Suddenly, Last Summer

At this point I know I am enormous fan of Tennessee Williams, but I have never seen one of his plays, only film adaptations. Each film adaptation seems to trump the last. I liked A Streetcar Named Desire well enough. I only watched it once. Then I saw Night of the Iguana and was blown away. Then I watched Suddenly, Last Summer and I thought, "why do people make fun of Elizabeth Taylor? She's such a fantastic actress. She can act as kooky as she likes, for all I care. She's earned it." Then I watched Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and I FELL OFF THE COUCH. You think I'm exaggerating. Hmph.

At this point I can't even give any sort of coherent criticism because these movies are all just SO AWESOME. I could write essays, I suppose, on the constructions of fragile masculinity and the crazy homophobia and the strange sexless female characters and the skewed angular cinematography and how incendiary the feminine archetypes are when pitted against each other...but that's not necessary at the moment. Here is my list of awesomeness:

1. Night of the Iguana
2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
3. Suddenly, Last Summer
4. A Streetcar Named Desire

So why is A Streetcar Named Desire the movie everybody sees? They're getting gypped. Seriously. Reevaluate your top ten lists, fellas. Consider how epic John Huston was. Imagine Ava Gardner in a wet t-shirt. Crippling sexual tension between Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, for chrissakes! Katharine Hepburn playing a crazy faghag mother! Watch all these movies and tell me I'm wrong. I don't care if you disagree, but you've got to see them all.

Note: I still haven't seen The Glass Menagerie, but when I do, I will modify this list. And I'm pretty sure Jane Wyman won't disappoint if she's half as good as in a Douglas Sirk movie.