Joseph L. Mankiewicz Tribute: SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER
Joseph L. Mankiewicz Centennial – Part I
And if Guys and Dolls (1955) was a bore — just about everyone in this film musical is miscast, from Brando to Mankiewicz himself — the director recovered his touch with the adult (and bizarre) Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), a psychotic psychological drama adapted by Gore Vidal and (officially) Tennessee Williams from Williams’s own play. (Williams later said he had nothing to do with the film version.)
The story follows a young woman (Elizabeth Taylor) who is sent to a psychiatric hospital after she suffers a nervous breakdown following some horrific traumatic experience. Things can get quite heady — bad pun intended — when you mix traditional Southern gentility and propriety with sexual desire, incest, homosexuality, psychoanalysis, lobotomy, cannibalism, and Mercedes McCambridge in one single film made at a time when most of those issues couldn’t be discussed, let alone be shown on screen.
Not to mention the fact that it was a difficult shoot because Montgomery Clift, who plays a doctor trying to help the troubled woman, had become a serious drug and alcohol addict. Clift, who two years earlier had been in a near-fatal car crash that disfigured his face, would apparently find different ways to get his stuff. "Though I could never fathom the source," editor William Hornbeck says in Kenneth L. Geist’s Mankiewicz bio People Will Talk, "Joe thought he was either smoking or taking dope or drinking by putting booze into his orange juice."
According to Geist, reports that Katharine Hepburn clashed with Mankiewicz because he mistreated Clift seem to be untrue. The actress did, however, clash with her director for other reasons. "Kate wanted very much to direct herself in Suddenly, Last Summer," Mankiewicz says in People Will Talk. "This is a battle I don’t think a director can ever afford to lose, because the first time I lose that battle, then I must give up directing. I refused to lose that battle, and I insisted on the performance being played my way." (According to screenwriter-director — and Hepburn friend — Garson Kanin, who wrote a piece on the actress for McCall’s, Hepburn refused to believe in the existence of homosexuality. I believe it’s clear by now that Kanin made that one up.)
As per The Saturday Review critic Arthur Knight, Mankiewicz’s apparently not only won the battle, but also the war.
"Elizabeth Taylor, as the beleaguered heroine of a New Orleans nightmare, works with an intensity beyond belief; hers is unquestionably one of the finest performances of this or any year. Katharine Hepburn uses every ounce of the Hepburn charm (and every one of the Hepburn mannerisms) to make her portrait of an egocentric matron and too-doting mother ring true. … [Suddenly, Last Summer] is, in short, a wholly admirable rending into film of a work that is at once fascinating and nauseating, brilliant and immoral. Its reception at the box office unquestionably will have an important bearing on the future of ‘adult’ film in this country."
There are some, however, who hate Suddenly, Last Summer — though the film was a big hit when it came out, earning both Hepburn and Taylor Academy Award nominations. Mankiewicz himself later referred to Williams’ original as "a badly constructed play based on the most elementary Freudian psychology and one anecdote."
In my view, the film is totally, unbelievably crazy — and I mean crazy — mess. It’s also gripping, strangely eerie, and beautifully acted. Hepburn (above, with Clift), for one, is superb as the matriarch, while Mercedes McCambridge is a hoot as the potential lobotomee’s greedy relative. In other words, Suddenly, Last Summer is not to be missed.
Mankiewicz’s career wound down in the 1960s. Perhaps the Cleopatra (1963) debacle left him out of breath for years. He would direct only three more narrative features: The Honey Pot (1967), There Was a Crooked Man (1970), and Sleuth (1972). Of these, I’ve only seen Sleuth, which happens to be your typical classy, witty, and well-acted — Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine trying to outdo one another — Mankiewicz fare.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz died in 1993.
Tickets for “A Centennial Salute to Joseph L. Mankiewicz” are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID, and may be purchased online at www.oscars.org, in person at the Academy box office or by mail. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All seating is unreserved. The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For more information, call (310) 247-3600.
Photos: Courtesy of the Margaret Herrick Library
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Tags: Arthur Knight, Classic Movies, Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Garson Kanin, Gay Interest, Gore Vidal, Guys and Dolls, Incest, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Katharine Hepburn, Kenneth L. Geist, Laurence Olivier, Los Angeles Screenings, Marlon Brando, Mercedes McCambridge, Michael Caine, Montgomery Clift, People Will Talk, Psychological Drama, Sleuth, Suddenly Last Summer, Tennessee Williams, The Oney Pot, The Saturday Review, There Was a Crooked Man
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3 Responses to “Joseph L. Mankiewicz Tribute: SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER”
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Hi André,
Joseph L. Mankiewicz is probably my favorite director, and I believe yours to be a very good capture of his art. I agree that “Guys and Dolls” seems to belong to another (poorer) reality altogether, but the class, wit and superb acting Mr. Mankiewicz presented audiences with.
“Sleuth” was the first of his movies I remember watching, being hooked by the clever plot and the flawless performances; “The Ghost and Mrs Muir”, “Julius Caesar”, “A Letter to Three Wives”, “All About Eve” and “Suddenly, Last Summer” would rise to my personal pantheon.
I’m glad you highlight his screenwriter and producer credits, with “The Philadelphia Story”, being a complete triumph, “Fury” one of my favorite Fritz Lang pictures, “Mannequin”, “Double Wedding” and “Manhattan Melodrama” being stellar achievements.
I’d suggest “The Honey Pot” as yet another of his brilliantly scripted pics (it’s out on DVD). And I’m sorry I’ll miss the “A Centennial Salute to Joseph L. Mankiewicz”.
Thanks for posting.
I have to watch “Julius Caesar” again. I remember your remark about Brando’s performance a while back.
And I’ll look for “The Honey Pot.”
Thanks for writing, Joao.
Andre’
Hopefully “Suddenly Last Summer” will get a special 2 disc reissue soon…