FAQ

In July of 1936, while vacationing in Spain with his cousin Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor), young poet Sebastian Venable suddenly died of a heart attack and Catherine was left in a state of amnesia and "dementia praecox". Now, a year later, Sebastian's mother, wealthy widow Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn), who is about to make a $1 million donation to Lion's View State Asylum, wants Catherine lobotomized by Lion's View psychosurgeon Dr John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) in order to cover up the truth about what happened to her beloved son. Cukrowicz, who is investigating a radical, nonsurgical treatment for hopeless cases of lunacy, is not eager to lobotomize Catherine just yet, despite Violet's generous donation to the hospital... and the strings attached to it.

No. The movie is based on a 1958 one-act play, also titled "Suddenly, Last Summer" by American playwright Thomas "Tennessee" Williams III (1911-1983). The play was adapted for the screen by Williams and American writer Gore Vidal.

Lobotomy is an irreversible surgical procedure in which the neural connections at the front of the brain are severed. It originally involved cutting holes through the cranium on both sides of the forehead and then inserting a knife into the holes and sliding it around to cut the connections, but later the connections were destroyed by electrically heated probes. The procedure was introduced in 1888 but didn't become commonly employed until the 1940s and 1950s. Lobotomy was primarily used in cases of mania, dementia, and insanity because it rendered the patient passive and controllable.

"The Encantadas" is another name for the Galápagos Islands, a group of volcanic islands part of Ecuador which are located on the equator in the Pacific Ocean about 550 miles (900 kilometers) west of the mainland.

"Isn't that what everyone wants?", Catherine replies when Dr Cukrowicz asks her that question. She believes that, were she no longer there, everyone would get what they wanted her mother and brother would get the $100,000 bequeathed to them by Sebastian, Dr Cukrowicz would get his building, and Violet wouldn't have to worry about Catherine revealing the truth about Sebastian's death. A second, unspoken reason is that Catherine couldn't bear the thought of being lobotomized and spending the rest of her life in "the Drum" with the other insane patients.

Dr Cukrowicz gives Catherine a shot that they refer to as "truth serum", then takes her into Sebastian's garden where her family, Aunt Vi, and Dr Hockstader (Albert Dekker) are waiting. Cukrowicz asks Catherine to talk about what happened in Cabeza de Lobo last summer. She begins to relate how Sebastian would take her to the beach and force her to wear a very revealing swimsuit so that she attracted a lot of male attention, "procuring for him" as Catherine calls it. Sebastian would then hand out money to the young, greedy boys in exchange for sexual favors. When they stopped going to the beach, however, the boys followed them to a restaurant, shouting for bread. One day when Sebastian was feeling ill and popping pills for his heart condition, the boys show up at the restaurant playing on tincan percussion instruments they had made, the freaky noise making his heart feel worse. Sebastian and Catherine try to leave the restaurant, but the boys chase Sebastian through the streets until they corner him. Leaving Catherine to watch, they tear off his clothes and, using their "instruments", they cut at his flesh and "devour" him, as Catherine puts it. In telling her story, Catherine collapses on the garden floor crying, while Violet leads Cukrowicz into the house, addressing him as Sebastian and babbling about what a lovely summer they had. In the final scene, Cukrowicz returns to the garden and calls out Catherine's name, "She's here, doctor." Catherine replies, "Miss Catherine is here." They take each others hand and walk into the house together.