Suddenly Last Summer (1959)

Set in 1937 New Orleans, a wealthy woman (Katharine Hepburn) urges a young doctor (Montgomery Clift) to perform a lobotomy on her niece (Elizabeth Taylor), who she insists is mad and babbling slander about her recently deceased son. Based on the one act play by Tennessee Williams and adapted for the screen by Gore Vidal and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (ALL ABOUT EVE). Williams' one act play was part of an off Broadway production called GARDEN DISTRICT and was performed with another Williams one act play called SOMETHING UNSPOKEN. Vidal extends the one act play to feature length and much of the original criticism of the movie was that padding out the film diluted much of the one act's strengths. Much of the criticism was also directed toward the film's unsavory aspects: homosexuality, incest and cannibalism were heady stuff in 1959. What's surprising is how much of those unsavory aspects were retained (albeit somewhat watered down) for the film considering how films of Williams' A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF were stripped of their "unsavory" aspects. While Clift's performance is mostly reactive, both Taylor and Hepburn go full throttle with their roles and do some of their best work (in Taylor's case, I think it is her best work). There's a lyrical beauty to Williams' dialog and Vidal is smart enough to retain that lyricism and not rewrite it. Perhaps it is overlong but it still packs a punch. With Mercedes McCambridge, Albert Dekker and Gary Raymond.