[URL]http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871876209[/URL] [URL]http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871876209[/URL] Suddenly Last Summer by Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams Introduction by Sam Sloan Tennessee Williams was the most successful playwright of the modern era and Suddenly Last Summer is the most successful of his plays. It has gone through many performances and revivals, two movies and a made for TV movie. A new revival is reportedly underway. Tennessee Williams left his plays upon his death to the University of the South in Swanee, Tennessee, which claims a royalty upon any performance of his plays. Tennessee Williams was homosexual and left no wife nor children. Many of his plays involve themes of homosexuality, including three of his plays that were made into movies: A Streetcar Named Desire (1948), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) and Suddenly Last Summer (1958). However, the production codes of that time would not allow explicit references to homosexuality, so the viewer is left to guess that this is what is going on. After Suddenly Last Summer was made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor, Tennessee Williams complained that the movie producers and directors had butchered it. He was unhappy. One of his main complaints was that Elizabeth Taylor was too beautiful for the part, an odd complaint. The basis for this complaint involves the lead character, Sebastian Venable, who is already dead when the play starts. The play is about the circumstances of his death in 1935. What the audience eventually realizes, although it is never specifically stated, is that Sebastian was homosexual. Early in the play, his mother, Mrs. Violet Venable, says that Sebastian was “Chaste” when he died at age 40. Not many men are able to make it to 40 without having sex, so we are already able to guess that he might have been homosexual. Sebastian had been making trips to Europe every summer with his extremely wealthy mother, played in the movie by Katharine Hepburn. However, on his last trip, he had decided not to take his mother but instead to take his cousin, Catharine Holly, played in the movie by Elizabeth Taylor. Then, during the trip to Europe in Cabeza De Lobo, a resort area in San Sebastian, Spain, “Suddenly Last Summer”, Sebastian had died and Catharine Holly had simultaneously gone insane. Catharine Holly had been shipped back to America and locked up in a mental hospital. Catherine was making delusional ravings about the death of Sebastian. Mrs. Venable wanted to stop these mad ravings about the death of her son. She had read about the procedure of Lobotomy, which involves cutting some connections inside the brain, and how much good it had done for people who were otherwise hopelessly insane. Therefore, she wanted this procedure performed on Catherine. However, the mental hospital where Catherine was currently hospitalized was either unwilling or unable to perform this procedure, so Mrs. Venable wanted Catherine to be transferred to a smaller, local mental hospital that would be able to do it. This small mental hospital was in financial difficulty and in danger of being forced to close. As a very wealthy woman, Mrs. Venable was willing to make a very large financial contribution to the hospital, subject to the condition that the hospital perform this lobotomy on Catherine. Dr. Cuckrowicz, played in the movie by Montgomery Clift, regularly performed these operations, but was reluctant to do it as a pre-condition to a substantial financial contribution. Sebastian had left in his will ,000 to each of Catherine Holly, her brother George and their mother Mrs. Holly. However, Mrs. Venable, the sister of Mrs. Holly, was contesting the will. She was agreeing to drop the contest of the will and thus to allow George, Catherine and their mother to get the ,000 each, only provided they sign the papers agreeing to the lobotomy of Catherine. The mystery is: Why is Catherine Holly said to be delusional? What is she saying about the death of Sebastian and why is Mrs. Venable trying to have her lobotomized to stop her from saying it? Whet we finally learn at the end of the movie is that Sebastian Venable had been taking his mother to Europe every year to use her as a lure to attract boys, whom he wanted to use for homosexual purposes. However, his mother had had a stroke and was now in a wheelchair. In the movie version, she was simply getting older and was no longer able to attract boys. Therefore, on this final trip, Sebastian had brought Catherine Holly with him instead. He had gotten Catherine to wear a revealing one-piece bathing suit to the beach. It was a thin white swimming suit that made her appear completely naked when she went into the water. She did not want to wear it but Sebastian made her do it. This scene produced the picture of Elizabeth Taylor in a swimming suit shown on the cover. This is one of the most famous photos of Elizabeth Taylor ever taken. After using Catherine and her see-through swimming suit to attract boys, Sebastian would disappear into the bath houses with the boys. This was obviously for homosexual purposes. However, Sebastian's plan to use Catherine Holly to attract boys for sexual purposes proved to be too successful. When Sebastian wanted to leave, the boys had chased Sebastian up the hill onto a cliff. With no way to escape, the homeless boys had surrounded Sebastian, killed him and had literally eaten his body parts (including probably his dick). The boys themselves were heterosexual and thus were attracted to Catherine. However, they were poor, homeless boys who needed money and thus would prostitute themselves into homosexual acts with Sebastian. Catherine reports that Sebastian said “that gang of kids shouted vile things at me”, which means that they probably called him “queer”. This helps explain why they killed and ate him. Catherine Holly had been running up the hill to try to catch and help rescue Sebastian and had arrived in time to see Sebastian being gobbled down by the boys. (It must have been a good meal!) Catherine had gone crazy. Ever since, every time Catherine had tried to explain what had really happened, the doctors had said that her delusions were the result of her being crazy. However, this time, the doctor has given her injections of sodium thiopenthal, —a "truth serum"—, so we know she is telling the truth. Finally, at the end of the movie, we realize that actually Mrs. Venable is crazy. Catherine Holly is normal and what she is saying is what really happened. Tennessee Williams went on to denounce the film and denied having any involvement with the script despite being credited on-screen for it. He felt that Taylor was miscast as Catherine, telling Life magazine in 1961, "It stretched my credulity to believe such a 'hip' doll as our Liz wouldn't know at once in the film that she was 'being used for something evil'.” Williams told The Village Voice that the film "made [him] throw up" and that the script moved too far away from his original play. However, these complaints must be discounted because Williams made similar complaints about all of the movies that were based on his plays. He had retained artistic control over the productions and could have stopped the films from being made. The copyright notice to the play insists that there be no changes in the script. He made millions from these movies and did not offer to return the money. A chess- playing friend of mine went to see one of these movies and saw Tennessee Williams himself sitting in the audience watching it. One difference between the script and the movie is that in the movie is appears at times that Catherine really is crazy. In the cigarette scene near the beginning, when the nun orders Catherine to put the cigarette out, Catherine burns the cigarette into the palm of her own hand, thus burning herself. This is something only a crazy person would do. However, in the play, Catherine sticks the cigarette into the hand of the nun, burning the nun. This was certainly not a good thing to do, but not proof that she was crazy. She was just angry at the nun for not allowing her to smoke. The performance of Elizabeth Taylor in the movie version proves that she was one of the greatest actresses of our times. In the movie, she must go from being a mad lunatic in a mental institution to being a perfectly normal but hysterical woman horrified by the sight of her cousin being killed and eaten. Her acting must range to every place in between. However, the movie also proves, in my view, that Elizabeth Taylor was not really as beautiful a woman as she was said to be. She merely had the most talented and expensive make-up artists and fashion designers, and wore the most beautiful wardrobe. In the early scenes in the movie, when Elizabeth Taylor is locked up in the psychiatric ward, she is wearing no makeup and her hair is not done. She looks like, at best, a woman of average appearance, and certainly is not especially beautiful. Indeed, she is hardly recognizable. She complains about this, saying “you can't have a compact or lipstick” inside the psychiatric ward. However, in a later scene, after they have allowed her to get her hair done, she re-appears as the fabulously beautiful Elizabeth Taylor we all know. In my view, if you want to see a woman just as beautiful if not more beautiful than Elizabeth Taylor, all you have to do it walk down and street or take a public bus or train. There you will see lots of women just as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor. Today, with all kinds of hair and skin products readily available (but at high prices) almost any girl can be just as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor. (I know, because my five daughters are always trying to get me to buy this expensive stuff for them.) Although you can easily find a girl just as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor, see if you can find one who can act as well as she can? I do not believe that you can find one. Sam Sloan Ishi Press International 461 Peachstone Terrace San Rafael California 94903 August 1, 2011 PS The title to the movie is "Suddenly, Last Summer" with a comma included. However, the title to the play is "Suddenly Last Summer" with the comma omitted. [URL]http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871876209[/URL] [URL]http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/product.aspx?ISBN=4871876209[/URL]