Chilling old movie

[pwd72s]

Never saw it when it came out, but remembered it being controversial back then, 1959.
So, came across it on youtube & watched..."Suddenly Last Summer"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naw_O2Kj1mE&ab_channel=YouTubeMovies

What really chilled me was that it seemed to treat Lobotomy as a perfectly legit procedure.

A beautiful girl is committed to a mental institution after witnessing the violent death of her cousin. The Doctor uses a truth serum on her and confirms his suspicions that her "hallucinations" are indeed fact. The shock causes her wealthy aunt to relapse into unreality."

Actors
Elizabeth Taylor
Katharine Hepburn
Albert Dekker
Mercedes McCambridge
Montgomery Clift

Any others here remember this one?

[Zeke]

Any connection in the plot to Rosemary Kennedy?

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Any connection in the plot to Rosemary Kennedy?

Maybe, but not mentioned in the film. Gore Vidal one of the writers..

[Tobra]

That movie is pretty creepy, especially Kathryn Hepburn.

[Norm K]

Irreversibly hacking up a young person, versus providing mental health options should always be the first choice, right?

_

[masraum]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

What really chilled me was that it seemed to treat Lobotomy as a perfectly legit procedure.

Lobotomy WAS a perfectly legit procedure, just like "bleeding" used to be a legit procedure. I think there were also "doctors" that would treat female "hysteria" through manual manipulation/stimulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

n the past, this treatment was used for treating psychiatric disorders as a mainstream procedure in some countries. The procedure was controversial from its initial use, in part due to a lack of recognition of the severity and chronicity of severe and enduring psychiatric illnesses, so it was said to be an inappropriate treatment.[3]

The originator of the procedure, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz, shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine of 1949 for the "discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses",[n 1] although the awarding of the prize has been subject to controversy.[5]

The use of the procedure increased dramatically from the early 1940s and into the 1950s; by 1951, almost 20,000 lobotomies had been performed in the United States and proportionally more in the United Kingdom.[6] A large number of patients were gay men.[7] More lobotomies were performed on women than on men: a 1951 study found that nearly 60% of American lobotomy patients were women, and limited data shows that 74% of lobotomies in Ontario from 1948 to 1952 were performed on female patients.[8][9][10] From the 1950s onward, lobotomy began to be abandoned,[11] first in the Soviet Union[12] and Europe.[13]

[masraum]

Interesting sounding movie

[Tobra]

All that guy's movies are interesting.

[craigster59]

Good movie. Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift are always good together. I like "A Place In The Sun".

Mercedes McCambridge. She's great in "Johnny Guitar" and she's the demon voice in "The Exorcist".

[NY65912]

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

[RNajarian]

Originally Posted by Norm K

Irreversibly hacking up a young person, versus providing mental health options should always be the first choice, right?

_

Yes, yes it should.