Suddenly, Last Summer (film)

Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 American Southern Gothic mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams. The film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Sam Spiegel from a screenplay by Gore Vidal though Williams was officially given credit with cinematography by Jack Hildyard and production design by Oliver Messel. The musical score was composed by Buxton Orr using themes by Malcolm Arnold.

New Orleans, 1937 Catherine Holly Elizabeth Taylor is a young woman institutionalized for a severe emotional disturbance that occurred when her cousin, Sebastian Venable, died under questionable circumstances while they were on summer holiday in Europe. The late Sebastians wealthy mother, Violet Venable Katharine Hepburn, makes every effort to deny and suppress the potentially sordid truth about her son and his demise. Toward that end, she attempts to bribe the state hospitals administrator, Dr. Lawrence J. Hockstader Albert Dekker, by offering to finance a new wing for the underfunded facility 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 sons death might be revealed by Catherines obscene babbling.Mrs. Venable meets with Dr. Cukrowicz in the primordial garden like the dawn of creation at her estate to discuss her nieces case, and their conversation eventually turns to Sebastian. Mrs. Venable describes him as a poet whose art was his sole occupation even though he only wrote a single poem each year during the summer months and never published his work and recounts her own previous vacations with him. Cukrowicz agrees to visit Catherine and begin his evaluation. Catherine has been confined to a private womens mental institution since returning from Europe several months earlier. When Cukrowicz interviews her, she struggles to recall the specific events that led to Sebastians death and her subsequent breakdown, but expresses a sincere desire to do so. ........

Source: Wikipedia