In New Orleans in 1937, wealthy matriarch Mrs. Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) will fund a hospital if Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) will perform a lobotomy on her niece Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor). Debutante Catherine had a nervous breakdown after the death of Sebastian Venable, Violet's poet son, while the two were vacationing in Europe. Mrs. Venable wants the lobotomy performed to stop Catherine from revealing the horrible truth about Sebastian's death. Dr. Cukrowicz knows Catherine is sane and helps her remember the circumstances of Sebastian's death.
The film ends with Catherine explaining at length the bizarre murder of homosexual Sebastian. While at a Spanish coastal resort the previous summer, he used her to lure young boys just as his mother used to do. But the boys turned on Sebastian and murdered him. Catherine watched his body being cannibalized by the boys and hysterically explains, "He...he was lying naked on the broken stones...and this you won't believe! Nobody, nobody, nobody could believe it! It looked as if...as if they had devoured him!...As if they'd torn or cut parts of him away with their hands, or with knives, or those jagged cans they made music with. As if they'd torn bits of him away in strips!"
Mrs. Venable completely cracks up and takes her antique elevator upstairs, cheerfully in her own demented fantasy world. Catherine is cured and speaks the film's last lines, "She's here, Doctor, Miss Catherine's here." Malcolm Arnold and Buxton Orr composed the original music. Gore Vidal and Tennessee William wrote the screenplay adapted from William's one-act play. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed.
The film ends with Catherine explaining at length the bizarre murder of homosexual Sebastian. While at a Spanish coastal resort the previous summer, he used her to lure young boys just as his mother used to do. But the boys turned on Sebastian and murdered him. Catherine watched his body being cannibalized by the boys and hysterically explains, "He...he was lying naked on the broken stones...and this you won't believe! Nobody, nobody, nobody could believe it! It looked as if...as if they had devoured him!...As if they'd torn or cut parts of him away with their hands, or with knives, or those jagged cans they made music with. As if they'd torn bits of him away in strips!"
Mrs. Venable completely cracks up and takes her antique elevator upstairs, cheerfully in her own demented fantasy world. Catherine is cured and speaks the film's last lines, "She's here, Doctor, Miss Catherine's here." Malcolm Arnold and Buxton Orr composed the original music. Gore Vidal and Tennessee William wrote the screenplay adapted from William's one-act play. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed.
