    Bea Benadaret
    Beatrice Straight
    Bette Davis
    Beulah Bondi
    Billie Burke
    Bill Scott
    Billy Wilder
    Birthday Of The Week
    Bob Newhart
    Bonita Granville
    Boris Karloff
    Brian Aherne
    Bugs Bunny
    Burt Lancaster
    Busby Berkeley
    Butterfly Mcqueen
    Carl Boehm
    Carl Theodor Dreyer
    Carol Haney
    Cary Grant
    Charles Boyer
    Charlton Heston
    Chester Morris
    Christopher Morley
    Claire Bloom
    Claire Trevor
    Clark Gable
    Claude Rains
    Claudette Colbert
    Cliff Robertson
    Cloris Leachman
    Connie Gilchrist
    Conrad Veidt
    Constance Bennett
    Cybill Shepherd
    Dana Andrews
    Dana Delany
    Dan Duryea
    David Niven
    Dean Stockwell
    Deborah Kerr
    Dennis Morgan
    Diana Lynn
    Diana Wynyard
    Dick Moore
    Dick Powell
    Donald Sutherland
    Donna Reed
    Doris Day
    Dustin Hoffman
    D.W. Griffith
    Eddie Albert
    Edie Adams
    Edith Fellows
    Edward Arnold
    Edward Everett Horton
    Elaine May
    Elissa Landi
    Elizabeth Taylor
    Ella Raines
    Ellen Burstyn
    Elvis Presley
    Emilio Fernandez
    Ernest Borgnine
    Ernst Lubitsch
    Errol-flynn
    Ethel Barrymore
    Eugene-pallette
    Eve-arden
    Evelyn Varden
    Fay-bainter
    Fay-bainter
    Firesign-theater
    Frank Hurley
    Frank McHugh
    Frank Morgan
    Frank Sinatra
    Freddie Bartholomew
    Frederic March
    Fredi Washington
    Fred MacMurray
    Fritz Lang
    Friz Freleng
    Gabriel Figueroa
    Gary Cooper
    Gary Merrill
    George Brent
    George Murphy
    Geraldine-fitzgerald
    Ginger Rogers
    Gladys Cooper
    Glenda Farrell
    Gloria Jean
    Government Cheese
    G.W. Billy Bitzer
    Hal E. Chester
    Hal Roach
    Harold Lloyd
    Hedda Hopper
    Henry Fonda
    Herbert Marshall
    Howard DaSilva
    Howard Hawks
    Howard Hughes
    Howard Keel
    Hume Cronyn
    Humphrey Bogart
    Inga Swenson
    Ingrid Bergman
    Irene Dunne
    Jackie Butch Jenkins
    Jackie-coogan
    Jackie Cooper
    Jack Lemmon
    Jacques Tourneur
    James Craig
    James-garner
    James Gleason
    James Mason
    James-stewart
    James Whitmore
    Jane Darwell
    Jane-powell
    Jane-withers
    Jane-wyman
    Jay Ward
    Jean Dixon
    Jeanette-macdonald
    Jean Harlow
    Jean Simmons
    Joan Blondell
    Joan Crawford
    Joan-fontaine
    John Carradine
    John Ford
    John Hurt
    Joseph Cotten
    Juano Hernandez
    June Foray
    Karin-swanstrom
    Karl-malden
    Katharine Hepburn
    Kathleen Byron
    Kathryn Grayson
    Keenan Wynn
    Kevin Mccarthy
    Kirk Douglas
    Lauren Bacall
    Lee J. Cobb
    Leif Erickson
    Leila Hyams
    Leonard Nimoy
    Letitia-palma
    Lew Ayres
    Lewis Stone
    Lillian Gish
    Lillian-roth
    Lizabeth-scott
    Loretta Young
    Louise-beavers
    Lucille Ball
    Lurene-tuttle
    Lyle Talbot
    Maggie-smith
    Marcia Mae Jones
    Margaret Sullavan
    Maria Schell
    Marie-dressler
    Marjorie-main
    Marni-nixon
    Marsha Hunt
    Marx-brothers
    Mary-boland
    Maxine-audley
    Max-linder
    Max Ophuls
    Mel Blanc
    Mercedes McCambridge
    Mia Farrow
    Michael Powell
    Mickey Rooney
    Mike-mazurki
    Mike Nichols
    Miles-mander
    Miriam Hopkins
    Moira Shearer
    Montgomery Clift
    Movie-theatres
    Ned Sparks
    Niall Macginnis
    Nicholas Ray
    Nigel Hawthoren
    Ninon Sevilla
    Norma-shearer
    Orson Welles
    Pamela Franklin
    Patsy Kelly
    Patty Duke
    Patty McCormack
    Paulette Goddard
    Paul Henreid
    Paul Lynde
    Peggy Cummins
    Percy Kilbride
    Peter Bogdanovich
    Peter Breck
    Peter Falk
    Peter Lorre
    Peter Ustinov
    Preston Foster
    Ralph Bellamy
    Ramon Novarro
    Renee Falconetti
    Rex Ingram
    Ricardo Montalban
    Richard Barthelmess
    Richard Basehart
    Richard Briers
    Richard Mulligan
    Rita Hayworth
    Robert Benchley
    Robert Ryan
    Robert Wagner
    Rock Hudson
    Rodolfo Acosta
    Roger Livesey
    Roland Young
    Rosalind Russell
    Royal Dano
    Rudolf Valentino
    Sabu
    Sam Fuller
    Sandra Dee
    Shelley Winters
    Shirley MacLaine
    Shirley Temple
    Skippy/Asta
    Soyuzmultfilm
    Spencer Tracy
    Spring Byington
    Sterling Hayden
    Susan Hayward
    Sydney Greenstreet
    Takashi Shimura
    Teri Garr
    Tim Holt
    Tod Browning
    Tommy Kirk
    Tony Randall
    Toshiro Mifune
    Una Merkel
    Van Johnson
    Veronica Cartwright
    Victor Buono
    Victor McLaglen
    Virginia Weidler
    Walter Huston
    Walter Matthau
    Walter Tetley
    Warren William
    Wednesdays Child
    Wendy Hiller
    William Demarest
    William Powell
    William Shatner
    William Wyler
    W.S. Van Dyke
    Yasujiro Ozu
    Zero Mostel

    More

    Upcoming Blogathons

    Picture
    Rhoda Penmark flaunts some norms in THE BAD SEED (1956)

    Blogathons Gone By

    Great Breening Blogathon
    NIGHT NURSE (1931)
    Picture
    THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
    Nature's Fury Blogathon
    THE GRAPES OF WRATH
    Reel Infatuation Blogathon
    Sugarpuss O'Shea changes my life in BALL OF FIRE (1941)
    Great Villain Blogathon 2016
    Charlotte Vale's Mean Mom in NOW VOYAGER (1942)
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.