Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, and John Huston collaborating to adapt Carson McCullers' 2nd novel, one that pushed sexual boundaries, is something that I looked forward to seeing. McCullers work of dark, fractured lives in the South is in the company of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, every bit as good, and predated Williams - her first two books were written a few years before he broke through with 'The Glass Menagerie.' Like a lot of women artists, she's underrated.
Illicit sex and sexual repression are pervasive in the story: an army major (Brando) is a closet homosexual married to a brazenly lusty woman (Taylor); right under his nose she's having an affair with his friend, a colonel (Brian Keith), who is in turn married to a woman traumatized by her child dying (Julie Harris); comforting her is a (stereotypically) effeminate servant (Zorro David); meanwhile, an enlisted man (Robert Forster) is a peeping tom who likes to go out riding buck naked, driving Brando's character to distraction. Whew, that's a lot, and maybe too much. The melodrama that works in print is less successful on the screen, even though the film is faithful to it, and both are pretty reserved, leaving a lot to our imaginations.
As in some of his other films, I'm not quite sure about the accent Brando affects, but in his scenes of emotional intensity and in those where his character quietly tries to reconcile the fact that he's a "square peg in a round hole", he's brilliant, and as always, fascinating. Taylor is pretty strong too, especially when she dominates him, which she does both physically and mentally, at one point parading around the house defiantly nude. I'm not sure about the supporting cast though, as they seemed a little flat, and I didn't like some of the choices Huston made. The color palette is tinged yellow and subdued to just barely above black and white throughout the film, the soundtrack is dated, the pacing is off, and the ending camera movement not very artistic, to put it kindly. I loved the emotional angst but to be honest, I struggled to stay fully interested. Worth seeing though.
Illicit sex and sexual repression are pervasive in the story: an army major (Brando) is a closet homosexual married to a brazenly lusty woman (Taylor); right under his nose she's having an affair with his friend, a colonel (Brian Keith), who is in turn married to a woman traumatized by her child dying (Julie Harris); comforting her is a (stereotypically) effeminate servant (Zorro David); meanwhile, an enlisted man (Robert Forster) is a peeping tom who likes to go out riding buck naked, driving Brando's character to distraction. Whew, that's a lot, and maybe too much. The melodrama that works in print is less successful on the screen, even though the film is faithful to it, and both are pretty reserved, leaving a lot to our imaginations.
As in some of his other films, I'm not quite sure about the accent Brando affects, but in his scenes of emotional intensity and in those where his character quietly tries to reconcile the fact that he's a "square peg in a round hole", he's brilliant, and as always, fascinating. Taylor is pretty strong too, especially when she dominates him, which she does both physically and mentally, at one point parading around the house defiantly nude. I'm not sure about the supporting cast though, as they seemed a little flat, and I didn't like some of the choices Huston made. The color palette is tinged yellow and subdued to just barely above black and white throughout the film, the soundtrack is dated, the pacing is off, and the ending camera movement not very artistic, to put it kindly. I loved the emotional angst but to be honest, I struggled to stay fully interested. Worth seeing though.