MovieChat Forums > Suddenly, Last Summer Discussion > Is this Hepburns worst performance?

Is this Hepburns worst performance?


All actors have bad performances now and again, and Kates were surely few and far between, but this has to be her worst. She seems to not know how to play the character at all. She tries to make her sympathetic when she is clearly a monster. Her acting seems to be all over the map with really no focus. Maybe she just didn`t get the story. Maybe that`s why she hated Joe Mankewietz.

Elizabeth Taylor is just plain bad and in reality has only ever given a handful of GOOD performances. Clift is the only one who comes out ok in the film. Hepburn has always given good perfomances (almost always anyway) but here seems totally lost.

Of course the film itself is so overblown and convoluted that it couldn`t possibly have helped. They should have kept it as a one-act and had another of Williams plays as a companion to it. Sort of a double feature in one film. To try and flesh out the story they just went no-where and took the audience along with them.

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Hepburn was good. Taylor just over acted, and I have to agree that she has only a few GOOD performances. Taylor acted the same as she did in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I wouldn't call this one of Hepburn's worst, one of her lesser sung films yes, but not the worst. She does have some stinkers though. Hepburn even stated that Mankewietz never gave her any acting advice.

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What are you thinking...Suddenly Last Summer is one of Taylor's best efforts. She is just fantastic in the film.

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Dear Mit800, you must be on crack! These to ladies were outstanding and were nominated for each of their roles. Oh, you must be on the nominating committe now. That would explain it.

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Not really! I just noticed two actresses that were out of their depth. For Taylor she always swam in shallow waters as far as acting goes. She may have 5 really good performances.

Hepburn on the other hand was always watchable if not really great in her early years. It was only in her later years that she really hit her stride. I believe she didn`t really "get" the story and just pulled out all her tricks to get through the film.

The film as it is is pretty much nonsense and Taylor`s performance is pretty bad. It`s just my opinion and wondered what others thought. You don`t have to get defensive (or offensive as the case may be)

As for oscar nominations, they really don`t mean too much outside of Hollywood. After all Julia Roberts has an oscar.

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I would consider it one of Hepburns best.

Of course he has a knife he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!

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I agree wit vwmoran. I "know" this woman of sorts, and I was utterly 'creeped out' by this character's need for control & secrecy. I knew exactly how conniving this woman was from the get go & I was intrigued that I had not seen Hepburn perform like this before. Taylor is great; however, not her ultimate best, but still fantastic. She needs to be this way, and in the Williams-esque way, she delivers. I was also intrigued at Clift, who pulled that character out of what could have appeared to be manipulated, into a man of depth - not lured by Catherine's beauty, but by his need to know she was telling the truth. By the end of the film, watching Mrs. Venable, I was actually saying, "Can you say, 'cuckoo'!" She's amazing!

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I think Hepburn is magnificent in this film - she gives the one great performance in the film and it's quite a hard sit when she disappears for a lengthy time in the middle.

Taylor is simply dreadful. She could be charming and impressive at times - I love her in A Place in the Sun - and she found an unforgettable signature role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but this represents overacting of the highest order. I found her scenes quite hard to take.

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I honestly don't think I've ever seen Hepburn give a "bad" performance in a film.

I wouldn't rank this performance with "Lion in Winter", "Long Day's Journey Into Night" or even "On Golden Pond" but, it is still far from a poor performance, IMO.

LOL: I love Dame Liz to death but, I must agree that she is miscast in this film (it is obvious from her first scene that her character is sane and, thus detracts from the deliberate ambiguity intended by Tennessee Williams) and her performance is WAY over the top (particularly in the "cannibalism" scene).

Also, Montgomery Clift (one of the finest actors of his generation, IMO) just seems wasted here.

Even the usually reliable Mercedes McCambridge seems unconvincing.

Very disappointing film considering the caliber of writing, directing and acting.

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EXACTLY--Liz is simply too sane--and physically robust!-- to be convincing as an emotionally fragile neurotic, so traumatized by her experience in the gazebo that she just goes along with Sebastian's wacky way of attracting men. Check out Marilyn Monroe in "Don't Bother to Knock" or "The Misfits" to see the quality that Catherine was supposed to have.

That said, Miss T. looks great and the swimsuit scene ("I can't wear that, it's a scandal to the jaybirds!") is classic. Now, THAT'S what a real woman looks like.

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Oh gosh! I thought Hepburn was absolutely fabulous in the opening scenes when she is with Montgomery Clift in the garden. She sets the entire mood of the movie and is absolutely chilling in her delivery of her dialogue.

About Liz Taylor -- I think her looks many times detracted from her acting. I do think this was one of her best roles.

Remember, Tennessee Williams wrote about over-the-top characters.

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IDK- I can't get over just how over the top everyone is in this film. I'd never seen anything like it!

"The babbling, the constant babbling, that insane babbling!" Katherine Hepburn is really chewing up the scenery here. It's like the delivery in a John Waters movie.




"Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow." - Oscar Wilde

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I agree with you Toycoon-too. There was a point when KH was with Clift in the garden babbling along and at one point I just couldn't stand hearing her voice anymore. It seemed like the longest monologue I'd ever come across. She's never been my favorite of actresses but I can usually tolerate her. Here, I just wanted her to shut up or have Monty talk more.

Aside from that I couldn't believe that she was going to try & lobotomize ET because she knew the truth of her cousin, Sebastian. They way they kept mentioning his name I could't help but think of Sebastian in "Brideshead Revisited" and wondered if T. Williams character was inspiration for that future one.

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I don't know what you're talking about. How was this performance bad? It wasn't bad at all. Maybe you mean it wasn't as strong a role as say Lion in Winter, but it certainly doesn't make it bad. Hepburn was wonderful as usual. Played her part perfectly. I can't find anything wrong with it. It's Montgomery Clift who was kind of bad and distracted (possibly due to his real life problems) and Taylor was just melodramatic as required, to be fair. Hepburn? She was fine.

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I have to disagree completely: this is one of Hepburn's best performances. I love very scene with her. Taylor is also very great unlike Clift. His performance is so stiff and unreliable, that he nearly destroyed the whole flick with his performance!

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This is one of Hepburn's best performances. She gets my supporting actress award that year!

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