Suddenly, Last Summer

They don't make films like this anymore.

Katharine Hepburn plays Mrs Venable, a devoted mother who lost her beloved son Sebastian and has her niece committed for telling an unpleasant story about what happened to Sebastian (the name repeated so often, it is almost like a mantra). She goes as far as trying to get young Cathy lobotomized by one Dr Cukrowicz. Early one, she has an awesome monologue about sea turtles, of all things.

The doctor is played by the wonderful Montgomery Clift, who is the good to oppose Hepburn's bad. He wants to first see for himself, whether Cathy is really as crazy as he is made to believe and an operation is justified.

Cathy is played impeccably by the wonderful, beautiful Elizabeth Taylor. She owns every scene she is in. Quite a feat when you are in scenes with Hepburn and Clift.

All the minor characters have something to gain from Cathy's planned lobotomy. Mrs. Venable has her deluded view of her son untainted by the truth, Cathy's mother and brother stand to inherit $ 100,000,-- and the owner of the asylum Cukrowicz works at a new building sponsored by Mrs Venable.

This is really wonderful to watch, all the way to when Cathy finally tells the truth and everyone is there to witness it.

Quite wonderful.

8/10

The Twilight Zone: And When the Sky Was Opened

Two astronauts, recently returned from a flight with an experimental plane called X-20 that mysteriously disappeared from radar screens for 24 hrs, meet in a hospital room where one recovers from a broken leg. One of them, Col. Forbes (Rod Taylor), remembers the journey and the following events quite differently. For one, there was a third member on that flight, one Col. Harrington, that has not only disappeared from yesterday's newspaper story but that the injured Major Gart has no recollection of.

The night before, Forbes and Harrington went to a bar, when Harrington suddenly started feeling peculiar, like he 'doesn't belong'. When calling his parents, he learns that they don't know him and he is not their son. Shortly after, he vanishes into thin air and nobody in the establishment remembers Harrington ever being there. In fact, nobody at all remembers any Harrington.

Eventually, the two remaining army men realize that they, too, 'don't belong'.

7/10