Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

She would have been great in it. Possibly better than Liz. The part was made for an older woman, not a younger one like Liz. Liz was great in it, she & Bette were that person, but Liz brought some prettiness to the role that Bette could not at that point. Would have loved to have seen the Bette Davis version.

My favorite movie.

***SPOILER AHEAD***

Do you know that Honey's hysterical pregnancy was actually a real one terminated by an abortion?

R1, indeed that Liz is the quintessential MILF in that film, but that she's so fucking crazy.

I loved Liz's performance. Blowsy, drunk, shrill, frustrated, angry at life. You could almost smell funk of the gin and sweat and cigarettes and Jean Nate.

I'll have another glass of bergin, please.

If Bette had played that role, she would have won the third Oscar she really wanted. It's one of the more intriguing "what might have been" performances. (I also wish Spencer Tracy could have done Long Day's Journey with Hepburn.)

Better Davis would have been fabulous, no question.

I love this film so much, that I purchased the DVD. But I have to say, Elizabeth Taylor edged out Davis foe one thing only. And it has nothing to with 'who's the better actress.' They were equals.

I thought Liz Taylor brought a very earthy, burning repressed sexual allure amidst all the emotional abuse and depravity - which she used as a weapon against the 2 male characters. She teased, taunted and shamelessly lusted after whomever she pleased - but it was a weapon - part of her arsenal against Burton, the frustrated husband.

But the most salient reason for her winning in the casting stakes over Davis was that Liz Taylor was the privileged daughter of the University President. Therefore, as a child of privilege she would have had a fairly pampered life - and pampered women have to invest in beauty and grow up knowing how wield it as a lure.

So, from my perspective, Taylor was perfectly cast.

I don't understand this thread. Wasn't Bette too old at this point to play Martha? She was 25 years older than Liz. Sure, I woul give my left ball to see it. But the earthy drunkin sexiness was the point and Bette was too old ( and never earthy enough) to pull it off. I guess what I might be saying is Liz defined the role in a way that's so iconic that these hypotheticals don't make much sense 50 years later.

Well put R8.

R7 here - Absolutely the drunken sexiness was core to the character. Witness her control over the male faction when she disappears upstairs for some time - and re-emerges in tight trousers leaning suggestively against the wall with an even more ' demonic ' side of her personality in evidence ready to further escalate her (imaginary) control over her husband.

James Stewart as George is actually an intriguing idea; he could do dark, as in 'Vertigo', and bits of 'It's A Wonderful Life.'

Burton/Taylor though were the hot couple, and their volatile chemistry naturally created fireworks. Nichols knew them already, which meant said chemistry could be managed to best effect.

Jimmy Stewart could have carried off the role of George, if he'd wanted to. He was a very good dramatic actor who was capable of playing extremely crazy and twisted characters, as in "Vertigo", and might have been brilliant as the resentful drunken husband.

But at that point in his career, he didn't seem to want to make anything but fluff.

R1 you're wrong about the age thing. Davis too old. George and Martha are supposed to be late thirties/early forties. Remember, Martha's father is the head of the History department at the University.

R12 no, Martha is supposed to be 52 years old

[quote]Martha is the 52-year-old daughter of the president of New Carthage University. She is married to George,

Davis was born in 1908, the play was in 1962, and the movie in 1966. Davis would have been 58 but certainly could have passed for a 52 year old.

Liz on the other hand was born in 1932, making her 34 for this, way too young for the role.

Also George is supposed to be YOUNGER than Martha, at 46 to her 52. Burton was much older than Liz.

R13 Touche! You're right.

I still feel like that the time Davis seems to old, but maybe I'm just thinking of her as Baby Jane.

In any case, Taylor certainly rose to the challenge.

Edward Albee wanted Bette Davis and Henry Fonda. Wouldn't that have been something? Davis was born to play that harridan Martha. It's too bad that two versions of the film couldn't have been made. Taylor and Burton were fantastic, but Davis and Fonda would've been perfect too.

I've seen the play twice, once with David Suchet and Diana Rigg and then with Tracy Letts and Amy Morton. In both cases I came away thinking it's his play, not her play. I haven't seen the movie in years, but I wonder if the balance shifted in the movie, due either to Taylor's performance or due to the directing/editing

Honey absolutely does have the abortion

The remake will be with James Deen and Lindsay Lohan.

I'd cheer for Edith Massey as Honey.

What is the reason for Honey's abortion? It doesn't really make sense. She gets knocked up, marries Nick and then gets an abortion? Why?

George Segal was the weak spot, no? Sandy was great

Who's afraid of virgin wool?

Davis may have been 58 in 1966, but she looked older and there was nothing remotely sexy about her at that point. I could easily imagine Nick recoiling at Davis' Martha grabbing his thigh when she talks about being "at the meat of things."

Fonda would have been a great George and I think Albee wanted him because he had similar qualities to Arthur Hill who played the role onstage. R13 is correct in that Martha is supposed to be older than George; but I think Taylor and Burton pulled it off anyway. I think this film is really Burton's best film performance.

agree that George Segal was he weak link- Taylor and Burton were magnificent.

[quote]agree that George Segal was he weak link

Maybe, but I'm the only one who's still alive and WORKING every week!

George Segal was fine and underrated. All four actors playing the main characters were good. Love this movie.

[quote] R20: What is the reason for Honey's abortion?

I think Honey knew her husband married her for social standing and didn't want to have kids with him. It is also a mirror of George & Martha's inability to have kids and their imaginary son. It also reflects the theme of "Thuth or illusion" where nothing is quite what it seems.

Hmm, I think there is more to it, I used to know. Boys, sing out!

I always took away that Honey lied to Nick in order to get him to marry her, then she claimed a "hysterical pregnancy".

I saw Kathleen Turner in it. She was ok, but I saw her in an interview where she said "I don't think Elizabeth Taylor was very good (in Virginia Woolf). I feel like half my career has been correcting her mistakes!" I really think that is crazy talk because Turner was perfectly adequite in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as well, but she was no great shakes.

I...I peel labels.

R28, Honey did use her pregnancy to get Nick to marry her. I don't know where I heard it, but it made perfect sense to me that Honey had an abortion.

I saw Kathleen Turner too, and "adequate" is a good word for her. During the play, someone's phone rang. Nick paused, then repeated a line before continuing. It made me realize how challenging it can be to be an actor and get the timing right, never mind memorizing the lines.

George lusted after trim, young Nick. All hell broke loose when (hagish) Martha got to him first.

I wasn't alive when the movie was made and am not a big fan of Mike Nichols or Elizabeth Taylor. That said the movie has always seemed perfectly cast and performed to me. It is kind of mesmerizing to watch, a very successful feeling of it happening in real time. Great play, good movie.

Mike Nichols wanted to remake it with Marlo Thomas playing Martha (she had done a touring production of it in the early 90's). He felt he didn't fully understand the material the first time around.

Marlo Thomas? MARLO THOMAS???

It's really a perfect film. Have it on disc. Nichols said they rehearsed the hell out of it and it shows. One of the best things about it is the rhythm of the performances and the writing. Saw a little bit of it again for the millionth time on tcm. Taylor should've given Burton her Oscar. Her fine work in this is like the perfect tennis match with him. No way she would've won without his brilliant performance. The fight outside the road house bar still takes my breath away in its ferocity. Everyone should've won an Oscar for this even though I love Paul Scofield, Man for all Seasons and Walter Matthau which beat everyone else.

It's mesmerizing. One of my favorite movies,

Maybe Kurt and Goldie can remake it. Oliver and Kate could play the younger couple.

Let's get this out of the way, darlings. "What a dump" said at the beginning of the play would have been removed if Bette Davis did do the role -- she would never have been able to do it, too old, too mannered-- but nevertheless "What a dump" was FROM A BETTE DAVIS MOVIE. No way could she have entered and said "What a dump". Audiences in those days would know it's a camp line from one of her most camp movies and it would taken them out of the play from the beginning. You have to grab the audience immediately to take them on this particular "journey" in "Virginia Woolf".

Honey most certainly did use the pregnancy to trap Nick in to marriage and that's what he resents about her--that must be clear for audiences to understand that relationship. Now if you can take on a challenge while doing the play, you can 'play around' with the POSSIBILITY that the child of George and Martha actually did exist. I believed when I directed a production of it that it is imaginary-- a game they used to tease, torment each other-- but I have seen a production since in which you could tell the production wanted you to believe it WAS a child that existed and died through carelessness on the parents' part. Didn't quite work for me but but it was an interesting "choice".

I am OP, I am.

Best play ever written. Best movie ever made.

Thank you, R22, I haven't seen that skit in ages. I think Hill did a great Burton. I was surprised to see Paul Eddington in that clip, I wouldn't have known of him back then.

I've loved this film since it aired on CBS back in 1973 (I was way too young to see the theatrical release). Much was made about the bad language, and CBS' efforts to tone it down without clobbering the movie. I have a DVD rip of it somewhere..think I'll watch it again.

I love the movie, but I think it has a pacing problem. But moments of brilliance for sure.

Sandy Dennis' screentest with Roddy McDowall in the role of Nick.

R38. Interesting idea that (real child) but doesn't fit script or motivations.

Constant theme is that it takes two parents to create a child, but a child can be destroyed by either one.

Amazing play. I'm not a fan of the movie. They cut way too much out of it.

R33 and R34 - I saw Marlo Thomas on stage in WAoVW?. Robert Foxworth was George, don't recall who played the younger couple.

Marlo was fine in the role, but she was always Marlo... I know that sounds silly, but I think it's because of how much she looked like Marlo Thomas/That Girl. I would be have helped me as an audience member if she had changed her hair style, or something that would have changed her "look". I kept seeing Ann Marie.

Foxworth was an excellent George by the way. Really, he was so good. You could see how he had once been an attractive man, but had let himself go. He had a moment of shattering a liqour bottle that sent a pause through the theater... everyone knew something big was about to happen and he just held the moment, timed his next move beautifully.

Last memory of the performance I saw: the theater held the show's start because Phil Donohue and Bella Abzug were late! Screw them, making everyone else "wait" and then make a grand entrance. Man did that piss me off.

Oh yea, I love the idea of Ms. Davis as Martha and either Stewart, Fonda or Spencer Tracy as George.

Albee approved the casting of Bette Davis and James Mason as Martha and George for the film version. He very much wanted Bette Davis. He later said that Taylor was pretty good and Burton was incredible in the roles. I think that is a good assessment, though Taylor seemed incredible when I first saw it, Burton is coming from somewhere deep in a troubled soul. Their personal relationship makes the film version something that can never be duplicated. They went for it, she with instinct, he with more technique. Taylor worked hard on the part of Martha and it shows in a good way. I love the movie. It was the first dramatic film to have a full audio recording put out on a record.

R47 there is also a record of Uta Hagen doing it from the Broadway cast. She is absolutely chilling.

I think that a lot of people think particular performances are strong simply because they have seen them multiple times. Taylor is okay, but Hagen with a cold on the recording is better. And Amy Morton made Martha into a recognizable person. Not sure Taylor ever made any character into a believable human being.

I don't dispute that Hagen may have been better than Taylor in the role, but I'm not sure it's possible to play Martha as a believable human being. That isn't a criticism of the play, either. I love Suddenly Last Summer, but there are no REAL people like Violet Venable. It's all hyper real, and Taylor plays it to the hilt. Another example is Piper Laurie in Carrie. A brilliant performance, but not a person you could believe exists.

No real people? Are you serious?

[quote]Not sure Taylor ever made any character into a believable human being.

True, but this one time she did. It was either a fluke or real close to home, but she did the damn thing. Of course Martha is a believable human being. Albee is not Tennessee Williams. Martha is as real can be.

"I AM THE EARTH MOTHAH AND THE REST OF YOU ARE ALL FLOPS"

Sorry, no real person talks this way. Again, I love it, but it's hyper real.

R50, Amy Morton made her real. It was shocking because I did not think that it was possible either.

Oh, R53, you should drop by my house most nights after midnight.

R55 haha point taken.

R53, sorry, but you're wrong. There was a dude in DL last week who wrote exactly that way, and wasn't kidding. He pops up occassionally, and always writes like that. I wish I could remember the thread but cannot.

R54 is there any kind of recording of Amy Morton's version? I'm very curious.

Yes R55. I get it. There is that story from A Star is Born when Garland filmed the scene after the funeral, with the paps and public coming toward her, and she lets out that bloodcurdling scream. The scene was shot a number of times with equal ferocity. George Cukor told Garland how devastating she was in her performance. Garland said, "Come by the house any night, I do it every night. But only once."

Amy Morton and Tracy Letts

R60. That is reciting dialogue, as they say. What a terrible rhythm. They are responding with lines, but not listening to each other. Richard Burton and ET were both magnificent in the film, I am now convinced.

After all of the Virginia Woolfs and impersonations, I was so surprised when I finally saw Beyond the Forest. Bette says "What a Dump" in a rather understated way.

I really hated Amy Morton's version of Martha. The whole production lacked everything it needed to be spectacular. Terrible direction.

I loved Amy Morton and Tracy Letts' version. I went to an evening performance and loved it so much that I went back the next day for the matinee. It's not really captured in that clip, though, so I can understand why R61 (and others) might be underwhelmed. Live, it was incredible.

I also liked the Morton/Letts version very much, but if you listen to the recording with Hagen and Arthur Hill, you can tell how much Letts' performance owes to Hill's. I can't believe that Letts hasn't heard the Hagen/Hill recording, which is amazing.

I think Taylor gave Martha everything she had, and she's pretty damn impressive most of the time. I also think the way she handles the final moments is exquisite. Burton is superb - the one time I saw him onscreen where I really thought he didn't rely almost solely on technique. Kathleen Turner can go fuck herself - he Martha was good in the first half, but she wasn't up to the demands of Act 3.

Burton was terrific in the role but I would have LOVED to have seen James Mason perform it. He was a fantastic actor, and though people still remember him today I don't think he's ever gotten the credit he deserved.

This thread has whetted my appetite again to see the full version onstage. (Yeah, I stupidly missed Suchet and Rigg.) I actually held out the faint hope that - don't laugh - Spacey might take on George at The Old Vic. (Naturally DL will suggest him for Martha.) Dream casting from the current crop welcomed. Ralph Fiennes and...?

God, that R60 clip is more horrendous in more ways than I can count. It sounded like Waco, TX community theatre, so rushed and vocally devoid of the power of the written word Albee has provided. Almost monotone.

R67, Ralph and his former END OF THE AFFAIR co-star, Julianne Moore. Seriously.

Morton and Letts are just so ordinary and rational and....tasteful. I need more theatrics from my George and Martha. They have to be larger than life to make the play work.

But thanks for posting the link r60. I was very curious about all the praise for that production.

So I guess the problem with Morton and Letts is that they spoke normally, so you might think they were normal people rather than actors. They needed to be more theatrical and exaggerated in the earlier parts of the play shown in the video.

I remember seeing it when it first came out and thinking that Burton and Taylor brought too much personal baggage to the roles. They were so over-exposed back then, the Brad and Angelina of their day, that you never forgot it was them up there acting, and you never bought into the characters, it was Burton vs Taylor, not a college professor and his wife.

r72 that's the problem with overexposed, famewhore actors. You can't get into the characters they're playing because you keep seeing the celebrity instead. I can't watch Angelina Jolie in anything, for example, without being conscious that I'm watching "Angelina Jolie, Superfamous Celebrity" and not the actual character she's playing.

Judith Light could do a GREAT Martha.

R73, have you ever thought that this maybe a perception problem peculiar to only you? I certainly do not have that problem with Angelina and most people do not as well.

Roger and Francine doing it on American Dad was better.

R76, I really enjoyed that! "Tell 'em about our dead kid!"

Judith Light, YES!

Who would play George?

Actually Taylor was perfect for this role. She literally played the younger version of Martha in Cat. Burton as great as he was, Scofield played his role as his life depended on it and deserved his Oscar. I still think Shaw should've won over Matthau but that's another story. Segal had stiff competition, Dennis didn't. Lehman lost to Zinnemann but should've won over Bolt. IMHO.

Burton & Taylor were just playing themselves.

Why didn't they just adopt?

My ex saw it when it came out (as a teenager). Very disturbing as he said it reminded him of his own dysfunctional household.

What a great movie. I just finished the Nichols bio and it was interesting to view it to understand what role the director played. I guess the close ups were Nichols idea. But the writing, Liz and Burton are the real stars. Hard to say if another director would have been just as good - the material and actors are fabulous,

I’m not afraid of Virginia Woolf, but I’m positively terrified of Stella Duckworth.

The character of Nick is a user and climber. Martha doesn't have to be "sexy" for him to make a play for her. Davis playing Martha would have worked just as well.

[quote] The character of Nick is a user and climber. Martha doesn't have to be "sexy" for him to make a play for her. Davis playing Martha would have worked just as well.

Yes, EXACTLY. Nick is a very familiar type of social climber and whore.

I get really annoyed when I read criticisms of Taylor in this role. "She was too young," etc. I rarely have very strong opinions about actors' alleged capabilities or casting choices, but I think Taylor was spectacular, an absolute spectacle, in this. I've only seen her in a few things, and being relatively young with respect to those who adore her, I'm not a Liz fanatic, but this to me is a performance of a lifetime. I saw this movie when I was around 20 and binged on old movies, and I was completely blown away. I felt her performance. It is theatrical and histrionic, but that's the character; it's not too big for the screen.

I tend to think of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and Joan Crawford primarily when I think of classic Hollywood, but Liz is as good in this as any performance Davis ever gave. I'd put it on par with both Baby Jane and All About Eve, and I think it's a much more compelling movie overall than Eve, which really would not be a great film were it not for Bette Davis's presence. It's very arch and performative throughout. I don't really buy into the romantic relationships in All About Eve—only into Bette's grande dame status—but the ones in Woolf are realistic and electrical. Woolf is explosively tense because it feels like real relationship dynamics blowing up.

It's not just about social-climbing guys bedding the Martha because she's daughter of the dean, though, it's important that Martha is sexy enough, even in her 50s, to still use her body as a weapon. She's starting to look ridiculous because she's bloated and falling apart, but you can still see her being hot.

Bette could have pulled off being the kind of woman who manipulated men into sleeping with her because she could pull strings for them, but she couldn't pull off ALSO being able to seduce them because she still had some allure about her.

Straight men who want something will literally fuck anything with a pussy.

Ditto straight women riding the wizened D.

Am I to assume you think I said otherwise at r88, r89?

R88 Bette would have been perfect for that during her Eve era (1950). She was older but still had a seductive quality. But 15 years later? Probably not. Here she is in 1965.

Speaking of Bette, can we all please appreciate her ruthless patronizing of "little Ronnie Reagan"??

[quote] You co-starred in a movie with Ronald Reagan?

[quote] Little Ronnie Reagan! Yes. He was in Dark Victory. He was her wealthy beau who didn't get her. Politically, he still doesn't get her!

[quote] Little Ronnie Reagan! That's what we called him, Little Ronnie Reagan. He was a little contract player. He was...good in one picture.

[quote] Did he have memory problems back then? [laughs]

[quote] I'll say this. He didn't have a lot of lines.

Agree r91, All About Eve-era Bette Davis would have been perfect in Virginia Woolfe.

[quote]Ralph Fiennes and...?

Lesley Manville. She was most of the way there with her character in Phantom Thread.

^Lesley in Phantom Thread

It's unwise to use clips like the one at R60 to evaluate a stage production. That's not footage from a live performance -- it's specially recorded as promotional material. Such things are better than nothing, I guess, for those who didn't see the production live, but they're as close to the real thing as masturbation is to sex.

In the theater (I saw it at Steppenwolf and again on Broadway), Letts was electrifying. Morton (a wonderful stage actress) had her moments, but her overall take on the role didn't really gel either time (for me) -- she was clearly avoiding the paths of Taylor and Hagen but hadn't really worked out a satisfying route of her own. Carrie Coon was absolutely brilliant -- among other things, I've never seen better, richer, more precise "drunk acting."

My favorite bit happens right at the beginning of the film, just as they return home from the reception. They're in the kitchen, and Martha has retrieved a sickly looking chicken's leg from the refrigerator, leaving the refrigerator door open as she climbs up and onto the counter to sit and stuff her face with it. And then, oh so subtly, it happens: she finishes the leg, but instead of throwing the bone into the trash, she throws it right back onto the plate in the refrigerator - it even makes a clink noise. It is this one action which tells us just how much of a drunken slob she is with much more proof to come. Priceless, clever, and hilarious!

It's in this short clip.

Now Daniel Craig can play the role!--George, I mean.

This is such a great film! It's easy to imagine that Burton and Taylor are so comfortable with the dialogue and dynamic of this couple because they are playing themselves.

When watching as a teenager in the 90s, I couldn’t figure out why Nick didn’t divorce Honey.

[quote] In 1970, Henry Fonda and Richard Burton attempted to recruit Warren Beatty and Jon Voight for an all-male production, but Albee refused permission.[16]

See that might have been very fun. Beatty as Nick, Voight as Honey. Maybe have Burton switch roles and have Fonda as George.

Albee also wanted Nick to be a bronzed God type. He didn’t want a black actor in some local production as Nick a couple of decades ago. I see his point, but it would be fun if he loosened up and allowed more universality in the casting.

The play is strong enough to handle it.

Yeah, R97, I love the scene where Liz opens the fridge, grabs that drumstick, takes a bite, then puts back the drumstick. When I saw that scene, I started to really pay attention to the movie. It was hilarious and specific.

I saw the movie for the first time, IIRC, during a low point in my life. I wasn't expecting much, had borrowed it from Blockbuster and wow.

First time I saw a live production was with Kathleen Turner. I thought she was great but Bill Irwin really blew me away. His take on George seemed perfect.

On the off chance that you're still here, R52, I would like to ask: what makes you say that Tennessee's characters couldn't possibly be believable human beings, while Albee's characters could?

God knows Henry Fonda was a wonderful actor, and I haven't seen anything like his full filmography . . . but I'm struggling to picture him digging into a role as corrosive and dark as George. Did any of his movies tap into that side of him?

R103 I'm not R52, not I feel similarly. I wouldn't say that Tennessee Williams's characters could not possibly be real people, but they are mostly histrionic and arch and extreme, and it sure would be weird for so many people in one social circle to have such exaggerated theatrical personality traits.

The characters in Woolf are all in states of high emotion, but they're also intoxicated and to me, their backgrounds with one another make sense of their behaviors. I am under the impression that they behave the way they do because they are in an intimate setting with people to whom they are dangerously close, and they're all verging on self-destructive there...but I imagine them to behave pretty normally outside of their homes. Whereas, I can't imagine Blanche or Stanley ever to act quite normal among anyone, or the people of Suddenly, Last Summer. All are exaggerated, which works well in his plays.

I see Woolf as realism and I see Williams's plays as expressionism, not meant to be seen as realistic but instead getting at certain truths that people typically conceal.

Fresh off her Secret Storm triumph, Joan Crawford begged to play Honey. Watching it with Davis AND Crawford would have been sensational.

I can’t believe cutie pie Nick tried to fuck Martha the fat, old drunk fraufish. I’m surprised she didn’t swallow him with her gaping maw of a pussy.

Bette Davis would have been grotesque as Martha. She was grotesque onstage playing Maxine in "Night of the Iguana," a sexpot role she was all wrong for, and that was several years before "Virginia Woolf."

A number of people have criticized George Segal, who was superb as Nick. Maybe they don't like the role. He's shallow, not that bright, and ambitious, but SOMEONE on that stage has to be sane....four people all coming apart at there seams at the same time would have pushed the play into the camp zone--where it just about is anyway (though I love it).

George and Martha, sad sad sad.

What a scene

[QUOTE] Phil Donohue and Bella Abzug

THEY should have played George and Martha

Davis had become a caricature of her former self at that point and she wouldn’t have been able to pull it off.

[quote] Joan Crawford begged to play Honey

I can't see her in that role.

[quote] The characters in Woolf are all in states of high emotion, but they're also intoxicated and to me, their backgrounds with one another make sense of their behaviors. I am under the impression that they behave the way they do because they are in an intimate setting with people to whom they are dangerously close, and they're all verging on self-destructive there...but I imagine them to behave pretty normally outside of their homes. Whereas, I can't imagine Blanche or Stanley ever to act quite normal among anyone, or the people of Suddenly, Last Summer. All are exaggerated, which works well in his plays.

The 2nd couple in VW, IMO, were a somewhat normal couple caught in the crossfire. I've been in a situation like that. A drunken couple start fighting and you see things you were never meant to see.

I actually think Stanley could be normal around most people. Yes, he was a boor and a wife-beater, but lots of wife-beaters can seem normal outside the house. But Blanche was a unique character who was living in his house & who brought out the very worst in Stanley.

Never saw Suddenly Last Summer. Maybe I should.

R113 Suddenly, Last Summer is bizarre as fuck, flawed and amazing. Katharine Hepburn is just...something. Liz Taylor is very good. Montgomery Clift is pretty. And the story is cuckoo. Watch it. Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay.

Bette Davis was born to play the role of Martha. She pretty much WAS Martha in her private life. A shame it never happened.

R114 - Agreed that Suddenly Las Summer (the movie) is both alternately flawed and brilliant. But what amazes me the most is that it actually got released in 1959 with it's extremely, thinly veiled references to homosexual "procurement" of pretty third world boys for sex as well as a lot of subtext about class injustice, barbaric mental health treatments, and hints of incest. I suppose it is loosely (and feverishly) drawn from Tom's own trips to post WWII-ravaged countries and the lobotomy suffered by his sister.

[quote] Now Daniel Craig can play the role!--George, I mean.

Just keep Rachel Weisz away. She was surprisingly bland in Betrayal.

[quote] Fresh off her Secret Storm triumph, Joan Crawford begged to play Honey. Watching it with Davis AND Crawford would have been sensational

Bette Davis IS Martha. Rachel Roberts IS George. Glenda Jackson IS Nick. Joan Crawford IS Honey.