SUTS Day 31: Elizabeth Taylor

Movie lineup (all times in EST):

6:00AM National Velvet (1944)

8:15AM Father of the Bride (1950)

10:00AM Rhapsody (1954)

12:00PM Ivanhoe (1952) 

2:00PM The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)

4:00PM The Sandpiper (1965)

6:00PM The V.I.P.S (1963)

8:00PM Butterfield 8 (1960)

10:00PM Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

*Daily Cinema Double Feature:

12:00AM Raintree County (1957)

3:00AM Night Watch (1973)*

4:45AM Elizabeth Taylor: An Intimate Portrait (1975)

Daily Cinema Double Feature: Raintree County/Night Watch
For the last day of Summer Under the Stars, I decided to end things on a first: Today we're doing a Double Feature with back-to-back films that are actually the last two films of the festival. Since Elizabeth Taylor's day ends with a documentary of sorts, I thought it would be cool to end things with the last films of the month. Also, I couldn't choose between the two. lol There were actually five potential films for today's Daily Cinema, but my sister and mom helped me narrow it down to two, then my sister suggested doing a Double Feature so I wouldn't have to choose. Done. lol

Raintree County is a Civil War-era drama about a wealthy Southern girl named Susanna who visits the North and has a brief affair with a man (Montgomery Clift), which distracts him from his true love (Eva Marie Saint). After faking a pregnancy to trick him into marrying her, the two move South but realize that it cannot work as John is an abolitionist, so they move back North. Susanna's parents and a family slave have all perished in a fire, and Susanna discovers that the family slave may have been her actual mother. Following that discovery, she begins to go mad. 

Night Watch intrigued me a bit more, but in a different way. In this film, Elizabeth Taylor takes on the role of Ellen, a woman recovering from a mental breakdown who thinks she witnessed a murder but due to her mental history, nobody believes her. She notices more things that would point to there having been a murder, but everyone dismisses them as PTSD episodes due to her past trauma or mere coincidences that ultimately lead nowhere. Having my own struggles with mental illness is what made this film jump out at me, so I'd like to see how it all plays out.  Hmm. Sounds like I've ended the festival on a note of mental illness, huh? lol That wasn't the intention, these two plots genuinely interest me, but I didn't realize until I was typing out the summaries that both of them deal with mental health. I was more focused on the fact that Susanna's mental break was triggered by the revelation that she may be part Black than the fact that she had a mental break, which I know sounds weird but welcome to my brain, I guess. Anyway, by the time you get around to watching the Daily Cinemas, the wrap-up post should be going up soon after so I apologize that both air so late. today's tags are #summerunderthestars for the larger conversation; #atvdailycinema for either or both Daily Cinema features. See you tomorrow!