MovieChat Forums > Suddenly, Last Summer Discussion > denial and self-hatred SPOILER

denial and self-hatred SPOILER

posted 17 years ago by tkrolak
6 replies | jump to latest

In his study of homosexuality in the movies, The Celluloid Closet, Vito Russo had this to say about Suddenly, Last Summer on pages 115-118.

According to Russo, Henry Hart wrote in the January 1960 Films in Review that
Tennessee Williams wrote the play Suddenly Last Summer on the advice of his psychiatrist. The doctor felt that Williams had for too long had disrespect for what was normal and should show homosexuality for the evil that it was. That would help him as well as society. This Williams did in his own wildly abnormal way. The pedophiliac Sebastian Venable's nightmarish end was a punishment for the sin of sodomy.

We don't see Sebastian's face. Russo compares him to horror movie characters like the creature from the black lagoon. He is not completely human, in a way.
Hart continued that the plot "exposes clearly the foremost causes of homosexuality." It "points to one of the horrible fates that can overtake this particular kind of pervert."

Russo also wrote about the problem persuading Hepburn to play Violet in the movie. He claimed that the director, Joseph Mankiewiscz and Spencer Tracy talked to her for hours in a vain attempt to convince her that there were such people as homosexuals.

[–] mac_alain 17 years ago

He claimed that the director, Joseph Mankiewiscz and Spencer Tracy talked to her for hours in a vain attempt to convince her that there were such people as homosexuals.

Wow, did she then not know about Clift?

[–] bhoover247 17 years ago

According to the original poster Tennessee Williams wrote this play on advice from his psychiatrist to try and portray homomsexuality as something evil. I wonder if Tennessee Williams viewed his own homosexuality as wrong. I always thought Williams was open about his homosexuality.

[–] tkrolak 17 years ago

"I always thought Williams was open about his homosexuality."

He was, among those who knew him. Others may have known, or guessed, but didn't care because of his genius for writing. According to Williams' biographer, Donald Spoto, the playwright was a virgin with both sexes until he was twenty-six. Then, he began a lifetime of gay promiscuity. Spoto wrote that Williams considered gay monogamy a "quaint Old World convention, but not realistic, and dreary as a serious goal."

But the biographer also claimed, surprisingly to me, that Christopher Isherwood and other gay men who were friends of Williams said he hated being gay. If that were true, it could have been out of sheer frustration because his sex drive was so strong. Having a hard time controlling it could have been the reason he agreed with the psychiatrist.

[–] tkrolak 17 years ago

"Wow, did she not know about Clift?"

Whether she did or not would be interesting to know. It would come as a surprise to me if she behaved in any way other than professional, keeping her opinions to herself on the set.

Another castmember, Elizabeth Taylor, had been Clift's close friend for years.
He brought out her maternal instinct. If anyone had verbally abused him for his sexuality, as John Wayne once reportedly had when they made Red River, the person would have had to deal with her.

When I read in Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet about the conversation Tracy and Mankiewiscz had with Hepburn, it was hard, it is still hard, to believe. Because of the subject matter of the story, they could have been only talking about male homosexuality. Even if you don't like gay men, you know they exist. She must have been showing a deep state of denial. Perhaps it had to do with her brother's suicide.

[–] mac_alain 17 years ago

Whether she did or not would be interesting to know. It would come as a surprise to me if she behaved in any way other than professional, keeping her opinions to herself on the set.

She did seem to, class act that she was, have "looked after" Clift though:

According to author Garson Kanin in his memoir "Tracy and Hepburn", Katharine Hepburn was reportedly so furious at the way Montgomery Clift was treated by Sam Spiegel and Joseph L. Mankiewicz during the filming that, after making sure that she would not be needed for retakes, she told both men off and actually spat at them (although it remains unclear just which one of the two she spat at, or if she spat at both.)

The above from http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0053318/trivia

[–] nikkilynn1982 11 years ago

Why would anyone have to convince Hepburn "that there were such people as homosexuals"?? What a bunch of crap! She had been in Hollywood over 20 years by this time and she knew how things worked out there, plus, she WAS a lesbian who openly travelled with a "girlfriend" back in the '30's. In fact, Spencer Tracy had a thing for "younger" guys, and that was what contributed to his heavy drinking -- not the so-called 'guilt' he felt for leaving his wife and family for Hepburn years before. They were pretty much friends and each others' beards over the years -- hardly the great love story that was concocted by Hollywood over the years and accepted as truth, then relegated to "legend" status.