Killing of Sister George

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

A year after helming The Dirty Dozen, director Robert Aldrich took on this controversial drama based on the play of the same name by Frank Marcus. Beryl Reid stars as soap opera star June, an alcoholic lesbian who spends most of her time with her younger lover, Alice (Susannah York). When vindictive television executive Mercy Croft (Coral Browne) takes a liking to Alice, she arranges to have June's character, Sister George, killed off the show. Drunk and paranoid, June struggles to keep it together or risk losing Alice. Because of its exploration of a subject as taboo as homosexuality, The Killing of Sister George earned an X rating. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 (Alternate Wide Screen)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: French, Spanish, English
• Features:
  • • [None specified]

AWARDS

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama - 1968 (Beryl Reid)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Robert Aldrich

• Producer:

  Robert Aldrich

• Screenwriter:

  Lukas Heller

• Play Author:

  Frank Marcus

• Cinematographer:

  Joseph Biroc, Brian West

• Composer (Music Score):

  Gerald Fried

• Editor:

  Michael Luciano

• Production Designer:

  William Glasgow

• Art Director:

  William Glasgow

• Associate Producer:

  Walter Blake

• Executive Producer:

  Edgar J. Scherick

• Costume Designer:

  Renie

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Dean Hodges, Dick Church

• Makeup:

  William Turner

• Casting:

  Lynn Stalmaster

• Producer's Assistant:

  William Aldrich

REVIEW:

• Robert Aldrich's The Killing of Sister George is a powerful black comedy that continues to generate controversy over its portrayal of lesbian relationships. The central relationship is disturbing and fascinating, not due to the sex of the characters, but due to its sometimes abusive nature. Aldrich, whose work often is a mesmerizing mixture of luridness, camp, and insightfulness, is in top form here, creating a claustrophobic onscreen atmosphere that causes the audience itself to feel as trapped as the characters. George herself is the most trapped, but also the one that struggles the most against it -- and ironically the only one still trapped by film's end. Beryl Reid's towering performance is stunning. The viewer is appalled when watching her humiliate Childie with a cigar butt, yet somehow sympathetic. Reid makes the audience root for her and feel for her, even when she is at her most monstrous. And her final scene, standing amid the debris of a television studio and mooing, is both harrowing and heartbreaking. Susannah York and Coral Browne also turn in incredible performances, and their five-minute love scene is shocking both for its frankness and the naked intensity of desperate emotion they bring to it. Overlong, discomforting, and sometimes over-the-top in content, Sister George is still a unique experience. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi