Suddenly, Last Summer

In 1937 New Orleans, Louisiana, Dr. John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift), working at the state-run Lion's View Mental Institution, is experimenting with a radical new treatment for hopeless cases of lunacy: lobotomy. Lion's View is woefully underfunded, but a supposed savior comes forth in the form of wealthy, aging widowed Mrs. Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn)--the Venable name an institution itself in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mrs. Venable had an extremely close bond with her poet son Sebastian (Julian Ugarte), with whom she vacationed every year, but who died the previous summer while on a European vacation with Mrs. Venable's pretty niece by marriage, Catherine Holly (Dame Elizabeth Taylor). Mrs. Venable's $1-million donation to Lion's View is seemingly predicated on Dr. Cukrowicz institutionalizing and lobotomizing Catherine, whom Mrs. Venable states is mentally deranged. In meeting with Dr. Cukrowicz, Catherine states that she is not deranged, only disturbed by something from last summer's vacation with Sebastian--an incident she cannot remember. With pressure from Mrs. Venable (which is equally directed at Catherine's mother in the form of $100,000 to sign Catherine's commitment papers), Dr. Cukrowicz must decide to go forward with the operation against the vehement denials of lunacy by Catherine, or wait to try to find out exactly what happened last summer between Catherine and Sebastian.