#84 - Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

I'm very excited to be blogging to you from the home of Erika and Parviz Movahedan (the fourth different location from which I've written entries) as we bring you a form of  "intermingling" blog.  Since mine is a movie blog focusing mostly on those I've not yet seen, and hers is an homage to the work of the inimitable Katharine Hepburn, it only makes sense that we should, at times, get together for a mutually beneficial movie viewing from time to time.

In Suddenly, Last Summer, Hepburn plays the mother of a young man whose death is the reference of the movie title.  Hepburn's niece is played by Elizabeth Taylor, who is in a mental institution based on her part in the suddenness of last summer.  Erika had actually DVRed this movie prior to Liz Taylor's recent death, so it only seemed fitting to watch this film as a combined tribute to the now-lost geniuses of Hepburn and Taylor.

And what a tribute to Hepburn.  Most of the first 30 minutes are a completely open-ended (it may as well had been un-directed) "Go ahead, do what you do best, Kate" series of shots in one scene that looks completely unedited.  It's all about her (forgetting the completely interrupting swells of music that do their damnedest to break up the dialogue between her and Clift) and the movie is the better for it.  We learn that Hepburn has called Clift, a doctor, over because he performs lobotomies.  It does not become immediately apparent why exactly Hepburn wants her niece lobotomized, but I'm guessing we're going to learn.  The "reasons" she gives are very transparent and contrived.

The next 30 minutes are yet another dialogue, this time between Taylor and Clift, as he tries to "diagnose" her to see if she would actually be a candidate for a lobotomy. (He, too, has seen the correlation between Hepburn wanting to donate money to his institution and the fact that she thinks Taylor would "benefit" from the procedure.)  Taylor is terrific and gorgeous, and we learn that she knows a secret that she doesn't want to remember (and that it is likely this secret that Hepburn is also concerned with).

The first scene with both Hepburn and Taylor is pure majesty.  Taylor wins with fire, as Hepburn's character must resort to a vulnerability we know she can fake, but have heretofore not yet seen.  During this scene, we also understand more of the true relationship between the women and the dead man, Sebastian.  It's pretty awesome.  And by awesome I mean weird.

The final 10-minute revelation of Sebatian's death (a wonderful monologue of Taylor) and the unraveling of both female characters is both incredibly strange and incredibly moving.  It is interesting that the movie is based on a Tennessee Williams play, and it makes the dialogue seem much more understandable.  I believe very strongly that the play resembles very strongly the film, but I bet Williams's is more explicitly stated in many ways.  I definitely recommend the film, for its fantastic all-around acting and the suspense level it builds.  Just ignore the music.

Score: 9/10