Gideon58's Reviews

Love, Simon
A richly imaginative screenplay, sensitive direction, and some terrific performances make the 2018 comedy Love, Simon, a coming of age story with a twist, one of the most entertaining romantic comedies I've seen in a long time. I LOVED this movie.

Simon is a 17 year old high schooler who seemingly has it all...a wonderful family, great friends, he's even in the school's upcoming production of Cabaret, but Simon has been keeping a secret for almost four years that is about to complicate his life beyond recognition...the fact that he's gay and hasn't told anyone.

Simon discovers a letter online from a fellow student who admits that he's gay but won't sign his real name, calling himself "Blue." Simon responds to him using the name "Jacques" and before you know it, the two are corresponding regularly and before he even realizes it, Simon has fallen in love with "Blue", but pursuing this relationship and trying to keep his secret at the same time have several unforeseen ramifications for Simon.

Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker must be applauded for their intelligent and imaginative approach to this subject which covers a lot of territory and does it pretty effectively. The story not only shows us the pain Simon is going through, but the confusion of his family who suspect something is wrong but can't put their finger on it, not to mention what he puts BFF Leah through who is starting to fall in love with him and how he throws another friend under the bus when someone threatens to out him. The story also throws us just enough red herrings that we spend the majority of the film thinking we know who "Blue"is but learning we're wrong...more than once.

Director Greg Berlanti manages to mine all the laughs and heartache out of this different teen angst comedy and effectively blends fantasy elements into the story that we really don't see coming. The whole bit about straight kids having to come out to their parents the way gay kids do was hilarious. Nick Robinson lights up the screen as Simon and I also loved Alexandra Shipp as Abby, Tony Hale of Veep as the school principal, and Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner as Simon's parents. A quirky and unique romantic comedy that really makes you wait for that happy ending, but the journey is so real and so fun.

Teacher's Pet
Clark Gable, Doris Day, and Gig Young make a fun romantic triangle in a 1958 comedy called Teacher's Pet, that takes a little too long to get where it's going, but the stars make the journey a smooth one.

Gable plays Jim Gannon, a veteran newspaper editor who receives an invitation to speak at a night journalism class taught by one Erica Stone (Day). Gannon, a strict believer in experience over education, turns down Erica's invitation in the form of a very rude letter. Gannon's boss gets word of the letter and insists that Gannon go to her class and apologize and once he gets a look at Erica, he decides to pretend to be a student in the class. Throw in a psychologist and author named Hugo Pine (Young) who is dating Erica and you have the cinematic staple known as the romantic triangle.

The Oscar-nominated screenplay by Fay and Michael Kanin not only sets up a classic triangle but provides an effectIve debate regarding experience over education where journalism is concerned and I liked that the debate concludes that both are equally important. There's a subplot involving a young boy (Nick Adams) who quit school to come work for Gannon and how his mother wants him to quit the paper and come back to school.

I was also impressed with the fact that Jim and Erica both learn something during the course of the story and are not the same people they are at the beginning of the movie. And the real irony of it is that a lot of what they learn and concede comes from Hugo Pine, who actually sees what's happening between Jim and Erica before they do and aids them in seeing it too instead of squaring off against Jim.

Gable offers a razor sharp performance as Gannon, a performance where some of his funniest moments have nothing to do with dialogue. The first meeting between Gannon and Hugo Pine is hysterical, the way he just stares bullets at the guy. I also loved the fact that he thought he could tame Erica with a kiss, which, to his surprise, he couldn't do. Day is delightful as the no-nonsense Erica and Gig Young actually received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his slick turn as Hugo Pine. Mamie Van Doren and Charles Lane shine in supporting roles and if you don't blink, you'll catch the future Marian Cunningham from Happy Days, Marian Ross and the future Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched, Sandra Gould, in tiny roles. The film also opens with a terrific title song, that was a monster hit for Doris. It's a little on the long side, but it's a lot of fun.

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
1972's The Heartbreak Kid is a Neil Simon comedy written directly for the screen that is unlike anything Simon has written before. This is the kind of comedy that would normally be associated with Woody Allen and I have to keep reminding myself that Simon wrote it.

This is the story of a young man named Lenny Cantro who gets married to a clingy and needy young woman named Lila Kolodny. Lenny and Lila drive to Miami Beach for their honeymoon and one day while Lila is still in the hotel room, Lenny meets a WASP-ish blonde from Minnesota named Kelly (Cybill Shepherd) and instantly falls in love with her. Lenny is so smitten with Kelly that he decides to end his marriage and follow Kelly back to Minnesota, despite strong objections from Kelly's wealthy father.

Neil Simon isn't a writer associated with black comedy and this is definitely his darkest work, centered around a character who brings about strong mixed emotions. We do get hints early on that Lenny feels he made a mistake marrying Lila though he doesn't say anything. There's a scene in a restaurant where Lenny is clearly repulsed by Lila's sloppy consumption of an egg salad sandwich and he seems completely aggravated by her need for constant reassurance during sex. On the other hand, as instantly attracted as Lenny is to Kelly, she really gives no indication of feeling the same way and we wonder why Lenny is so willing to just throw away his brand new marriage for a woman who gives him no reason to, not to mention her father who threatens Lenny physically if he doesn't stay away from his daughter.

My usual experience with Neil Simon is a lot of rapid-paced punch lines producing consistent laughter and though there are funny moments here and there, i didn't find too much funny here because I couldn't get past how Lenny was going to end up destroying Lila for this other woman who just seemed to be leading him on. I guess this would be the Neil Simon comedy for people who hate Neil Simon.

Elaine May's direction is straight-faced and based in realism and the sometimes comic situations that can happen. I was also troubled by an ending that the story promised but I'm not sure that Lenny really deserved. Charles Grodin became an official movie star with his charming performance as Lenny and May's real life-daughter, Jeanne Berlin, received an Oscar nomination for her pathetic Lila, as did Eddie Albert for his venomous performance as Kelly's father. Definitely atypical Neil Simon, but Grodin and Berlin do make it worth a look. The film was remade in 2007 with Ben Stiller in the lead.

The House
The 2017 comedy The House is silly and pointless and defies credibility at every turn but you know what? I was pretty much doubled over with laughter for the majority of the running time.

Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler star as Scott and Kate, a couple who find out that the college scholarship they were counting on for their daughter has fallen through. With the aid of their nutty soon-to-be-divorced neighbor, Frank (Jason Mantzoukas), they decide to raise the money to send their daughter to college by running a casino out of Frank's house.

Director and co-screenwriter Andrew Jay Cohen had a pretty funny idea here. but this is definitely another one of those movies that you can enjoy as long as you understand from jump that what happens here has no basis in realism. This house could not possibly hold more than 40 or 50 people at a time and we are supposed to believe that these people were making millions? And why would people keep coming back if they were all losing? Not to mention the legal issues involved....running any kind of a business out of a private home requires all kinds of permits and fees and there's no way these people would have gotten away with this IRL as long as they do in this movie.

So if you're willing to let all that slide and go with it, there is some funny stuff here though I wish Cohen had put a little more confidence in his lead actors. Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler have proven ability to command a movie screen but they are basically just straight men here playing second banana to what is basically a TV sitcom supporting cast. This also might have had something to do with the fact that I heard Ferrell and Poehler did not get along at all during the filming of this movie and there is no denying a palpable tension between them.

Nick Kroll has some funny moments as Bob the city councilman as does Rob Huebel as a very confused cop. There is also a very funny surprise cameo by Jeremy Renner, but if the truth be told, Mantzoukas walks off with this movie with his maniacal Frank, a character who redefines the phrase "hot mess." The movie is a little on the manic side and there are a couple of unnecessary endings, but I would be lying if said this movie didn't make me laugh.

The Messenger (2009)
The Messenger is a dark and at times gut-wrenching drama from 2009 that features a fascinating premise and some superb performances but suffers from a screenplay that wanders off in too many directions during the final third of the story.

Will Montgomery is a Staff Sergeant in the US Army who has been assigned to what is probably the most difficult work in the army. Will has been assigned to the notification unit. These are the soldiers who travel to the homes of men who have been killed in the line of duty to inform their next of kin. Under the tutelage of Captain Tony Stone, Will learns the ins and outs of this extremely difficult task of the military and finds sticking to the regulations is not as easy as hoped. We also watch Will wander into some prickly ethical waters when he finds himself attracted to a young widow with a young son who he had to inform.

This movie starts off quite brilliantly focusing on something that we have seen in other movies but it is usually given short shrift in most stories surrounding the military. Director and co-writer Oren Moverman really scores in the opening scenes where Will is learning about his new duties. I was genuinely moved when his commanding officer referred to the duty of notification as "sacred." It was also fascinating watching the difference between Will's handling of the notifications as opposed to Stone, who appeared as if he had been doing this for a hundred years and was immune.

The individual scenes of notification were absolutely brilliant because they weren't just widows....each notification was a completely different story with different next of kin getting the notification and needless to say their reactions to the news were completely different as well. These scenes alone were worth the price of admission. Sadly, the film begins to go off the rails as Will's obsession with this widow takes center stage and just wrong as well as he and Stone's adventures into alcoholism, sexual debauchery and their crashing of Will's ex-girlfriend's engagement party, a scene that reminded me of the "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy" scene in Scarface. Even when the film goes off course, what kept me watching was the ever-evolving relationship between Will and Tony which was exhausting to keep up with, but unerringly realistic. Another thing this story nails is what this war has done to these two guys and how the damage is irreparable.

Ben Foster delivers another ticking time bomb performance as Will that is never safe or predictable and Woody Harrelson's powerhouse turn as Tony Stone earned him his second Oscar nomination. Samantha Morton also hits all the right notes as Will's widowed obsession. Also loved Steve Buscemi as the father who learns of the death of his 20-year old son. The story tends to meander a little too much in the final third, but it is never boring and I never took my eyes off the screen or checked my watch.

Let's Make Love
Marilyn Monroe at her most delectable, Yves Montand at his most charming and some really terrific musical numbers make a 1960 musical comedy called Let's Make Love worth a look.

Montand plays a billionaire playboy named Jean Marc Clement who learns that he is about to be satirized in a new off-Broadway show. He plans to put a stop to the show until he gets a gander at the star of the show, the voluptuous Amanda Dell (guess who). Clement is thrown a curve when the director thinks he is there to audition for the show and casts the billionaire to play himself, which he decides is the perfect opportunity to romance sexy Amanda.

Clement pretends to be a struggling actor named Alexander Dumas and starts to make headway with Amanda, who has also caught the eye of the lead singer in the show Tony Danton (Frankie Vaughn). Clement decides to take control of the situation by secretly purchasing 51% ownership in the show and trying to learn how to sing, dance, and act.

Norman Krasna's screenplay is a little complex and asks the view to accept something about the basic premise that I had a problem with: Jean Marc Clement is supposed to be an international businessman and playboy, world famous, womanizing, constantly in the headlines, but NO one involved in this show realizes that this is the real Clement and not an actor? It made for some very funny situations throughout the film, but it gnawed at me throughout the running time that neither Marilyn's Amanda nor anyone involved in the show ever suspects that this is the real Clement playing himself.

I was also bothered by Clement thinking that not only could he buy Amanda's affections by owning the show, but that he could actually buy talent. At one point in the story, Clement actually hires Bing Crosby to teach him how to sing, Gene Kelly to teach him how to dance, and Milton Berle to teach him how to be funny.

Fortunately, director George Cukor, who would later be motivated to fire Marilyn from her final film project, Something's Got To Give, brings such care to the presentation of these leading characters that we're able to overlook a lot of the problems with the film. This film is another example of how special Marilyn Monroe could be onscreen in the hands of a talented director.

The film also features some great songs by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Husen, including "Specialization", "Incurably Romantic", "Sing Me the Song that Sells", and the title tune. The film also opens with Marilyn's steamy version of Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". The musical numbers are imaginatively staged by Jack Cole.

Marilyn has rarely been so charismatic onscreen, playing a character who isn't as dumb as she appears. You would never know what a mess Marilyn's personal life was at the time from her work here, none of her off-screen misery shows onscreen and I absolutely loved Montand whose charm and sex appeal keeps Clement likable even though sometimes he shouldn't be. He does a pantomime of a man waiting for a subway that actually sparked visions of Marcel Marceau. Tony Randall and Wilfred Hyde White are wasted in supporting roles, but this is the Marilyn/Montand show and they definitely make it worth watching.

Out of the Furnace
Out of the Furnace is a pretentious and sluggish 2013 film that starts off as a somewhat interesting character study but eventually deteriorates into a standard crime drama that takes way too long to get where it's going.

Russell and Rodney Blaze are a pair of angry brothers trying to start their lives over in the small milling town they grew up in. Russell is returning to town after doing some serious jail time and Rodney is returning after four tours in Iraq. Russell gets his job back at the mill and is distressed to learn that his girlfriend has moved on with the sheriff. Rodney owes a local bar owner a lot of money and is trying to work off the debt participating in bare-knuckle fist fights.

Rodney sets his eye on a big prize courtesy of a career criminal named Harlan DeGroat who specializes in drugs and gambling. Not long after hooking up with DeGroat, Rodney disappears and when the local police don't seem to be getting anywhere trying to find out what happened, Russell decides to take the law into his hands.

Director and co-screenwriter Scott Cooper shows some real promise as a filmmaker here but he definitely needs to work on his writing. The story starts out interestingly enough as we watch these brothers trying to resume their normal life, including their love for each other, strengthened by the passing of their father, but once Rodney disappears, the story becomes another one of those standard cat and mouse games between Russell and DeGroat where the bad guy always seems to stay two steps ahead of the good guy and when that inevitable showdown does occur, it's a big let down that we had to wait WAY too long for. I also found the introduction to the character of DeGroat in a drive-in movie theater very strange

Cooper's direction is stronger than his screenplay. He shows some real style with a movie camera creating some stark and original cinematic pictures that will be hard to erase from my mind. There's this fantastic shot of Russell standing at the door of DeGroat's house waiting to go in while way in the background you see something coming over the hilltop and you're startled to see it's about two dozen cops with rifles. It reminded me of the tanks coming over the hill to attack Judas in 1973's Jesus Christ Superstar. I also loved the shot of Russell with his head down standing on the small bridge after he learns it's over with his girlfriend. It should also be mentioned that Rodney's fight scenes are expertly photographed and edited.

Cooper also got himself a pretty solid cast to serve his vision. Oscar winner Christian Bale is fine as Russell and Woody Harrelson sizzles as DeGroat, but if the truth be told, Oscar winner Casey Affleck walks off with this movie with his explosive Rodney and honestly, remaining invested in this story became a lot more difficult after Rodney's screentime ended. Cooper does show promise here, but the parts are definitely better than the whole.

Barton Fink
Joel and Ethan Cohen take us on one of their most bizarre cinematic journeys with a 1991 sleeper called Barton Fink.

John Turturro plays the title character, an intellectual New York playwright in 1941 who is offered a contract to write movies in Hollywood. A curious but reluctant Fink arrives in Los Angeles and is less than impressed when his first assignment is to write a wrestling picture that is going to star Wallace Beery. Barton moves into a creepy old Hollywood Hotel where he develops a friendship with his neighbor, Charlie (John Goodman), an insurance salesman. Barton is also suffering from a severe case of writer's block.

Things get even more complicated for Barton when he meets one of his writing idols (John Mahoney) who turns out not to be the man Barton thought he was, evidenced in his abusive treatment of his unhappy wife (Judy Davis). Eventually, a series of events do nothing but solidify Fink's writer's block.

The Cohen Brothers have constructed what appears to be a cinematic lambasting of Hollywood and possibly how they were treated upon their first arrival. This cinematic concept of Hollywood is alternately riveting and disturbing. The pervading theme here that New York is the center of the universe and that Hollywood is a living hell is driven home with a sledgehammer. Barton has encounters with Hollywood movers and shakers throughout the film where the people Barton meets, particularly a maniacal studio head played by Michael Lerner, who received an Oscar nomination, appear almost insane, but their behavior in this movie is on par with most LA big shots so you have to wonder exactly how jaundiced the Cohen Brothers' eye is here.

There's a lot that happens here that defies logic, but it's the Cohen Brothers so I forgive. The film is absolutely breathtaking to look at...cinematography, set design, and the Oscar nominated costumes are incredible. That hotel where Barton lives definitely evokes memories of the Overlook in The Shining. Turturro commands the screen in the title role and gets solid support from Lerner, Goodman, and Davis. Fans of the Cohens, belly up.

OMG! I had the same exact thought when I seen Barton Fink, it screams The Shining. I agree with you that the cinematography & sets are stunning. Check out my review, I think you'll see we agreed on most points.

I read your review and , again, it was my inspiration for watching it.

The Star
A powerhouse, Oscar-nominated performance by the legendary Bette Davis is reason enough to check out a 1952 melodrama called The Star.

Davis plays Margaret Elliott, an Oscar winning actress who is having trouble dealing with the fact that her acting career might be over. Margaret sees some of her most prized possessions auctioned off and is heartbroken when she learns her teenage daughter (Natalie Wood) got in a fight at school because a schoolmate said her mother is washed up.
A distraught Margaret gets drunk one night and ends up in jail for drunk driving. She is bailed out by Jim Johanssen (Sterling Hayden) a former actor who got his first break as an actor from Margaret but gave up acting and now works as a boat builder and mechanic.

Needless to say, this is the kind of role that Davis could play in her sleep and it is her performance that allows the viewer to overlook the often corny and contrived elements of Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert's screenplay. The opening scene finds Margaret walking down the street and walking right pass the auction where her belongings are being sold off. Seriously? Her shock and embarrassment of being arrested and the fact that her arrest was front page news...the woman can't get a part in a movie to save her life, but her arrest is on the front page of the paper? And of course, we get the obligatory scene where Margaret tries getting a job in a department store and is immediately recognized by a couple of customers. Davis shines in this scene, which motivates her to resume her career and we know right away that nothing good can come of whatever she plans to do next.

I did love the relationships Margaret has with her daughter and with Jim, easily the strongest part of the story. I loved that the first things Margaret did when she got of jail was call her daughter and try to convince her it was all a lie. Davis is quite moving in this scene. I also loved the no-nonsense Jim who refused to fuel Margaret's giant ego by telling her everything she wanted to hear, but couldn't deny he still had feelings for her.

Davis' tour-de-force performance here earned her a 9th Oscar nomination, though the performance does pale next to her previous Oscar-nominated performance in All About Eve. Sterling Hayden underplays beautifully as Jim, knowing who the star of the movie is but never fading into the woodwork either. Stuart Heisler's direction is sensitive to the star and I loved Victor Young's music. It's no Sunset Boulevard, but Davis definitely makes it worth a look.

I love The Star, a very underrated film. Bette Davis is excellent in it, and so's Sterling Hayden. I'm a big fan of Hayden.

Rampart
A raw and uncompromising story and an unhinged performance from the leading man are the primary ingredients that make 2011's The Rampart work.

From the director and co-screenwriter of The Messenger comes the story of Officer David Douglas Brown, a hardened, uniformed LAPD officer of 24 years who has a reputation of bending the rules to the point of breaking, not to mention the drinking and womanizing we expect from such a character. He has two daughters from two different women and they all live together in the same house. Not long after scaring the bejesus out of his latest trainee, Officer Brown finds himself at the center of a Rodney King-type incident that happens to get caught on video and might completely destroy his career.

What starts out as a rehash of films like Bad Lieutenant and Training Day goes to another level as we see the officer's entire career get peeled away layer by layer taking Officer Brown to a level of desperation we never see with Harvey Keitel's character and before he gets taken out the way Denzel's character does. Officer Brown is intelligent and well-spoken and, most importantly, knows the law and is aware of exactly what his superiors in the Rampart Division of the LAPD can do to him. We know there is more than meets the eye with this character when the first time in the film he is greeted by his older daughter (future Oscar winner Brie Larson), she refers to him as "Date Rape", a greeting from a daughter to a father that definitely made the imagination run wild. I was impressed when the story behind the moniker comes out and it was nothing like I imagined.

The whole incident that spurs the deconstruction of Officer Brown's career is just as aggravating because the video that the world saw did not show the entire incident, which was a very interesting storytelling choice because it allows the audience to weigh in on exactly what happened and whether or not Brown was justified in what he did and an argument for both sides is credible.

Director and co-screenwriter Oren Moverman also shows a real stylish hand with a movie camera...there is a lot of inventive camerawork here, giving this film an almost voyeuristic quality. There are a lot of uncomfortable closeups of the central character where the camera almost seems to be looking inside the character's head to show us what he's thinking.

Moverman's impressive cast delivers the goods, headed by Woody Harrelson, an actor who Moverman really seems to understand. He gets another performance from Harrelson that is vivid and explosive. There are some impressive star turns along the way from Sigourney Weaver, Ned Beatty, Robin Wright, Cynthia Nixon, Anne Heche, Ben Foster, and Ice Cube. Bouquets as well to Jay Rabinowitz' film editing, Jarvier Bennesar's sound editing, and Dickon Hinchcliffe's music. A rough cinematic ride that's worth it if you have the stomach for it.

I agree with your review, although you liked the film more than I did. The acting was first rate, but the stories beneath the main action were not believable, and it was too scattered. I couldn't connect with it at all. My wife, however, enjoyed it.

~Doc

Guess Who
The late Bernie Mac makes the 2005 comedy Guess Who seem a lot better than it really is.

This comedy is actually a re-thinking of the classic 1967 melodrama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? which found a white girl bringing her black fiancee home to meet her parents. In this version, a black girl is bringing her white fiancee home to meet her parents. Now in the '67 film, the black fiancee was a doctor, here the white fiancee has just quit his job and hasn't told anyone about it, including his fiancee. This is all occurring while the girls' parents are planning to renew their vows after 25 years of marriage.

I was a big fan of the 1967 film despite its sketchy and convenient approach to the subject matter. In that film, they made the black fiancee an important doctor who had just lost his wife and child in an accident. The girls parents in that film are also given limited time to decide how they feel because the couple is planning to leave the country that night. I had always wondered what the film would have been like if the girl had brought home a drug dealer or a pimp instead of an important doctor with a million degrees and without the time restraint and both those issues are addressed in this film version.

It just seemed more realistic story that the fiancee in question was unemployed just as he was freaking out about meeting his future in-laws, though I would have liked to have seen him be honest with his fiancee and watch them battle dad together. In the '67 film, Sidney Poitier told Tracy and Hepburn he would not marry Katharine Houghton without their blessing. I liked the fact that this was not an issue with the fiancee here, though we do see, primarily through director Kevin Rodney Sullivan's camerawork, the fiancee winning over his future mother-in-law.

William Rose, who won an Oscar for the screenplay for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? is actually given screen credit here, but I don't know why, there isn't a word of dialogue from his screenplay here. I have to admit that even though it did make me laugh, the scene at the dinner table where the fiancee starts telling black jokes teetered on the edge of tastelessness.

Despite my issues with the story, the performances are surprisingly solid. Bernie Mac eeked every bit of comic gold out of his role and Ashton Kutcher was shockingly restrained as the fiancee. Zoe Saldana was lovely as the daughter/fiancee caught in the middle and I loved Judith Scott as the mom. The film is beautiful to look at and I liked John Murphy's music. Despite its predictability, the late Bernie Mac makes it worth a look.

This movie was a lot funnier on my first watch than the second one. It gets incredibly cheesy in the last 30-so minutes, with the comedy replaced by melodramatic nonsense. It's still decent though.

That's an interesting movie premise that I've not seen before with this type of take on it. So I'm going to add that to my watch list. I'm often not a fan of comedy, but I do like a drama-comedy, so who knows I might like it.

Yeah, I was surprised that you even read this review because I've noticed that you don't seem to watch a lot of comedies. I have to vary what I watch...if I watch a heavy drama, I have to follow it with a comedy or a musical.

I always look at your reviews when I've seen you've posted another, but I usual only rep the ones I've seen.

Suddenly Last Summer
Polished direction, a talky but effective screenplay, and a pair of sterling performances by two of the best actresses in the business make the 1959 film version of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer well worth the time of any serious buff.

This is the story of a wealthy and eccentric widow named Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) who has read about a new surgical procedure called a lobotomy that is being perfected by a surgeon named Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift). She decides to offer a huge amount of money to the asylum where the doctor works if he would agree to perform the procedure on her niece, Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor) in order to keep her from revealing the truth about the way Violet's beloved son, Sebastian died.

Fans of other Tennessee Williams work will be right at home here with the kind of characters and situations presented here. As in some other work by the playwright, a large portion of the story is centered around a character that is dead at the beginning of the story and is eventually revealed to be homosexual, though that word is never used. These characters always seem to be dead as some sort of punishment for their lifestyle, a pervading theme in Williams work, seemingly stemming from Williams' hatred of his own homosexuality. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, it was Brick's football buddy, Skipper, in A Streetcar Named Desire, it was Blanche Dubois' first and much younger husband and here, it is Sebastian Venable.

Actually, I have always had a fondness for movies centered on a character who is already dead, because it allows the audience the opportunity to use their own imagination about what that person was like. Lawrence Kasdan did this to great effect in 1983 in The Big Chill which centered around the death of a character we never meet named Alex. Just like Alex, we never meet Sebastian, but he is at the forefront of the story at all times and we also know ten minutes into the film that we are not getting the real story of how he died.

The film has a very gothic quality to it, rich with characters who redefine terms like creepy and squirm worthy. The character of Violet Venable is a true enigma...there are moments in the story that are almost sickening as you listen to her talk about her relationship with Sebastian...she speaks about their life together as if they were lovers and not mother and son and we can also see that Violet knows all about her who her son was but doesn't want anyone else to know.

The screenplay by Williams and Gore Vidal imaginatively skirts the word "homosexual", but makes it very clear who Sebastian was early in the story and one keeps waiting for them to actually come out and say it, but it was 1959. I think 1959 mores also had a lot to do with the over the top finale where we finally learn what happened to Sebastian, but director Joseph L. Mankiewicz mounts the final flashback with some taste and some effective editing and photography.

Where Mankiewicz really scores is the brilliant performances he gets from his two leading ladies. Hepburn is absolutely bone-chilling as Mrs. Venable and Elizabeth Taylor is a fragile yet explosive Catherine. Both actresses received Oscar nominations and Taylor won a Golden Globe. The film also received a richly deserved Oscar nomination for art direction/set direction...Mrs. Venable's garden/jungle and the snake pit at the asylum were amazing. The finale is a bit much, but this is still a rich cinematic experience.