daoldiges
This film is occupied by a great cast and is full of interesting characters and performances. In particular I enjoyed Hepburn's Violet Venable, her eccentricities and open scenes in the garden, especially with the Venus Fly Trap. The story is a bit veiled to make palatable for the times but overall I think its still expressed affectively. Being based on a play it does feel a bit stagey at times. It also feels a bit melodramatic at times, but despite these shortcomings I found this film very interesting and entertaining. It's definitely not for everyone and I guess I could identify it as a guilty pleasure, but for those who are curious I think you should give it a try and judge for yourself.
John Brooks
Elizabeth Taylor is gorgeous. Montgomery Clift a very talented actor.Elizabeth Taylor plays a very embarrassing role (goodness, what actresses were put through during those days...) and strangely enough does alternatively well at it. It's a very difficult and totally central role, and she acts both superbly at times, and then unconvincingly during other scenes.Ultimately, the film attempts to be subtle in many different ways, summoning philosophical dialog between the Clift and the tortured Katherine Hepburn characters, a sense of plot and evil vs truth and purity (Taylor vs Hepburn), but really there's too much talking, it's a film that is more "theoretical" than anything else where the viewer is almost being spoonfed plot, overwhelmed with script, rather than discovering a story. Of course it is a psychological film, and such is the nature of such productions, but it's still really rather slow and the ending is just way over-the-top dramatic and the revelation seems too graphic, gratuitously, like there's no need for that much shock and it just doesn't come round well enough.Lots of time spent building something up that's just not worth it.
elvircorhodzic
SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER is a mysterious drama with elements of Sauthern Gothic. It is based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams.A young woman has been institutionalized because of severe emotional disorders. In fact, her cousin was died under suspicious circumstances, while they were on vacation in Europe. His rich mother makes every effort to deny and suppress the truth about her son and his demise. She tries to bribe the administrator of a state mental hospital and persuade a young and capable surgeon to perform a lobotomy on her niece...This is a puzzling game of truth, through hypocritical relationships in a wealthy and dysfunctional family. Provocative dialogues are the backbone of the shocking finale. A motif, which has caused the greatest tension is unfortunately quite clear. Homosexuality and sadism are obvious topics. The story has become quite confusing in the last third of the film. Facing the truth, through vague retrospective, was not convincing. The epilogue was, for some reason, unnecessarily omitted. Romance is, in this case, an escape from the madness. Characterization is not good.Elizabeth Taylor as Catherine Holly has tried to do a good job. Ms. Taylor, definitely, was not the right choice for this role. Her character has confronted with its own agony. Simply, there is too much sex appeal and a lack of good acting. Katharine Hepburn as Violet Venable has offered a good performance. She was, in certain scenes, too aggressive. Such performance has alleviated irony and madness in her voice. However, her performance has, somehow, saved this movie. Montgomery Clift as Dr. John Cukrowicz was lost between the two dominant female figures. Indifference in his voice is stunning.Perhaps the censors did the most damage to this film. Mr. Mankiewicz was supposed to make a difference between dark secrets and dirty laundry.
Paris55
The trivia sections list one of 4 films to receive two Academy Awards nominations. Actually, it is one of only five films to receive two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. In this instance, Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor were so nominated. The other four films were All About Eve (1950) for which Anne Baxter and Bette Davis were nominated, Terms of Endearment (1983) for which Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger were nominated, Thelma & Louise (1991) for which Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were nominated and The Turning Point (1977) for which Anne Bancroft and again Shirley MacLaine were nominated. Of the actresses in question, Anne Bancroft had already won an Academy Award for The Miracle Worker (1962) and Shirley MacLaine won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Terms of Endearment.
AD
