TOP 25 CAMP FILMS OF ALL TIME - 19

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER



Suddenly, Last Summer is the Tennessee Williams story of Mrs Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) - a rich New Orleans socialite who hires Dr John Cucrowicz (Montgomery Clift) to perform a lobotomy on her niece Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor). Catherine has been in a mental asylum since last summer when her cousin and Violet's son Sebastien died suddenly in Europe. She has been rambling about his death and making no sense so Violet being the caring aunt, offers to finance the good doctors research if he will perform the then experimental operation of a lobotomy. Dr John goes to visit Mrs Venable who descends from above in a lift and shows him round the house and garden which is like something out of Day Of The Triffids - a tropical jungle. Violet spouts all sorts of nonsense about Catherine who is actually going off her head in the asylum. Meanwhile at the asylum, Catherine gets grabbed at by the male mental cases from a long walkway and she screams a lot. Violet pontificates a lot about her darling son Sebastien and Dr John is all confused. He knows that Catherine knows something and that Mrs Venable is hiding something. Eventually a truth serum injected into Catherine reveals that Sebastien was as gay as a goose and he died after being physically eaten alive by the local boys in a European town after making passes at them. Catherine witnessed this, Violet is rumbled of the story and the real truth that Sebastien was a bit of a dirty stop out and she herself is tipped over the edge.

You know you're in camp territory right at the start of this camp outrage when Monty Clift is trying to operate under supervision and parts of the wall crumble and lights flicker. He needs cash to continue his experiments and Violet realises this. Katharine Hepburn is just starting to sound like Donald Duck in this movie but her costumes are so outlandish as is the mechanical contraption that descends from the first floor announcing her arrival into every scene. Quite why she needs a lift is beyond me as she seems fairly mobile throughout the movie. Liz Taylor is suitably distraught and cries a lot - she is fairly whiny but even I wasn't prepared for the crazy cannibalism plot the first time I saw the film. She goes crazy in earlier scenes at the asylum being chased by warders. Violet brushes this off pretty quickly and is insistent that Catherine gets her brain cut out as it's the only reasonable thing to do. Poor Dr John just looks perturbed a lot but then Monty Clift is just heaven to look at regardless of what he's saying.

The plotline is so crazy that it beggars belief. Where else do we get mental asylums, tropical gardens, psychos, lobotomies, gay sluts and cannibalism???! The cast is superb and many camp legends - Katharine Hepburn, Liz Taylor and Monty Clift. Mercedes McCambridge plays Liz's mother who is most famous for playing against Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar in that camp classic. Nothing can prepare for the onslaught of dialogue in the film and this makes it a bit heavy going but overall - you either want to look like Liz Taylor, be rescued by Monty Clift or wear hats like Katie Hepburn - or be all three!!!!

- Monty had been involved in a serious car crash months earlier and it was only after plastic surgery and insistence from best friend Liz Taylor that he took the part.

- The movie is set in New Orleans but was filmed entirely on soundstages in England.

- Katharine Hepburn was furious at Joseph Manciewicz's homophobic attitude to Monty Clift that on the last day of shooting, she spat at him.

- Gore Vidal and Tennessee William's lover play extras watching the surgery scene at the start of the movie.

- On the way to filming, Monty Clift and Mercedes McCambridge used to pass a prison where Monty would stop the car and shout at the inmates (apparently!)