patroklosmech This Southern erotic drama casts Taylor, Brando and Julie Harris, three actors of unrelated background to create perfectly cast roles. Harris had worked in a previous McCullers adaptation and had been nominated for an Oscar. Brando had his well known background and Taylor had just started her track into decline after a decade in the limelight. A number of factors derailed the intended result: Brando replaced other considered actors as Richard Burton and Montgomery Clift (who died just before filming began). On one side it is good that We were spared another Burton-Taylor pairing in the form of protagonists, although I think Burton would make a great love interest of Taylors in the role of her extramarital affair in this movie. Furthermore, Brando had been plagued by failures in the '60s and was not the hot billing he was back in the mid fifties though he is of course quite satisfactory here! The sepia tone and a general state of hypnotism and summer laziness are evident in the film and I think this makes it a little unbearable to watch uninterruptedly.Also, the depiction of the locations of the events in the film do not provide much evident imagery that the film indeed unfolds in the South. It cold be anywhere in the warm states of the US. If I remember right, the novel was written not before World War II so it is almost contemporary to the film. No mentions or depictions of blacks, of the social routine in the South or the boiling discontent is depicted, much less is shown about segregation and racism. Of course I believe that, though unspecified, the exact place in the South that the film takes place is somewhere outside the Deep South. THat is supported by the film itself. Virginia, NC, Tennessee, Kentucky would be ideal for the setting of the film but not e.g. Mississippi. The setting is well restricted and confined. Finally, it is one of the cases I think a team of directors would do a better job than a single director. John Huston would be perfectly matched with a theatrical director to improve direction. To add a further positiv point, it is a film that really pushed the boundaries of erotic scenes and depictions. This is evident as there are scenes which you cannot believed were shot with the specific actors(!!!), especially a particular scene with Taylor that surprised me. Violence, sexual repression and a general atmosphere of desire boil into the film not always explosively but the film nonetheles deserves the characterisation of an erotic drama, in my opinion.

preppy-3 Overbaked Southern Gothic takes place at a military base. A homosexually repressed major (Marlon Brando) is unhappily married to his fun-loving wife (Elizabeth Taylor). She's cheating on him with a lieutenant (Brian Keith) who is married to an unstable woman (Julie Harris). Then there's a hunky young private (Robert Forster) who loves to ride horses in the nude.As you can see this is one strange movie. It's also shot (in certain prints) in desaturated color and given a golden hue over everything. It gives the movie a unique visual look and fits the mood and atmosphere perfectly. It LOOKS great and is well-directed...but that's basically about it. The plot is overly familiar and you can see the ending coming from a mile away. Brando gives a rare bad performance and his attempt at a Southern accent is laughable. Taylor, Keith and Harris are good and Foster is excellent. The sequences of him nude (back view only) are eerily beautiful. So it gets an 8 for visuals and some good acting but, all in all, doesn't completely work.

sirjasonwright A very deep and hard going arty film. In my opinion Brando only made a handful of entertaining films, this ain't one of them. I've been putting off watching this for years, having just viewed it I can see why. Brandos dialogue, what little there is, is muffled and extremely hard to understand. Would he really be a major teaching young officers tactics in a classroom when his dialogue is so illegible, sometimes Brando can be so hard going that you can lose interest in films he is in. The Filipino servant of Julie Harris is just unbelievably annoying especially his voice.the other thing that is jarring is the almost sepia picture- way too arty for its own good.About the best thing about this movie is the gorgeous and sexy Elizabath Taylor.

fwdixon The constant yellow tint to the film is VERY annoying. Brando is almost incomprehensible - mumbling his way thru his lines with a bad southern accent. The story is absurd. Brando is an Army Major married to Liz Taylor who is having an affair with Brian Keith whose wife cut off her nipples with garden shears after her baby died. No-nipples has an effeminate Asian houseboy who sings and dances for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, there's a PFC who like to ride horses in the buff, spend his evenings lurking in the shadows, and breaking into Liz's bedroom to fondle her underwear. Brando is attracted to the PFC and winds up shooting him in Liz's bedroom in the final scene. If this strikes you a dreadful bilge,you are 100% correct. Had it been played for laughs, it might have been slightly bearable but unfortunately it's played straight.