Well-Acted, But Hardly a Lesbian 'Boys in the Band'

The same year that Mart Crowley's landmark play about Gay men in New York, THE BOYS IN THE BAND, opened off-Broadway, Robert Aldrich, one of Hollywood's brightest and most versatile voices, gave us the distaff version with his adaptation of Frank Marcus's play THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE. Two years later, William Friedkin would bring Crowley's work to the screen, with much better results than Aldrich achieves here, but I think it is only fair to point out that, flaws and all, Marcus and Aldrich got there first.

And they brought a cast of heavy-hitters with them: Beryl Reid, a force of nature as June Buckridge ("Sister George," a nurse on a popular soap opera), Susannah York as her somewhat infantile lover "Childie," and the third point in the triangle, a serpentine BBC executive by the name of Mercy Croft, played to a fare-thee-well by Coral Browne, who has a dual agenda: telling June that she's been sacked and stealing Childie from her into the bargain.

The acting by all three of these women is, in a word, sensational. Reid in particular dominates the proceedings: June Buckridge is an unpleasant, loud, obnoxious woman who is abusive to her lover. York, however, it must be said, is no slouch in the role of the submissive Childie; in fact, there is one scene with a cigar butt where Childie turns the tables on "George" with devilish glee. And Browne as Mrs Croft is a perfect foil for the both of them: a serpent in a Chanel suit; oozing style from every pore while scheming to get her way.

The only problem is that the basic situation really isn't enough to hang a two-hour-and-eighteen-minute movie on. With THE BOYS IN THE BAND, setting the proceedings at a birthday party allowed the drama to unfold almost in real time, with room for a cast of nine actors crammed into a fancy Village apartment; the claustrophobic nature of the set actually works in the film's favor.

Unfortunately, GEORGE is a bare-bones story of an aging actress about to lose a job that she has grown to take for granted, much as she takes for granted her lover, a woman who retreats into her dolls when under stress and whom George abuses mercilessly. Childie, as I mentioned, sometimes gets her own back, and once or twice we see some real affection between the two women, but halfway through this thing I found them both quite unbearable and I had a hard time swallowing the notion that either of them would stand for the other's nonsense for so many years. The addition of Mrs Croft to the proceedings does add a little something extra, but though Browne works hard, the part is underwritten
and we really don't understand what motivates her. Is she really attracted to Childie, or is she just a bitch out to get George, and taking her lover just an added bit of venom? In the end we are forced to draw our own conclusions. And June, as difficult as she has been, is most certainly the one left with the short end of the stick as the curtain falls.

The sex scene, which garnered a lot of press in its day, and which in fact is a pivotal moment, is frankly the movie's low point. Much was made at the time of Susannah York's reluctance to play the scene; I do not know if there was any truth to that, but Browne's icy-cold approach to the "seduction," her fixation on one of York's breasts as if it were a rare specimen of beetle under a microscope, and York's orgasm, which sounds more like a blood-curdling scream of pain than ecstasy, all add up to what must be the most unpleasant seduction scene in film history.

At the end of the day, this is a film worth seeing for the performances (Reid's in particular), but it's a rather unpleasant business, and goes on way too long; frankly, by the time the thing finally ended, I was ready to take a hatchet to all three of them.

Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
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