Suddenly last summer 1959

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s storied career and reputation pretty much rests on two movies “A Letter To Three Wives” in 1949 and “All About Eve” in 1950. The films were huge hits and won him back to back Oscars for writing and directing, the only director ever to do so. Both films were and still are sophisticated witty dramas with smart and funny dialogue and a big shopping bag full of memorable performances. Mankiewicz comes from a historically important family of writers including his older brother Herman who wrote the script for a little movie called “Citizen Kane”.

It’s after these two classics that for me his career fell down and bruised it’s knees with failed films both critically and at the box office. Like many of the giants of the golden age Cukor, Minnelli, Ford, Vidor, Stevens and even Hitchcock these great talents ended their careers on sorry notes with films that failed more or less with the critics and audiences alike. Still there are supporters of these films among contemporary critics and movie goers today who cherish, love and defend these films.  

Mankiewicz also petered, out ending his career with “Sleuth” and “There Was A Crooked Man”. Sleuth based on a play did well at the box office and even got him his final Oscar nomination for Directing, but I recall not liking it. His films right after “Eve” were an uneven bunch, “Julius Caesar”, “Guys and Dolls” and the Tennesse Williams horror gothic show “Suddenly Last Summer” which is famous for Katherine Hepburn spitting in Mankiewicz’s  face at the end of the filming because of his sour horrible treatment of the fragile Montgomery Clift and Liz Taylor’s white tight fitting bathing suit.

I took another look at Suddenly the other day to see if it was indeed the mess that most consider it to be or an unrecognized masterwork. It's a mess. Set in 1937 in New Orleans that is never seen, most of the action of this stage bound film takes place in Mrs. Violet Venable's mansion and the prehistoric gothic looking decaying garden that her beloved late son Sebastian a poet created. The garden is fun, it has an almost animated look to it, and has the appearance of something created for “King Kong's scary jungle scenes or a ride at Disneyland.

Sebastian the poet would write only one poem a year after traveling with his mother on trips across the ocean to Europe and other exotic locations. What his mother would do when young and attractive was to procure young men for her boy knowingly or unknowingly we never find out she's like the venus fly trap that figures prominently in an early part of the film. When his mom became too old for the procuring of young Sebastian's boy toys he talks Catherine into taking her place in his summertime journey.

Mrs. Venable played with static and familiar Katharine Hepburn mannerisms is having problems with her niece Catherine who has secrets about her son that she has been hiding and its taking a toll on her mental stability. Her aunt has game, and uses it to toss about the temptation of lots of money to a falling apart hospital if the doctors there will perform a lobotomy on her to render her silent and bury those troublesome stories about her beloved son. The physicist-surgeon is played by a worn out looking Montgomery Clift who had his own problems both on and off the screen.

It is at one of the locations called Cabeza de Lobo which translates as Wolf Head (Williams was great at naming his characters and locations) that Sebastian comes to a horrible end, paying dealing for being a homosexual. The film is needless to say homophobic and troubling for the time and still is especially the scenes in flashback of an unseen Sebastian being chased by many young male street urchins through the bleached white streets of Cabeza who pounce on him and tear him to pieces devouring his flesh. Of course this is silly cannibalism, but mixing it up together in some witch's brew along with homosexuality the maker's of this late 50's puddle added to the fear and hatred of homosexuals and it's especially nasty knowing that Tennessee was gay as was Gore Vidal the writer of the screenplay, and the male lead Montgomery Clift.

None of this hysterical history is shown other than the Cabeza de Lobo finale with everything coming out at the end when Clift has all the lead players in this circus arranged in Mrs. Venable's living room like the conclusion of an Agatha Christie murder mystery.

Under some kind of truth serum that he shoots Liz up with she gushes out the horrible story and death of Sebastian sometimes in aforementioned flashbacks that renders her hysterical and over the top. No one screeched more scarily than Liz Taylor, and she got to be hysterical throughout the film. My favorite one is when Liz accidentally gets trapped on a balcony ledge overlooking the male inmate recreation room in the sanatorium and has her gams mauled by some of the inmates as she screams and screams help help help.

As if this scene wasn't enough, Mankiewitz repeats it again this time in the female recreation room where Liz hangs over the balcony edge threatening to jump. No one can accuse Mank of not being an equal rights employer. The ending is abrupt and unconvincing with Liz cured and going off hand in hand with Clift, while Hepburn has a nervous breakdown which is how she must pay for her devious devices against Liz and the harm she did to her son. As I said Williams was great with names and locations for his characters and there are some good ones here that are like clues to the characters makeup. Supposedly it's set in 1937 but of course its pure 1959 in its look and how Liz Taylor is presented in costume, hair and makeup. If she walked around in 1937 looking like she does in this film, she would indeed have been locked up in some hidden lost sanatorium for the insane. Nominated for Best Actress Oscars for Taylor and Hepburn both losing to the superb performance of Simone Signoret for Room At The Top. See it at your own peril.