(Hugo Fregonese, US 1951, 74 min., 35mm)
Gambler Sam Slick (Stephen McNally) is thrown out of a small Western town, but returns to warn its citizens when he learns of an impending Indian attack. Though director Fregonese was a talented storyteller, this flavorful and efficient B-Western’s true auteur is legendary producer Val Lewton, whose last production this was. Then at 8:30 p.m. Across the Wide Missouri
(William Wellman, US 1951, 78 min., 35mm)
Clark Gable stars as a fur trapper in the Montana/Idaho territories of the 1830s who marries a Blackfoot woman. The gorgeous location filming in this MGM production was a trademark of veteran director and adventurer Wellman (Wings, The Ox-Bow Incident). Two films for one admission price.
(Howard Hawks, US 1948, 133 min., 35mm)
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On the occasion of John Wayne’s 100th birthday, see one of Wayne’s best performances along with Montgomery Clift in an epic Western which, in the tradition of celebrated director Hawks, places character and human emotions over spectacle. The story, a sort of Mutiny on the Bounty of the West, concerns a cattle drive and the battle over leadership between rancher Tom Dunson and his son Matt. More than a shoot-’em-up, Red River is a resonant and deeply moving masterpiece about family, friendship, and mutual respect. Members admitted free.
(Joseph L. Mankiewicz, US 1959, 114 min., 35mm)
Tennessee Williams’ gothic play (adapted by Gore Vidal) stars Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor (both in Oscar®-nominated performances) as a Southern dowager and her brain-damaged daughter. Montgomery Clift is the doctor who unravels a shocking family history that still surprises audiences today.
Program Notes
Suddenly, Last Summer
~Caroline Elliott, Dryden Theatre Volunteer
At the age of eight, Tennessee Williams was diagnosed with diphtheria, a respiratory disease preventing strenuous physical activity. Pained to see him unable to play with other children, Williams’ mother encouraged him to use his imagination, and bought him a typewriter. He received his first award for writing at the age of 16. Williams’s dysfunctional family included his domineering mother, his lobotomized sister, and himself as an ostracized homosexual, and served as inspiration for much of his work. Suddenly, Last Summer, which began as a one-act play consisting of two monologues premiered Off-Broadway in 1958. Even though it is a one-act play, and one of Williams’ lesser known works, it remains an essential portrayal of the typical Tennessee Williams family, grappling with fear, shame, and guilt.
The play was quickly adapted for screen, and opened in theatres one year later, in 1959. The screenplay was co-written with Gore Vidal (who has a cameo in the film), and the original story was substantiated by adding characters and subplots. However, both Williams and Vidal were confronted with the challenge of conveying—on screen—the “unspeakable” nature of the story’s climax. Broadway morality was more lax than the studios, and Suddenly, Last Summer was subject to the strict censorship committee of the “Breen Office.” The Breen Office was formed by the Producers Association in 1934 to review every script that the major studios proposed to shoot, and to screen every film before it was released. To enforce the code, the Breen Office was empowered to grant or withhold a seal of approval, and without a seal, a movie could not be played in the major theater chains. The Breen Office agreed to grant Suddenly, Last Summer its seal of approval if the truth of the film’s dark secret was “inferred, but not shown.”
Both of the film’s leading actresses, Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn (in her first villainous role) received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Taylor, who was close friends with Montgomery Clift, campaigned to director Joseph Mankiewicz and producer Sam Spiegel that Clift portray the psychiatrist, Dr. Cukrowicz. Two years prior, Clift had been nearly killed in a car accident after leaving a party at Taylor’s home (it was she who saved him from choking by pulling out two teeth that had been lodged in his throat). Although his pristine good looks were altered, and his self-confidence shaken, Mankiewicz and Spiegel granted Clift the role (Berg 237). But rumors of Clift’s mental instability and alcoholism, as well as questions about his sexuality, generated tension on the set, and Mankiewicz and Spiegel reportedly treated him cruelly. Katharine Hepburn was rumored to be so displeased with the way the director and producer acted toward Clift that she spat on their faces upon completion of the film (Berg 238).
Although Suddenly, Last Summer originated as a play, it did not have a Broadway debut until 1995. It was performed on Broadway as it had on Off-Broadway, as a double feature of one-act plays called Garden District, referring to New Orleans’ tawdry city of secrets, where both tales take place. In 2004, Suddenly, Last Summer returned to Off-Broadway, with a successful run that starred Blythe Danner in the Hepburn role, and Carla Cugino in the Taylor role.
FOR FURTHER READING
(Michael Curtiz, US 1940, 121 min., 35mm)
Errol Flynn and director Curtiz (Casablanca) follow-up their successful 1939 Western Dodge City with this lively Civil War-era action spectacular. Flynn plays a Union officer assigned to steal a shipment of gold from a Confederate commander (Randolph Scott). The great supporting cast includes Miriam Hopkins as a Southern spy posing as a dancehall girl and Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandito with a very strange accent!
(Anthony Harvey, UK 1968, 135 min., 35mm)
In her third of four Oscar®-winning performances, Katharine Hepburn is Eleanor of Aquitaine, summoned from exile at Christmastime by her estranged husband King Henry II of England (Peter O’Toole, in an older version of the role he played in Becket). The purpose of this reunion is to decide which of their three sons (played by Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, and Nigel Terry) will inherit the throne. A newly preserved print from the Academy Film Archive will be screened.
