I just saw this movie for the first time. It’s also my first time seeing a Katherine Hepburn movie. I never really appreciated her as one of the great actors. The actors of today just do not have the same impact on their roles. This was a true example of great actors playing their parts. Their is something magical in some of these old movies.
Joemnc For more great Hepburn films watch Lion in Winter, Keeper of the Flame, The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, the African Queen and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, to name a few.
There's nothing like these old movies... when I was a kid I would stay up late watching them.... especially on school nights when I should have been sleeping . My parents had these big old thick coffee table books all about Hollywood and the Stars going back to the silent era .... and one of them said Elizabeth Taylor was the last of the great Stars . I remember going through a phase when I was maybe in the fifth or sixth grade maybe the seventh grade where I wanted to be like Katharine Hepburn . I really liked her and Keeper of the flame and African Queen... and the one with John Wayne but I can't think of what it was called . I do think she became full of herself as a human being when she got older and maybe she was always like that... it could be because she came from privilege and seemed to have had a relatively easy life as if everything came her way . Always remember my much older sister saying that she was Spencer Tracy's lover for years because Spencer Tracy's wife was an invalid and he wouldn't leave her but he really was in love with Hepburn . Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were great Keeper of the flame and that is a unique movie.... I remember staying in one rainy afternoon to watch it and that was the perfect environment for this movie . Spencer Tracy was another one I loved as a kid and one of the first male actors I was crushing on when I was really little , him and Humphrey Bogart , and James Cagney . She was also good in a lion in winter ... based on Eleanor of Aquitaine wife of Henry II after her first husband the king of France had died.... at one point she owned more land in Europe than anyone.... she was extremely ambitious traveled a lot and even went on the crusades . I remember the first time I saw Suddenly Last Summer.... again it was at night and I should have been in bed and for me to be a little kid watching that it was disturbing to say the least..... everyone's acting superb . There he was another brilliant actor Montgomery Clift who was a good close friend of Liz Taylor's..... she held his head in her hands the night he was in a bad car accident and he was never quite the same after that and it ruined his career and sorry to say his life because he did become a tragic person over time after that . he was also good in another movie with Liz Taylor and Shelley Winters called A Place in the Sun . Try to watch as many of those old movies as you can..... there is a quality about them and I know what you mean and those movies are less gimmicky .... there just seemed to be more of a gritty quality to the earlier actors.... just more of rolling up your sleeves and getting to the work , doing the job as an actor . Some of my best memories are watching these actors ,vthese old movies with my parents . Many of the most brilliant directors and filmmakers the past 60 years also grew up watching their movies and loved these people and these movies that are the old movies..... the classics .
Not the only queen! She was really great, it's true, but also: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, Anna Magnani, Maggie Smith, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe...
I really do like the movie! it's one of my favourites of Hepburn, ironically she refused to discuss this role as she regretted taking it, I still don't know why...
The director treated Monty Clift very badly. He was recovering from a DUI accident and had reconstructive surgery on his face. His boyish looks were changed. He was bi and the director didn't like that, he had him work a grueling schedule that exhausted him. When the film wrapped production Hepburn asked the director if he was sure her services were no longer required. When he said yes she spat in his face and walked away. She felt bad for Clift and hated the way he was being treated. She waited until her contractual obligations were completed then let the the director have it.
Before I saw this movie I hated Kathrine Hepburn, simply I didn't consider her as a good actress and I didn't explain myself why she won many oscars. From that moment I understand why and this is the scene make me love her so much. She is marvellous!
"Funny...there's no word for it...if you lose a parent you're an orphan. If you lose. your only son...you're nothing…” "Truth is at the bottom of a bottomless well." "And I looked and saw the sand all alive, all alive..." "Nature is not created in the image of men's compassion". Intriguing images folded within dialogue, interspersed with surprises of imaginative settings as the winged skeleton statue in alcove and the camera sweeping the enclosed garden evoking some nightmarish primeval savage imnerson. An attempt to look across a boundary from sanity into something perceived while barely conceivable, with the absent Sebastian the sacrificed guide.
fabulous, fabulous movie--lurid, shocking, over the top, a bit campy, mythic, mesmerizing, gothic--and gay friendly too--in a odd way. of course, all of William's plays are gay covers about his life--they're intense private and yet universal.
Yes, I heard that as well, but years prior, that situation had occurred. According to a biography, I think. I have a hard time believing that she didn't know about homosexuals, mostly because she's been very vocal about her liberal and open upbringing and how her mother talked frankly with her about eveything from sex to politics... but I still file it under "that's what I heard"
@anteaus71 She was a villain in this because she was trying to get Montgomery Clift to OK the lobotomizing of Elizabeth Taylor because of what ET observed concerning Hepburn's son's vacation activities.
...and perhaps more so because Taylor revealed Hepburn's role in enabling those activities and further and perhaps most offensively, she revealed Sebastian's decision to replace Hepburn with Taylor owing to mother H's having become too old to attract those boys that Sebastion "fed" upon!
This movie was good, however others are better. Yes it's after his accident. A better movie with his face looking great is The Big Lift. great movie, great actor.
...I just counted because I have nothing else better to do. That actually was around 23 seconds. Is it just me or does this movie get creepier the more you watch it... O_O;
as an example of the unnecessarily creepy overlays that the director quite stupidly choose to employ, there is that God awful, cheap horror movie music that accompanies the first view of the "tropical" garden ...!
This is my favorite, bad movie. It was meant to be taken seriously, for its time, which only adds to the fun. Tennessee WIlliams and Gore Vidal (the two most noted gays of their day) wrote the screenplay and they must have had a blast doing this. Because Hepburn is a devouring mother, her son is an amorphous homosexual. How 1950's. For his horrible sin, the son is eaten (literally ?) at the end of the film which unites the Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift characters, just another great joke.
Wonderful film that was full of magnificent performances, especially the leads. How could Hepburn have possibly been good friends with Cukor if she were a homophobe?
I'M NOT A KATHERINE FAN ! BUT AS VIOLET SHE WAS SUPERB !! AND THE 2ND VILLIAN OF ALL TIME ! GOING TO HAVE HER BEAUTIFUL YOUNG NIECE BRAIN CUT ON OUT OF SPITE !! #1 THE NURSE FROM ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO NEST !!
Monty Clift was involved in a bad car accident in May of 1956. This movie came out in 1959. Monty (by this time) was heavily drinking and abusing his body with drugs. He had been doing this years before the accident too. It was really starting to take a toll on him.
A film that has aged very badly with a far-fetched scenario and a borrowed direction. One really believes oneself in an era and feelings lost forever. What a contrast with "Plein soleil", made the following year and which, in terms of feelings, plot and the magnificent acting of the two main actors, is of a brilliant timelessness.
' I come down".was she informing the doctor that she was lowering herself down to the level of all that is low and common,including he himself??well we call them being bitchy
the maladie of living what else after all I buried a husband and a son i'm a widow and funny there's no word loose your parents you're an orphan loose your only son and you are... nothing
You don't actually believe Kate Hudson didn't know about homosexuality. You really need to read more about Kate Hudson. Actors especially in those days had an image to show the world. The studios made sure of this. You saw what they wanted you to see. She was a great actress and very intelligent but she had a very"unusual" personal life.
I read somewhere (and escuse my fuzzy details, it was a long time ago) that she didn't even know homosexuals existed and Spencer Tracy (and someone else I don't remember who) had to explain it to her and she didn't quite understand it. But she was so forward-thinking, I doubt she was truly a homophobe...
“You are 23 seconds early.” The secretary must lead a very empty life.
God, she is so good in this. I should buy the dvd.
Kate sure knew how to make an entrance.
Extraordinary and unforgettable story brilliantly realized on screen. One of the best films in classic cinema.
One of my favorite movies. I could watch it once a year.
"...But we're living in a democracy, I reverse the proceed: I don't rise, I come down!"
Kindly bring my dinner into my bedroom. I shall dine there tonight. I'm currently indisposed.
Hepburn is fabulous of course. Over the top in a good way. One of the best entrances in cinema history
Bettered (or seconded depending on personal opinion) only by her own entrance in Lion in Winter.
this movie is insane
I just saw this movie for the first time. It’s also my first time seeing a Katherine Hepburn movie. I never really appreciated her as one of the great actors. The actors of today just do not have the same impact on their roles. This was a true example of great actors playing their parts. Their is something magical in some of these old movies.
Joemnc For more great Hepburn films watch Lion in Winter, Keeper of the Flame, The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, the African Queen and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, to name a few.
Hepburn made many pictures that were far better than this one. “Summertime” is very memorable and I’d recommend it.
There's nothing like these old movies... when I was a kid I would stay up late watching them.... especially on school nights when I should have been sleeping . My parents had these big old thick coffee table books all about Hollywood and the Stars going back to the silent era .... and one of them said Elizabeth Taylor was the last of the great Stars .
I remember going through a phase when I was maybe in the fifth or sixth grade maybe the seventh grade where I wanted to be like Katharine Hepburn .
I really liked her and Keeper of the flame and African Queen... and the one with John Wayne but I can't think of what it was called . I do think she became full of herself as a human being when she got older and maybe she was always like that... it could be because she came from privilege and seemed to have had a relatively easy life as if everything came her way . Always remember my much older sister saying that she was Spencer Tracy's lover for years because Spencer Tracy's wife was an invalid and he wouldn't leave her but he really was in love with Hepburn .
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were great Keeper of the flame and that is a unique movie.... I remember staying in one rainy afternoon to watch it and that was the perfect environment for this movie .
Spencer Tracy was another one I loved as a kid and one of the first male actors I was crushing on when I was really little , him and Humphrey Bogart , and James Cagney .
She was also good in a lion in winter ... based on Eleanor of Aquitaine wife of Henry II after her first husband the king of France had died.... at one point she owned more land in Europe than anyone.... she was extremely ambitious traveled a lot and even went on the crusades .
I remember the first time I saw Suddenly Last Summer.... again it was at night and I should have been in bed and for me to be a little kid watching that it was disturbing to say the least..... everyone's acting superb .
There he was another brilliant actor Montgomery Clift who was a good close friend of Liz Taylor's..... she held his head in her hands the night he was in a bad car accident and he was never quite the same after that and it ruined his career and sorry to say his life because he did become a tragic person over time after that .
he was also good in another movie with Liz Taylor and Shelley Winters called A Place in the Sun .
Try to watch as many of those old movies as you can..... there is a quality about them and I know what you mean and those movies are less gimmicky .... there just seemed to be more of a gritty quality to the earlier actors.... just more of rolling up your sleeves and getting to the work , doing the job as an actor .
Some of my best memories are watching these actors ,vthese old movies with my parents .
Many of the most brilliant directors and filmmakers the past 60 years also grew up watching their movies and loved these people and these movies that are the old movies..... the classics .
"The actors of today just do not have the same impact on their roles." I know, Meryl Streep is absolutely terrible.
Katherine hepburn a 4 time oscar actress winner, and still no other actress who won in oscar can beat her.
awesome moive i watch it last might always gives me chills
Great movie. the deux ex machina, lol. One of the best entrance scenes ever, IMO.
I got it! Deax machina,!
What a fantastic movie! The best, the text by an unforgetable author
One of the great film entrances
Not the only queen! She was really great, it's true, but also: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, Anna Magnani, Maggie Smith, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe...
I really do like the movie! it's one of my favourites of Hepburn, ironically she refused to discuss this role as she regretted taking it, I still don't know why...
She doesn’t even attempt an Southern accent or persona. See Dame Maggie Smith in the role.
The director treated Monty Clift very badly. He was recovering from a DUI accident and had reconstructive surgery on his face. His boyish looks were changed. He was bi and the director didn't like that, he had him work a grueling schedule that exhausted him.
When the film wrapped production Hepburn asked the director if he was sure her services were no longer required. When he said yes she spat in his face and walked away.
She felt bad for Clift and hated the way he was being treated. She waited until her contractual obligations were completed then let the the director have it.
Montgomery Cliff was so ,,I'm speechless
Before I saw this movie I hated Kathrine Hepburn, simply I didn't consider her as a good actress and I didn't explain myself why she won many oscars. From that moment I understand why and this is the scene make me love her so much. She is marvellous!
brilliant dialogue. tennesee williams & gore vidal = genius.
"Funny...there's no word for it...if you lose a parent you're an orphan. If you lose.
your only son...you're nothing…”
"Truth is at the bottom of a bottomless well."
"And I looked and saw the sand all alive, all alive..."
"Nature is not created in the image of men's compassion".
Intriguing images folded within dialogue, interspersed with surprises of imaginative settings as the winged skeleton statue in alcove and the camera sweeping the enclosed garden evoking some nightmarish primeval savage imnerson. An attempt to look across a boundary from sanity into something perceived while barely conceivable, with the absent Sebastian the sacrificed guide.
I am going to find this movie and add it to my collection!!!
..........LIFE IS A THIEF!! I love it
That is how you make an entrance
Noooo! Ms. Foxhill’s thump and bust down the staircase is an entrance.
I must watch this movie... I had no idea...
"Funny...there's no word for it...if you lose a parent you're an orphan. If you lose.
your only son...you're nothing...
Mrs. Venable is the only role that Maggie Smith could not play. Katherine knew how to play crazy without it seeming over the top.
fabulous, fabulous movie--lurid, shocking, over the top, a bit campy, mythic, mesmerizing, gothic--and gay friendly too--in a odd way. of course, all of William's plays are gay covers about his life--they're intense private and yet universal.
Yes, I heard that as well, but years prior, that situation had occurred. According to a biography, I think. I have a hard time believing that she didn't know about homosexuals, mostly because she's been very vocal about her liberal and open upbringing and how her mother talked frankly with her about eveything from sex to politics... but I still file it under "that's what I heard"
Oh my god running up that hill the fine young cannibals ate that human
@anteaus71 You have a point! Couldn't agree more with Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Vivien Leigh! :)
Oh, this ended much too soon.
Excelente pelìcula, la vi en TCM, pero traducida al castellano. Nice voices of these great actors.Excuse me my wierd English.Greetings from Chile : )
Me podrías decir de qué trata?
What I understand is "the maladie of living, what else, after all I've buried a husband and a son"
Hai ragione! Infatti ho messo qui il film in originale proprio per dimostrare come la recitazione vera di Kathrine Hepburn sia fenomenale.
Para mi la mejor escena de esta película es cuando Elizabeth Taylor narra cómo su primo fue devorado por habitantes de la isla donde vacacionaban!
@youlittlecowyou I would love to hear more about this story. Very interesting. Go Katherine!
@anteaus71 She was a villain in this because she was trying to get Montgomery Clift to OK the lobotomizing of Elizabeth Taylor because of what ET observed concerning Hepburn's son's vacation activities.
...and perhaps more so because Taylor revealed Hepburn's role in enabling those activities and further and perhaps most offensively, she revealed Sebastian's decision to replace Hepburn with Taylor owing to mother H's having become too old to attract those boys that Sebastion "fed" upon!
She is always good!
This movie was good, however others are better.
Yes it's after his accident.
A better movie with his face looking great is
The Big Lift. great movie, great actor.
@anteaus71 Thanks. I couldn't understand the buried part. I thought she said bedded.
...I just counted because I have nothing else better to do. That actually was around 23 seconds. Is it just me or does this movie get creepier the more you watch it... O_O;
as an example of the unnecessarily creepy overlays that the director quite stupidly choose to employ, there is that God awful, cheap horror movie music that accompanies the first view of the "tropical" garden ...!
This is my favorite, bad movie. It was meant to be taken seriously, for its time, which only adds to the fun. Tennessee WIlliams and Gore Vidal (the two most noted gays of their day) wrote the screenplay and they must have had a blast doing this. Because Hepburn is a devouring mother, her son is an amorphous homosexual. How 1950's. For his horrible sin, the son is eaten (literally ?) at the end of the film which unites the Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift characters, just another great joke.
....of the 1950's?! Don't be so smug baby, the beat goes on...
This film is adapted from the play written by Tennessee Williams. Gore Vidal adapted the screenplay in consultation with Williams.
Is there a clip with Elizabeth and Hepburn together?
@anteaus71 I do to! She just said it rather fast and I couldn't understand it! :P
Wonderful film that was full of magnificent performances, especially the leads.
How could Hepburn have possibly been good friends with Cukor if she were a homophobe?
@ ThorneAstor: Where are you from? I'm from Italy...
@ThorneAstor And you don't understand "american"? :-)
@anteaus71 I know. I was having fun too.
I'M NOT A KATHERINE FAN ! BUT AS VIOLET SHE WAS SUPERB !! AND THE 2ND VILLIAN OF ALL TIME ! GOING TO HAVE HER BEAUTIFUL YOUNG NIECE BRAIN CUT ON OUT OF SPITE !! #1 THE NURSE FROM ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO NEST !!
@youlittlecowyou She was indeed NOT homophobic.
Ah Katie
Why montgomery clift looks slightly different in this picture? I hardly recognize him..
Monty Clift was involved in a bad car accident in May of 1956. This movie came out in 1959. Monty (by this time) was heavily drinking and abusing his body with drugs. He had been doing this years before the accident too. It was really starting to take a toll on him.
Of course she is wearing white, colour of mourning, deuil blanc, this is The South is it not?
Could you tell me what she says between 2:19 and 2:23?
" ...after all, I buried a husband and a son..."
his voice and face look awfully different. that has to do with the accident.
@roncerod Bergam what?
A film that has aged very badly with a far-fetched scenario and a borrowed direction. One really believes oneself in an era and feelings lost forever. What a contrast with "Plein soleil", made the following year and which, in terms of feelings, plot and the magnificent acting of the two main actors, is of a brilliant timelessness.
A villian? What do you mean?
@ThorneAstor I'm jocking my dear...
I want to insert the final monologue but I can't uploaded...I wil try again and again!
Sorry I mean Kate Hepburn.
' I come down".was she informing the doctor that she was lowering herself down to the level of all that is low and common,including he himself??well we call them being bitchy
the maladie of living
what else
after all
I buried
a husband and a son
i'm a widow and
funny
there's no word
loose your parents you're an orphan
loose your only son and you are...
nothing
@anteaus71 America.
Ahahahahha! Che iatro.
@anteaus71 Bergman!
You don't actually believe Kate Hudson didn't know about homosexuality. You really need to read more about Kate Hudson. Actors especially in those days had an image to show the world. The studios made sure of this. You saw what they wanted you to see. She was a great actress and very intelligent but she had a very"unusual" personal life.
Bonnie Glenn Kate HEPBURN.
il doppiaggio in italiano di questo film fa veramente cagare......vera e propria censura! da vedere solo se in lingua originale...
what the hell are you smoking?
I read somewhere (and escuse my fuzzy details, it was a long time ago) that she didn't even know homosexuals existed and Spencer Tracy (and someone else I don't remember who) had to explain it to her and she didn't quite understand it.
But she was so forward-thinking, I doubt she was truly a homophobe...