Chichester Cinema at New Park
SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
The 18th Chichester International Film festival
Natasha Richardson Tribute
This adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer contrasts sharply with the previous 1959 Hollywood version. Shorn of the movie's operatic screenplay and the star power of Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, PBS simply offers us the original one-act play, faithfully rendered.
In 1937 New Orleans, millionaire matriarch Violet Venable (Maggie Smith) invites a psychiatrist (Rob Lowe) into her mansion. Violet's son Sebastian died in Spain the previous year under very questionable circumstances. Now she is anxious to have the psychiatrist lobotomize her institutionalized niece Catherine (Natasha Richardson), who witnessed Sebastian's demise.
Violet insists that this radical procedure would be in the best interests of the girl; but the psychiatrist suspects that the old woman merely wants to ensure Catherine's silence concerning "l'affaire Sebastian". Also starring Richard E. Grant.
Large screen DVD presentation in the STUDIO (limited seating capacity)
UK · 1993 · Richard Eyre · 87min
