The Mankiewicz Dispatches: NYFF52. Final Dispatch. SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER.

Synopsis: A neurosurgeon employs psychiatric solutions to a young woman's erratic, neurotic behavior. Once he discovers it's Elizabeth Taylor he's treating, he blames the whole mishegoss on matriarch Katherine Hepburn. Once she's banished, the two kids live happily ever after. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Tennessee Williams' tale of a reluctant lobotomist? Helmed by psychiatry aficionado Joseph L. Mankiewicz? It's a no-brainer!

Okay, I got that awful joke outta the way. Let's get to brass tacks.

It's unfortunate that Mank cast the great Monty Clift to basically essay a pair of folded arms for the bulk of this film's running time, as he was potentially the most interesting character in this typically Tennessean tale of trauma, repression and neurotic behavior. Kate Hepburn is at her most Katherine in this flick, basically a Blanche du Bois minus the destitution. Here, however, in order to maintain her delusions, she needs not the kindness of strangers, but someone's complete erasure, or at least of their memory. Enter the spectacularly-lunged Elizabeth Taylor as the niece who threatens to expose her aunt's dark secret, a persona that never failed to dial the histrionics up to eleven when the proceedings required it. That's not merely no knock, but no small boast. Whatever your opinion of the actress she never failed to announce her presence when asked to do so. Richard Burton will back me up on that.

Clift serves not merely as custodian to both womens' best intentions but also referee, pitting the old money and culture Hep against the upstart La Liz, she of the cultural change, witness to propriety's upheaval if only in terms of sexual repression's transformation to Freudian forthrightness. No better one-piece bikini could've brought this across to movie audiences. As it were.

Monty observes the proceedings without ever truly becoming instrumental player, and perhaps, requisite of his role in the drama, that's entirely appropriate. But the narative begs him to become so much more involved, to command some passion and display it. Some might think this uncharacteristic of so coiled (or recoiled) a presence as Clift. I direct those naysayers to a viewing of Zinnemann's FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, and his reluctant involvement with Donna Reed's paid companion. No better postwar Aw Shucks was delivered by a pre-war character. Sez me.

The proceedings are never boring, if also never challenging, much less surprising. It's a mostly staid piece, constantly threatening to burst its conventional seams, even as it trods territory deemed uncomfortable, or even unsafe, in its time. There are some interesting avenues not fully explored, some hinted at only because 1959 would allow no futher clarification, and the denouement arrives with pat but unsatisfying passage; the evil stepmother resigned to her darkest corners, the princess removed from the latter's evil spell. Except Williams' best narratives debunked fairy tales, along with their pre-Freudian symbolism, they never enforced them. SUMMER seems and remains a paper tiger, melodrama writ with a three-story tall M perhaps, but ultimately toothless. As daring to priss sensibilities in 1959 as AMERICAN BEAUTY was in 1999. What remains of interest are the peformances, in this descending order: Taylor, Hepburn, Clift. Also of interest, Mank's handling, if mostly pedestrian, of the material. There are fascinating flourishes. In particular I was reminded on this unspooling of the correlation between some of the manic close-ups in this film's isolation wards and those similar in his final effort, 1972's SLEUTH, though in the latter film the camera made the same observance of mechanized mannequins. Unintended comparison? Methinks not.

I do not want this final Mank Dispatch to pass without emotion positive, however. I'd like to think I made this particular film my last press ticket request because I opened myself to a re-evaulation of its merits, and not to further cement my meh feelings toward it. This is perhaps my 5th or 10th viewing of the film, my first elucidated by the big screen, and I very much wanted to have my mind changed about it, to see some heretofore unwitnessed merit that would tilt me to its plus column, if only as gratitude at the closing of this spectacular valentine to an under-observed master craftsman. It does no more than survive my prior evaluation, based on its individual qualities, but it does now, in context, support re-evaluation of the man and his career output. For this, I'm eternally grateful to the folks who enabled my seat-filling exploits lo these last 2 weeks, and my closing essay will be shortly forthcoming. Suddenly, I have a new take on Joseph L. Mankiewicz. A Cinegeek can ask no more from his chosen devotion.

Although my coverage is completed, the Mankiewicz series has a few screenings to go: A LETTER TO THREE WIVES encores this Sunday, and the Rex Harrison vehichles ESCAPE and THE HONEY POT unspool this coming Tuesday. My closing evaluation of the series, indeed of Mank's CV, will be posted shortly. Until then I want to express my gratitude to the folks at the Film Society, the cats who made this journey possible, and to all of you who've kept mellow pace with me throughout this series. I heart you all incredibly. Thanks.

- Joe Walsh