25 Films x 4 Decades: 1950s

It is shocking to think that Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer received a film adaptation in 1959. Expressly covering themes of homosexuality and including a shadowy image of Elizabeth Taylor's nipple while also heavily hinting at cannibalism, child molestation, and incest, this film is quite nefarious for 1950s America and unabashed in showcasing these themes. Whereas many other films of the era may hint at them or suggest the existence of these ideas, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's adaptation practically goes as far as coming right out and saying it with dialogue stopping right before idea is communicated, guiding the audience's hand right to the only logical conclusion. This is rather bold and one can…

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened my eyes to the works of Tennessee Williams, having initially seen the adapted film then moved on to read the play that inspired it. It was one of the works that struck a chord in me from the moment I saw it, unable to withdraw from the awe of its performances, to feel the tenderness and twist of a knife upon every spoken dialogue, the sense of heat and claustrophobia that consumes its characters, it was a remarkable piece of work that has very rarely been matched.

Suddenly, Last Summer was a film that caught my interest after the accumulated satisfaction and excitement behind both Williams and Taylor, wanting to dip my toes…

I first heard about this movie a few weeks ago when I was watching a show on Shudder that had Glenn Danzig on. They were going through a list of his favorite movies and he became extremely excited when they started talking about Suddenly, Last Summer. If Danzig gets excited about anything that isn't himself I have to check it out.

Suddenly, Last Summer features a young Elizabeth Taylor who finds herself in a mental institution. Katharine Hepburn plays her aunt and is the person behind her niece's confinement. Inside the institution, we see Elizabeth Taylor not exactly understanding why she is in there. She isn't crazy. She did experience a traumatic event while on vacation with her cousin Sebastion.…

Set in 1930's New Orleans, “Suddenly, Last Summer” is a truly bizarre concoction of transgressive themes and twisted personalities that did well to get through the production code unscathed. Written by Gore Vidal and based on the Tennessee Williams stage play, the film sees wealthy and eccentric matriarch Mrs. Venable (Katharine Hepburn) seeking to coerce ambitious surgeon (Montgomery Clift) into performing a lobotomy on her fragile niece (Elizabeth Taylor). The reasons for this sinister request becomes clear as the backstory slowly unravels. “Suddenly Last Summer” delivers a wild and shocking concoction of southern gothic melodrama, mixed in with a boiling stew of actual and implied homosexuality, incest, pedophilia and cannibalism. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz demonstrates his cinematic brilliance by stitching…