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The decadently overgrown garden of Mrs. Venable's mansion is “a well-groomed jungle” that emanates a lush but seamy primitivity. Surrounded by Venus flytraps and a hooded hawk, Venable, played with lovable lunacy by Katherine Hepburn, accompanies Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) through the verdant tangle, and imparts the film's central lesson: that life is lorded over by a cruel god. This pitiless god has been observed by Venable's deceased son Sebastian, a poet, whose demise on the beach at Cabeza de Lobo carries some terrifying secret. The possible witness to Sebastian's death is his cousin, the proudly pert Catherine (played with crazed restraint by Elizabeth Taylor), who is confined to a psychiatric hospital. Tennessee Williams must have been in a bad patch when he penned the Garden District plays that form the basis for this grotesque grappling with human nature. The amoral motives behind this hushpuppy hush-up are dire, from Venable's wish to lobotomize Catherine in order to silence her, to Catherine's own family accepting a tidy sum for their acquiescence. Suddenly, Last Summer is no sugary julep-it's a whiskey sour, straight up.