Elizabeth Taylor, Suddenly Last Summer, 1959. Photographer Unidentified
made in Hollywood: Photographs from the John Dobal Foundation Archive, Santa Barbara Museum of Art
I bought this in Australia in 2012.
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Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 American Southern Gothic mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams.
A title card at the start of the film sets the story in the year 1937.
The film tells the story of Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), a young woman institutionalized for a severe emotional disturbance that came about when her cousin, Sebastian Venable, died under questionable circumstances while they were on holiday in Europe. The late Sebastian's wealthy mother, Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), makes every effort to deny and suppress the potentially sordid truth about her son and his demise. Toward this end, she attempts to bribe the state hospital's administrator, Dr. Hockstader (Albert Dekker), by offering to finance a new wing for the underfunded facility – in Sebastian's name – if he will coerce his brilliant young surgeon, Dr. John Cukrowicz, (Montgomery Clift) into lobotomizing her niece, thereby removing any chance that the events surrounding her son's death might be revealed by Catherine's "obscene babbling".
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