Suddenly, Last Summer

UPC: 043396047525

Studio: Columbia TriStar

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Violence, Adult Situations, Not For Children]

Summary: In this lush, lurid adaptation of the 1957 Tennessee Williams one-act, Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn play a seemingly insane, young New Orleans debutante and the wealthy aunt who wants to lobotomize her. Dr. John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) is a gifted Chicago brain surgeon stymied by the primitive operating conditions at the New Orleans asylum where he works. Society matron Violet Venable (Hepburn) offers a solution in the form of a million-dollar grant -- as long as Cukrowicz will treat her niece, Catherine (Taylor). Catherine, it seems, has been institutionalized since the sudden death of her cousin, Violet's son, Sebastian, overseas the previous summer. As the young doctor tries to get to the bottom of what happened to Catherine, Violet's steely demeanor and devotion to Sebastian present a formidable barrier. Catherine herself doesn't offer much help, her recollections jumbled by medication and the trauma of Sebastian's demise. Under pressure to seal the deal and cut into Catherine's brain, Cukrowicz's principles (and attraction to the young woman) prevent him from proceeding until he uncovers what actually happened to Sebastian. In his memoirs, Gore Vidal claims to have written the screenplay for Suddenly, Last Summer single-handedly, although Williams took half the credit. Vidal toned down the original play's allusions to pedophilia, cannibalism, and incest, but the film nonetheless provoked heated controversy. As for the cast, an unhappy Hepburn reportedly was threatened by the attention lavished on Taylor by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, whom Hepburn had hired to produce The Philadelphia Story two decades earlier. Mankiewicz, for his part, allegedly hated Clift, whose drinking and partial paralysis from an auto accident prevented him from working more than half a day at a time. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Black and White Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Black and White Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Black and White Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – National Board of Review Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: Digitally mastered audio and video
Production notes
Interactive menus
Audio: English [mono], Spanish, Portuguese
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai
Video photo montage
Vintage advertising
Talent files
Theatrical trailer
Bonus trailers
Scene selections

Suddenly, Last Summer

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 08/15/2000

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen, 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, 1 USA & territories, Canada

Runtime: 114 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,Spanish,Portuguese

Subtitles: English,Spanish,Portuguese

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 -- Widescreen
0. Scene Selections
1. Start [2:36]
2. Psychosurgery [6:02]
3. Command Performance [10:56]
4. Suddenly, Last Summer [3:39]
5. So Strange & Terrible [5:25]
6. Mrs. Holly & Son [6:45]
7. Catherine Holly [2:35]
8. Dr. Cukrowicz Observes [5:24]
9. First Memory [4:20]
10. "I Can't Remember!" [7:52]
11. Holly Family Reunion [6:40]
12. Men's Dayroom [2:21]
13. "Help Me!" [1:57]
14. Famished for Blondes [2:35]
15. A Little Gift [3:12]
16. Vi Visits Catherine [2:03]
17. Old & New Toys [5:47]
18. On the Brink [2:15]
19. "I Need More Time." [3:36]
20. Death Certificate [1:09]
21. Injection Time [4:54]
22. The True Story [4:08]
23. Public Beach [3:44]
24. Bread, Bread, Bread [1:37]
25. Percussion Serenade [2:07]
26. Fatal Error [3:22]
27. Devoured [3:00]
28. Mind Snap [3:58]
Side #2 -- Full Screen
0. Scene Selections
1. Start [2:36]
2. Psychosurgery [6:02]
3. Command Performance [10:56]
4. Suddenly, Last Summer [3:39]
5. So Strange & Terrible [5:25]
6. Mrs. Holly & Son [6:45]
7. Catherine Holly [2:35]
8. Dr. Cukrowicz Observes [5:24]
9. First Memory [4:20]
10. "I Can't Remember!" [7:52]
11. Holly Family Reunion [6:40]
12. Men's Dayroom [2:21]
13. "Help Me!" [1:57]
14. Famished for Blondes [2:36]
15. A Little Gift [3:11]
16. Vi Visits Catherine [2:03]
17. Old & New Toys [5:47]
18. On the Brink [2:14]
19. "I Need More Time." [3:36]
20. Death Certificate [1:09]
21. Injection Time [4:54]
22. The True Story [4:07]
23. Public Beach [3:44]
24. Bread, Bread, Bread [1:37]
25. Percussion Serenade [2:07]
26. Fatal Error [3:21]
27. Devoured [3:00]
28. Mind Snap [3:58]

Brian J. Dillard

From its gothic settings to its potent female stars and its lurid subject manner, Suddenly, Last Summer presents a mixture of operatic Southern passions and high-camp excess unequaled in American cinema. The sight of Katherine Hepburn coyly descending from on high in an ornate elevator to preside grandly over her prehistoric garden is itself enough to scare away viewers looking for anything approaching quotidian naturalism. Audiences who can stomach Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal at their most overheated, however, will be rewarded by a film rich in nuance, beautiful language, and vivid production details. Costume and set designer Oliver Messel takes the script's over-the-top vision and runs with it; unfortunately, the film's two primary settings -- a Grand Guigol mansion and an insane asylum presided over by vicious nuns -- lose their impact after so many scenes of arch dialogue. Luckily, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz works in a few set pieces involving rooms full of drooling lunatics and a memorable finale that superimposes impressionistic flashbacks across Elizabeth Taylor's haunted face. Taylor would bring Mankiewicz down with her during the Cleopatra debacle a few years later, but here the actress' overripe sensuality and neurotic shrillness are pitch-perfect; her gurgling screams at the climax of the film provoke the sort of chills of which few performers are capable. Hepburn's duplicitous matriarch isn't as nuanced as the morphine-addicted mother she would play in her next film, 1962's epic A Long Day's Journey Into Night, but it's certainly a lot more fun, full of biting humor and scathing psychological insight. As for Montgomery Clift, his booze-soaked solemnity imbues young Dr. Cukrowicz with an almost ancient gravity. Full of studio veterans exercising their craft on a larger-than-life script whose concessions to morality do little to dull its savage power, Suddenly, Last Summer comes off like the overgrown cousin of better-groomed, more celebrated Williams fare like The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Roberta Woolley  Actor 
Malcolm Arnold  Composer (Music Score) 
Joseph L. Mankiewicz  Director 
Sam Spiegel  Producer 
Gore Vidal  Screenwriter 
Tennessee Williams  Screenwriter 
Buxton Orr  Composer (Music Score) 
Elizabeth Taylor  Actor 
Katharine Hepburn  Actor 
Montgomery Clift  Actor 
Albert Dekker  Actor 
Mercedes McCambridge  Actor 
Gary Raymond  Actor 
Mavis Villiers  Actor 
Patricia Marmont  Actor 
Joan Young  Actor 
Maria Britneva  Actor 
Sheila Robbins  Actor 
David Cameron  Actor 

Country: UK,USA