
Young couple Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis) accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it’s fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games as their hard-drinking hosts let rip with burning resentment and hostility.
Edward Albee’s lacerating play about the cruelties of marital dysfunction evidently struck a chord with Elizabeth Taylor and husband Richard Burton, who seized on it like vultures on carrion. (In his book about the Burtons, Erotic Vagrancy, Roger Lewis said the film encapsulated “their entire marriage, crammed into a single picture.”) Taylor, 33, happily gained weight and embraced a character 20 years her senior, performing the part so convincingly there was no going back. Burton, a heartthrob, was equally persuasive as a gone-to-seed intellectual. This was Mike Nichols first film as director and he made a film that secured the play’s reputation as a modern classic. All four actors were nominated for Academy Awards in their respective categories (Taylor and Dennis won).
Jul 9: Intro by filmmaker and educator, Professor Harry Killas
Harry Killas is Professor and Assistant Dean in the Film + Screen Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver. His most recent documentary films include COLLECTIVE AGENCY, about a group of seniors who became photo-artists in late life, and GREEK TO ME, an autobiographical documentary about his family and ethnic identity. His research/ filmmaking theme areas include education, the arts, and social, political and other histories. As a curator, Killas programmed seven seasons of the series THE IMAGE BEFORE US: A HISTORY OF FILM IN BRITISH COLUMBIA at The Cinematheque.
Mike Nichols
Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis
USA
1966
English
5 Academy Awards including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Sandy Dennis), Best Black & White Cinematography (Haskell Wexler)
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Credits
Screenwriter
Ernest Lehman
Cinematography
Haskell Wexler
Editor
Sam O’Steen
Original Music
Alex North
Production Design
Richard Sylbert
Also in This Series
Move through the changing fashions and styles in screen acting in the wake of World War II.
Notorious
In the first of our new Film Studies series, Ingrid Bergman is pimped out by US agent Cary Grant to Nazi-sympathizer Claude Rains (ironically the most likeable character in the film). Hitchcock's classic is a prime example of classic Hollywood star power.
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A young couple accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it's fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games.
Nashville
With 26 actors getting more-or-less equal screen time and half of them singing their own tunes, Robert Altman's state-of-the-nation satire on bicentennial USA is a movie that repays multiple views.
Raging Bull
In the throes of a near-fatal drug problem Martin Scorsese made what he believed could be his last movie. Its subject: the Bronx Bull, Jake La Motta, a graceless but indomitable boxer who never quits beating himself up. De Niro has never dug deeper.