The plot is a mish-mash of Gothic horror, family psychodrama, Catholic guilt, and The Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name. But the original was written by Tennessee Williams, who was a poet masquerading as a playwright, and it ran only one act.
The film version was written by Gore Vidal. To his credit, he retained as much of Williams' dialog as possible, particularly towards the beginning and the end of the film, but there is considerable padding in-between, and Vidal, who was Clever at best, does not live up to the standard of Williams, no doubt one of the factors that fueled his obvious, and seething, jealousy towards his "good friend." The padding includes mad-house scenes where the extras were obviously encouraged to whoop it up like the extras in 28 DAYS LATER, and lots of heavy-handed hints about Sebastian's, er, proclivities.
Violet Venable (Katherine Hepburn) is a rich widow with a million dollars to give away. She's thinking about giving it away to the Lion's View Sanitarium, a public mental hospital in New Orleans, to help pay for such things as, well, keeping the power on. There's only one catch; she'd like their hot-shot brain surgeon, Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift), a recent transplant from Chicago, to perform a lobotomy on her niece Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), the better to end her "obscene babblings" about Mrs. Venable's son Sebastian, who had died the previous summer. Eventually, Cukrowicz injects the young woman with Sodium Pentothal and discovers that Sebastian was homosexual and that he used first his mother, and then his cousin, as "beards" to arrange homosexual liaisons with other men. His mother was "useful" when he was young and trying to hook up with sophisticated older men. He started using his cousin the year before to pick up the rough trade at public beaches (she caught their eye and then he started handing out the cash). Eventually, a gang of the young men he had exploited attacked him on a hillside overlooking the town and then killed and partially cannibalized his corpse.
The acting is a mixed bag. Hepburn comes off best, despite the dragon-lady nature of her role and the ghastly hats she has to wear in several scenes. The arrogance that often made her off-putting in many roles is perfect for the role of a woman who has been raised to believe that the fact she came from money and married more of it makes her some sort of superior being. And she also makes you feel the loneliness beneath that arrogance, the loneliness that made her attach herself to her son like a barnacle as the years went by, because he was the only real company she ever had.
Elizabeth Taylor starts out very nicely in the role of Catherine, showing flashes of great humor and poignancy. And then she remembers to Act. Bang! Up pops the breathless little voice and the big eyes, and she turns into Catherine O'Hara spoofing Elizabeth Taylor trying to Act. She only connects in flashes after that, although she is genuinely affecting at the end when she recalls finding the dead man's munched-upon remains. Her scream and the crying after that are filled with genuine horror and sadness.
As the doctor, Cukrowicz, Montgomery Clift has a nothing part, but he displays a certain amused reserve while doing nothing much and is the audience's connection to the real world of sane people, where rich old ladies aren't trying to get people's brains chopped up and their gay sons come back from the Mediterranean with a tan . . .
Joseph L. Mankiewicz did his usual job as a director; hire some vivid actors and point the camera at them. The results aren't as much fun as A LETTER TO THREE WIVES, but they're still a hell of a lot better than CLEOPATRA. So, for that matter, was the average episode of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES . . .
The film version was written by Gore Vidal. To his credit, he retained as much of Williams' dialog as possible, particularly towards the beginning and the end of the film, but there is considerable padding in-between, and Vidal, who was Clever at best, does not live up to the standard of Williams, no doubt one of the factors that fueled his obvious, and seething, jealousy towards his "good friend." The padding includes mad-house scenes where the extras were obviously encouraged to whoop it up like the extras in 28 DAYS LATER, and lots of heavy-handed hints about Sebastian's, er, proclivities.
Violet Venable (Katherine Hepburn) is a rich widow with a million dollars to give away. She's thinking about giving it away to the Lion's View Sanitarium, a public mental hospital in New Orleans, to help pay for such things as, well, keeping the power on. There's only one catch; she'd like their hot-shot brain surgeon, Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift), a recent transplant from Chicago, to perform a lobotomy on her niece Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), the better to end her "obscene babblings" about Mrs. Venable's son Sebastian, who had died the previous summer. Eventually, Cukrowicz injects the young woman with Sodium Pentothal and discovers that Sebastian was homosexual and that he used first his mother, and then his cousin, as "beards" to arrange homosexual liaisons with other men. His mother was "useful" when he was young and trying to hook up with sophisticated older men. He started using his cousin the year before to pick up the rough trade at public beaches (she caught their eye and then he started handing out the cash). Eventually, a gang of the young men he had exploited attacked him on a hillside overlooking the town and then killed and partially cannibalized his corpse.
The acting is a mixed bag. Hepburn comes off best, despite the dragon-lady nature of her role and the ghastly hats she has to wear in several scenes. The arrogance that often made her off-putting in many roles is perfect for the role of a woman who has been raised to believe that the fact she came from money and married more of it makes her some sort of superior being. And she also makes you feel the loneliness beneath that arrogance, the loneliness that made her attach herself to her son like a barnacle as the years went by, because he was the only real company she ever had.
Elizabeth Taylor starts out very nicely in the role of Catherine, showing flashes of great humor and poignancy. And then she remembers to Act. Bang! Up pops the breathless little voice and the big eyes, and she turns into Catherine O'Hara spoofing Elizabeth Taylor trying to Act. She only connects in flashes after that, although she is genuinely affecting at the end when she recalls finding the dead man's munched-upon remains. Her scream and the crying after that are filled with genuine horror and sadness.
As the doctor, Cukrowicz, Montgomery Clift has a nothing part, but he displays a certain amused reserve while doing nothing much and is the audience's connection to the real world of sane people, where rich old ladies aren't trying to get people's brains chopped up and their gay sons come back from the Mediterranean with a tan . . .
Joseph L. Mankiewicz did his usual job as a director; hire some vivid actors and point the camera at them. The results aren't as much fun as A LETTER TO THREE WIVES, but they're still a hell of a lot better than CLEOPATRA. So, for that matter, was the average episode of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES . . .