Suddenly Last Summer (1959)

This is perhaps one of Elizabeth Taylor's best films (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a close second). This is probably one of the screen's first depiction of a gay bashing. Sebastian Venable, Taylor's character's cousin, is obviously gay although that is never actually stated in the film. It is, however, clearly implied. Violet Venable, played by a delightful Katherine Hepburn plays his mother and the implications border on an incestous relationship. She descreetly helps him pick up tricks in fashionable New Orleans and takes long cruises with him where "cruising" really takes place! Not wanting the more tawdry facts of the family tree exposed, she tries to have a distraught Taylor lobatomized hoping the secrets of the family will never come to light. Montgomery Cliff plays a sensitve neurosurgeon who senses that there's more to Taylor's breakdown than meets the eye and hesistates to operate until he is sure she is an ideal candidate. I have seen this film countless times and enjoy it each and every time. It harkens back to the good old days of Hollywood film making when the audience had to be intelligent and read between the lines (i.e. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Brick's implied homosexual relationship with Skipper!).
 
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