(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

Berg, A. Scott. Kate Remembered. New York: Putnam, 2003. P. 238

Bosworth, Patricia. Montgomery Clift: A Biography. Limelight Editions; Reissue edition, 1978.

Sova, Dawn. Forbidden Films: Censorship Histories of 125 Motion Pictures. Facts on File, 2001.

Williams, Tennessee. Memoirs. Doubleday, 1975.