Guilty Pleasures: Suddenly Last Summer

1959 Drama
From Columbia Pictures
Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz

Starring
Elizabeth Taylor
Montgomery Clift 
Katharine Hepburn
Mercedes McCambridge
Albert Dekker
Gary Raymond
Mavis Villiers

Boy, this one has it all... cannibalism, homosexuality, incest, rape, obsessive mother love, power, control, madness.  I don't know what more one could want in a movie.  If that's not enough, adding to it is a behind-the-scenes drama that, while not as potent as the film's plot, is certainly more than most movie productions endure.

Actually it is not a favorite movie of mine nor do I regard it as a good one.  That is not to say that it has no interest for me and I do own a copy.  It has a number of things I don't care for and we will get to them.  On the enticing side is that it stars a trio of actors who were among the best this country had to offer.  It is directed by a brilliant two-time Oscar winner and is based on a play by the most important playwright of his time, Tennessee Williams, with a screenplay written by a man consumed with his own brilliance, Gore Vidal.

Vidal partly credited New York critic Bosley Crowther for the film's success because after he vilified it as the work of degenerates and outlined the themes, the public flocked to it. 

Well, let's get into it, shall we?  

In 1937 New Orleans at the insistence of her wealthy, eccentric aunt, a young woman is institutionalized because she has gone mad after seeing her cousin murdered while they were on vacation in Spain the previous year.  The old lady wants her niece lobotomized to keep her from spilling the beans about what actually happened even though the young woman cannot quite remember all the details.

Other forces are at work as well.  The young woman, Catherine, has a mother and brother who stand to inherit a small fortune from the dead man's will but the old lady will not honor it unless they agree to have her go through this small procedure.  

A brain surgeon is engaged at a local hospital to look into her case.  while doing so, he is informed by the head of the hospital that the old woman has said that she will donate a million dollars to the hospital if her niece has the operation.

The film's most fascinating characters are the aunt, Mrs. Venable, and her son, Sebastian, whom we only see in flashbacks and then never his face.  We first glimpse Mrs. Venable when she descends in an elevator in her home to greet the doctor.  She is already going on about her beloved son as though he's her lover and in the next room.

This chatter continues out in her primordial garden, a jungle-like atmosphere with paths, large tropical trees and plants, stone pools, peacocks and a venus flytrap in a glassed-in aquarium.  The doctor, while respectful, seems astonished at the woman's colorful tales of life and death and her most unusual bond with her dead son.  He is suspicious when she talks of her niece's excessive babbling, hallucinations and delusions.

The doctor begins to suspect that Catherine is not mentally ill and certainly not in need of a lobotomy and due to all else that is flying around him, he decides to get all the principals together on the patio of the Venable home on the edge of the spooky garden.  He administers sodium pentothol to Catherine and asks her questions about her holiday in front of a largely-apprehensive assemblage.

She overcomes her blocked memory by giving a horrifying account of how she had helped procure young men for her gay and somewhat shy cousin while in Spain.  To Mrs. Venable's horror, Catherine advises that Sebastian and Mrs. Venable always took summer holidays and that Mrs. Venable would be the decoy.  But the mother lies when she says she had been sick that last summer and Catherine was substituted.  The truth was that Sebastian felt his mother had grown too old and unattractive to be a decoy while Catherine was anything but.

In a shadowy flashback (frankly, the film's best scenes although one tends to watch them rather wide-eyed and open-mouthed) we see the beautiful Catherine spilling out from her tighty-whitey swimsuit as a group of lusty young Spaniards ogle her.  Sebastian has earlier come on to some of them but they are not of a mind to take him up on his offer so they chase him through the beach town and up to an area that appears to be ancient ruins.  Catherine, trying desperately to keep up, observes the gang savagely kill and partially devour Sebastian.

As she describes the debauchery, Catherine drops to the ground, beneath a patio table, hysterically crying.  When it is obvious that she has told the unvarnished truth and has overcome any blockages, the doctor helps her up.  At the same time, Mrs. Venable refers to the doctor as Sebastian and as he walks her inside, it is apparent that she is the one who has lost her mind.
  
What went on behind the scenes is nearly as diabolical as the script itself.  Big noise-big monied producer Sam (The African Queen, On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai) Spiegel saw Williams's one-act play and thought that it would make a fascinating movie although he knew the story would have to be expanded while toning down the themes. 

It was Spiegel who hired Mankewiecz.  The director didn't think twice.  He was thrilled to be associated with any project written by Tennessee Williams, was intrigued with the subject matter and was gung-ho to be directing not one but two powerhouse actresses like Taylor and Hepburn.  He stifled his concern that they may not get along.  

The biggest problem came during Clift's first scene (at the operating table) and continued throughout filming... he was quite simply a mess.  He was suffering from the five D's... drugs, drink, delusion, dysfunction and depression.  He looked, acted and sounded like the sickest character in the film with his heavy tongue, slurred words, puffy face, blank look and inability to hit his marks or remember his lines.  The irony that he was playing a shrink was lost on no one.  Oddly, and in even worse condition, three years later he would play Freud.

Mankiewicz was not only hard on Clift but wanted him fired. But fired wasn't going to happen. Taylor would see to that.  She truly loved Clift and getting him hired for the part was truly a mission of mercy.  They had worked together on A Place in the Sun (1951) and Raintree County (1957) but Clift's horrific automobile crash during the making of the latter film brought about the characteristics he exhibited on Summer.  No one would insure Clift so Taylor financially guaranteed his performance and worked closely with him even in scenes they didn't share together.  How ironic that the screenplay concerned him helping her.

Director/stars making fun of  trouble they were really having

Hepburn didn't make things any easier.  Mankiewicz had known her for years and had, in fact, produced two of her triumphs, The Philadelphia Story and Woman of the Year.  While few questioned her standing as an actress, she was known to be difficult to work with.  She always loved to fight and she was a control freak.  Mankiewicz said his main problem with her was that she thought she was the director.

Why did she do the film?  I cannot say those words, she told her director, who informed her she would say them.  Early on she had said she thought Williams was America's greatest playwright so is it possible she accepted the part without knowing how grotesque some of it was?  She was clearly tightly wound about the subject matter.  I'm not sure it's known how she felt about cannibalism but the freak that Mrs. Venable was might have given her some pause. It has been noted that she was uncomfortable with the homosexuality which galls me for two reasons.  One is if she was so fond of Williams, did she not think he was gay?  And more importantly she was gay although deeply closeted.  Still, shame on her.

There could have been other things bothering her as well.  Perhaps Tracy was off on one of his benders.  She was usually beside herself when this happened.  And then there's vanity stuff, much of it having to do with Taylor.  What aging actress wouldn't have a problem sharing a scene with Taylor at the height of her phenomenal beauty?  Furthermore, Taylor would receive top billing and Hepburn had never in her long career been billed under another actress.  (Furthermore, in the screen credits, Hepburn is even billed after Clift, although she is billed second in all print ads.)

While Hepburn liked Taylor and thought she was a very good actress, she thought she was more interested in being a movie star.  She complained bitterly about Taylor's renowned lateness while Hepburn herself was usually the first one on the set.

When all was said and done, both women would be Oscar-nominated for best actress.  Neither won and I don't think either deserved to.  Interestingly, Tennessee Williams said he found both of them wrong for their parts.

When Hepburn was told she was no longer needed for any further scenes, she asked Mankiewicz twice to confirm it and when he did, she spat in his face.  (Some say it was at the floor).  Then she marched into Spiegel's office and did the same thing.  She said it was her worst move-making experience and she did not work for another three years.

Taylor was the least troublesome of the three stars and that could probably never be said about any movie she ever made or would make.  She was almost always a pain in the ass.  She would never do publicity for her films which made her unpopular although the truth was she didn't need to.  Her name alone was all the publicity that was required and she knew it.  

This was an extremely happy time for her because she was blissfully married to Eddie Fisher (that would soon change).  Like the lapdog he was, he handled all those fussy essentials that she detested.  The picture was made in England and the British press excoriated the couple over their marriage and she would not allow them on the set as a result.  But, as stated, she spent most of the time helping out Clift which kept her from being a behavior problem herself.  Mankiewicz was most grateful but he would change his tune when he took over the directional reins on Cleopatra in two years.


There may be too many things to list that is wrong with this movie.  One thing that is obvious to me is that this was originally a one-act play that was padded and expanded to make a two-hour movie... and sorry, Gore, you just didn't pull it off.  The whole thing feels diluted and rather pointless.

While Williams was always given to florid dialogue, it is simply too much here, dreadfully tedious and frequently obscure.  Taylor's big scene at the finale morphed into something that only barely register as clear.  While I suppose most people credit her for her superb acting in this scene, I thought the end of it was too over-the-top.

And in Hepburn's opening speech-- and it certainly felt like a speech or a recital for a drama class-- it was embarrassing how many times she said suddenly last summer.  Who talks like that?  And Taylor, when first speaking with Clift, says suddenly last summer as well.  Really?

How patently ridiculous, too, that a mother (McCambridge), greedy as she was, would allow her daughter to be lobotomized at the insistence of an ex-sister-in-law who treats her like dirt.  

Part of the padding came in not one but two nearly identical scenes where Taylor, at the mental institution, mistakenly finds her way onto a catwalk above a roomful of crazies... the first time women and the second time men.  The scenes added nothing to the film.

Everything discussed about Sebastian is clouded in innuendo.  While this may certainly be attributed to the times, it also diminished the impact of the overall piece.  Maybe it should be redone today.

The last scene, with Clift and Taylor, walking off together, feels like the start of a romance, which was also a stretch and probably done to satisfy the American appetite for a happy ending.  And why?  There's not a single thing happy about this film.

As a result of everything else, Mankiewicz's direction was off the mark as well.  I think the subject matter was a little over his head.  He has said this wasn't his best work or even close to it.

While my motivation in seeing it was to see these three lead actors and as talented as they all are, none was quite right.   Clift just seems so blasé and not much connected to the proceedings.  Taylor certainly never looked or convincingly acted the part of someone so troubled and Hepburn offered little more than haughty posturing.

Williams denounced the entire film.  Though he is given co-writing credit on the screenplay, he has always claimed he didn't write a word of it.  

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