Suddenly, Last Summer

In 1937 New Orleans, a wealthy widow named Violet Venable offers to fund a new hospital wing if a neurosurgeon, Dr. Cukrowicz, performs a lobotomy on her niece Catherine. Violet's son Sebastian died while travelling with Catherine, and Catherine's account of what happened has left her traumatised and institutionalised. Violet wants the operation carried out to keep the truth about her son's death buried, while the doctor grows uneasy as he learns more about Catherine and the events of that trip.

The film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the eleventh of the fourteen features he made, following The Quiet American and preceding Cleopatra. Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay, adapting Williams's one-act play, and Sam Spiegel produced. Elizabeth Taylor plays Catherine, Katharine Hepburn plays Violet, and Montgomery Clift plays Dr. Cukrowicz, with Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge and Gary Raymond among the credited cast of twenty-five.

Released in December 1959, the film runs 114 minutes and was made for about 3 million dollars, earning roughly 9 million worldwide. On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.3 out of 10 from 325 votes.