This was Elizabeth Taylor's second Tennessee Williams' script and the third in a series of increasingly hysterical, over-wrought characterizations--"Raintree County" and "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" preceding "Suddenly."
In "Raintree" she's crazy because she thinks she she part black. In "Cat" she's half crazy with desire for her hubby who won't sleep with her because (maybe) he's gay. In "Suddenly" she's half-crazy because her very definitely gay cousin was cannibalized before her eyes, while they were vacationing where the boys are.
Miss Taylor is loads of fun in these roles, shrill and noisy and petulant. She is actually very good in "Cat" perhaps never better--perhaps because the death of her husband Mike Todd just days after filming began, gave her more than her usual commitment to a role.
But the thing is, Elizabeth Taylor's essence, is NOT unhinged. She always seems quite sane, really. Her high-pitched, breathy neurosis always rings false--if, again, it is always watchable (to the dedicated fan, anyway.)
In no other film is this as evident as "Suddenly Last Summer." At no time, no matter what words pour out of Catherine Holly's mouth, does she come across as she should--a fragile thing who is driven to a near-breakdown over a sexual tryst in a gazebo and then goes over the edge after allowing herself to be "used" to procure boys for her cousin. Taylor's Catherine is way too assured, sophisticated, healthy, vital. She is quick to anger, quick to argue. She looks like she could take apart the sanitarium with her bare hands--or at least the sound of her voice.
Taylor performs brilliantly (though Mank, who would also direct her in "Cleopatra" encourages Taylor's actressy heavy-breathing, when restraint serves her best--"Giant," anyone?) But it is clear she's no victim.
Katharine Hepburn on the other hand comes off like a lunatic from her first scene. THIS woman wants somebody else to be lobotomized?! (to keep Miz Liz from all that "obscene babbling" about cousin Sebastian.) Monty Clift looks stunned and behaves with the kind of nervous hesitation that Miss Taylor should have used in her own performance.
And yet, all this miscasting works for the film, precisely because the subject matter is so bizarre. Had it been properly cast--Audrey Hepburn (all vulnerability) or Kim Novak (all somnambulism) or Marilyn Monroe (vulnerability, sex and raw nerves--go see "Bus Stop) the movie wouldn't have nearly the same over-ripe aroma.
And speaking of ripe, "Suddenly" offers Miss Taylor at her womanly peak: so lush, so sexy...so WRONG for mental patient on the edge. But Miss Catherine is clearly having her three squares a day, lobotomy be damned.
The Taylor face, in crisp black-and-white, is gorgeous. Though depressed, Miss Catherine still manages to apply that liquid liner expertly.
"Suddenly Last Summer" It's so off the tract, but a fascinating train wreck none the less.
In "Raintree" she's crazy because she thinks she she part black. In "Cat" she's half crazy with desire for her hubby who won't sleep with her because (maybe) he's gay. In "Suddenly" she's half-crazy because her very definitely gay cousin was cannibalized before her eyes, while they were vacationing where the boys are.
Miss Taylor is loads of fun in these roles, shrill and noisy and petulant. She is actually very good in "Cat" perhaps never better--perhaps because the death of her husband Mike Todd just days after filming began, gave her more than her usual commitment to a role.
But the thing is, Elizabeth Taylor's essence, is NOT unhinged. She always seems quite sane, really. Her high-pitched, breathy neurosis always rings false--if, again, it is always watchable (to the dedicated fan, anyway.)
In no other film is this as evident as "Suddenly Last Summer." At no time, no matter what words pour out of Catherine Holly's mouth, does she come across as she should--a fragile thing who is driven to a near-breakdown over a sexual tryst in a gazebo and then goes over the edge after allowing herself to be "used" to procure boys for her cousin. Taylor's Catherine is way too assured, sophisticated, healthy, vital. She is quick to anger, quick to argue. She looks like she could take apart the sanitarium with her bare hands--or at least the sound of her voice.
Taylor performs brilliantly (though Mank, who would also direct her in "Cleopatra" encourages Taylor's actressy heavy-breathing, when restraint serves her best--"Giant," anyone?) But it is clear she's no victim.
Katharine Hepburn on the other hand comes off like a lunatic from her first scene. THIS woman wants somebody else to be lobotomized?! (to keep Miz Liz from all that "obscene babbling" about cousin Sebastian.) Monty Clift looks stunned and behaves with the kind of nervous hesitation that Miss Taylor should have used in her own performance.
And yet, all this miscasting works for the film, precisely because the subject matter is so bizarre. Had it been properly cast--Audrey Hepburn (all vulnerability) or Kim Novak (all somnambulism) or Marilyn Monroe (vulnerability, sex and raw nerves--go see "Bus Stop) the movie wouldn't have nearly the same over-ripe aroma.
And speaking of ripe, "Suddenly" offers Miss Taylor at her womanly peak: so lush, so sexy...so WRONG for mental patient on the edge. But Miss Catherine is clearly having her three squares a day, lobotomy be damned.
The Taylor face, in crisp black-and-white, is gorgeous. Though depressed, Miss Catherine still manages to apply that liquid liner expertly.
"Suddenly Last Summer" It's so off the tract, but a fascinating train wreck none the less.