It has some very effective moments, but on the whole it fails to move.
Suddenly, Last Summer
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom, United States · 1959
1h 54m
Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker
Genre Drama, Mystery, Thriller
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The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she was sent to a mental hospital to receive treatment. Now, Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth. Based on the play by Tennessee Williams.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
Joseph L. Mankiewicz' direction is strained and sluggish, as is, indeed, the whole conceit of the drama. It should have been left to the off-Broadway stage.
The cast packs enough sexual ambiguity to satisfy the most rabid Williams fan (not to mention a screenplay by Gore Vidal), but Mankiewicz leaves much of the innuendo unexplored—thankfully, perhaps.
Superbly adapted with blistering performances from Taylor and Hepburn.
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
The battles between the imperious Hepburn and the presumed-mad Taylor are pure theatricality, while sensitive shrink Clift observes it all and emotes.
The New Yorker by Pauline Kael
They should never have allowed the audience so much time to think about what's going on: the short play turns into a ludicrous, lumbering horror movie.
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