7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
After witnessing her cousin's death, Catherine Holly begins to suffer mental problems. Her aunt, Violet Venable attempts to persuade neurosurgeon Dr Cukrowicz to perform a lobotomy in order to put an end to Catherine's hallucinations and the truth coming out about her son's death.
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridgeDrama | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Two rather notable American families had their lives upended by the supposed "miracle cure" of lobotomy in the 1940s, not necessarily in the same way (I'll mention a third example in my closing comments, below, since it differs in some material aspects). Kind of weirdly, though, both of the families had young women with Rose in their names, Rosemary Kennedy, daughter of Joseph P. and Rose, and Rose Williams, sister of Tennessee Williams. Rosemary was lobotomized in 1941 and Rose was lobotomized in 1943, and neither of them made it through the surgery intact. The Kennedy fortune helped to keep the actual devastating effects on Rosemary of the now largely discredited technique "containable", though it was up to Tennessee Williams himself to try to keep Rose in as much comfort as possible after her operation, and several biographers of Williams have gone on record stating that those travails actually led to several of Williams' own less than helpful behaviors, including use of alcohol and drugs. The threat of lobotomy underpins much of Suddenly, Last Summer, a 1959 film version of a Williams one act that had been aggregated with another one act by Williams for an off Broadway excursion called Garden District (a reference to the New Orleans neighborhood where both stories took place) which opened in January of 1958 (with the only cast member that most rank and file movie fans would recognize being Robert Lansing, who played the role essayed by Montgomery Clift in this film version). Kind of ironically, given Williams' notoriety as what might in current parlance be called a Gay Icon, while homosexuality is predictably also a subtext in Suddenly, Last Summer, it's not that perceived "perversion" that raises the specter of having a brain invaded and severed, but instead a refraction, in a manner of speaking, of one character's gayness and ramifications experienced by another character that leads to a showdown as to how best treat a supposed "mental illness".
Suddenly, Last Summer is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is another stellar effort from the almost always reliable curators of the Sony - Columbia catalog. Detail levels are uniformly excellent throughout the presentation, with the possible understandable exception of the "dream" sequence toward the end, where a surplus of optical effects leads to a slight diminution of overall detail and fine detail in particular. Otherwise, though, this offers superb accounts of everything from the textures of fabrics on costumes to some of the lush foliage in Sebastian's overgrown garden. Close-ups offer really substantial detail levels almost all of the time (see screenshot 3 for just one example). Contrast is consistent throughout, with solid black levels and really lustrous grayscale. Grain resolves naturally and I noticed no compression anomalies and no huge signs of age related wear and tear.
Suddenly, Last Summer features a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track which provides more than capable support for this very talk heavy film. Those with an interest in American composers may know that Ned Rorem evidently provided the score for the original off Broadway version, but here it's an amalgam of work from Malcolm Arnold and Buxton Orr, with some cues being a bit on the overwrought side, but sounding full bodied and problem free on the track. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
Longtime readers of my reviews may know that I achieved whatever bona fides in film historical research I may have (and I'm not claiming to have any, just to be clear) for my deconstruction of the Frances Farmer story, especially as it was portrayed in a novel and the Jessica Lange feature film about Farmer, both of which feature a rather horrifying transorbital lobotomy performed on her, one for which there is absolutely no positive evidence, either circumstantial or otherwise. It's kind of curious that, having gotten to know various Farmer family members through the years, they've had to endure a kind of similar sorrow that I'm sure members of the Kennedy and Williams families had to, even if their beloved relative was still (more or less?) intact after institutionalization, as if to suggest that even the mere mention of a potential lobotomy can be absolutely damaging (and understandably so). You can feel Tennessee Williams' pain almost oozing from various scenes in this film, though the whole Grand Guignol denouement may undercut Williams' nobler tendencies, which might be summed up with an "if only Rose had received a 'talking cure'". Gore Vidal may be faulted for trying to expand an evidently pretty compact one act into a feature film, but this offers a trio of true "star performances" from Clift (who kind of interestingly would soon go on to portray Freud ), Taylor and Hepburn (the latter two of whom received Academy Award nominations for their performances). Technical merits are solid, and Suddenly, Last Summer comes Recommended.
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4K Restoration
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