Elizabeth Taylor. Katharine Hepburn. Two titans of classic Hollywood worth knowing. The most important takeaway from any Suddenly Last Summer review.

TCM Film Festival 2025

Screened in a Chinese multiplex on Hollywood Boulevard.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The film’s director. His grandson, Nick Davis, provided the intro. He’s seen Suddenly Last Summer twice. The first time he focused on the powerhouse performances by Hepburn and Taylor. This time he found himself drawn to Montgomery Clift’s quieter, more restrained turn. A sharp, spot-on observation

Davis also shared a moment from production:
On the first day of filming, call time was 9 a.m. Elizabeth Taylor arrived at 11 to find a completely deserted set. There was only a camera on a tripod, with a note taped to the lens:
“Elizabeth, the entire cast & crew were here for our call time at 9 a.m. We’ve gone home for the day. See you tomorrow—9 a.m.”
She was never late again. Davis concluded simply, “My grandfather was a clever director like that.”

The film revolves around a young man who dies under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind two women—his doting, venomous mother and his earnestly tragic cousin.

Sebastian.
His name is repeated at least forty times. It gets tiring. And frankly, he’s easy to hate. What we learn of him: he summers with his mother, neglects his cousin’s wellbeing, conquers the heights of lady-slaying and eventually turns to his only remaining option—luring impoverished gay men through the feminine bait of his mother and cousin.

These “vultures,” once fed, become insatiable. They chase the unwilling—waving cheap tin instruments, scaling steep hills, closing in with ravenous glee. The threat of cannibalistic justice looms. It’s grotesque, stylized and probably where the director’s ambition overreaches. The tin band is revisited too often, over-mystified and never fully clear.

Elizabeth Taylor

Calling her a “vision” doesn’t quite cover it. One of the most beautiful screen actresses in history—and also among the elite few who truly put themselves out there. But here she tries a little too hard. The emotion comes off forced at times.

Katharine Hepburn

The vision from the generation before. Still magnetic. Her delivery is precise, grounded and artistically shaped—but her rhythmic cadence, so uniquely hers, can become grating. Most of the time it’s familiar and fun. Occasionally it hits the wrong note entirely.

Tennessee Williams

The playwright behind the script. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof remains the superior collaboration with Liz but she navigates his relentless monologues here with grace. Sometimes she even elevates them.

Suddenly Last Summer is bizarre—and that’s exactly how I like my black-and-white films. Proficient live dialogue recording. Long, charged exchanges. And clues tucked right there on screen.

Highlights:

• The throne-like elevator ride to the middle of the room
• Feeding a giant practical Venus flytrap (still creepy despite the artifice)
• A not-quite-truth-serum that still makes people spill
• The swarm of hungry coded gay men devouring Sebastian—symbolic horror laced with period-specific discomfort. (Part of me hoped someone in the audience would be offended. But no—the TCM fans are sharp.)

There’s a lot of repetition. Hepburn monologues about sea turtles nesting, birds feasting and the circle of life. Names like Sebastian, Guadalupe and the Catatas are drilled into memory—like Zihuatanejo in The Shawshank Redemption.

Taylor overcommits. Hepburn overspeaks. Clift, by contrast, downplays his role until it becomes strangely believable.

A strange relic. Imperfect. Fascinating.
Exactly what you hope for when you gamble on an old film you’ve never seen.

Color didn’t become cinematic mainstream until the 1960s. Watching Suddenly Last Summer today—through the lens of black and white—it holds up. Not Citizen Kane but not regrettable either.

If there were raw footage of Elizabeth Taylor’s life—unedited and timestamped—I’d gladly devour it. Say, Liz: 4–6 p.m., Thursday, July 18, 1963. That’s a film I’d watch from start to finish.

Though I wouldn’t begin with the color reels. I’d need to see her in black and white first—to enjoy her there before moving on to Liz in Technicolor.

★★★★ ★★★★

Clipped versions of this review available on IMDb and Letterboxd.

For more TCM Fest fueled black & white read Servants’ Entrance, Eraserhead or Casablanca!