Very disappointed :(

ridiculous rating

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This review gets away from the Lesbian content, and mentions a little more about the director Robert Aldrich. There are famous commentators on the cinema that make claims on his decline towards the end of his career. The Killing of Sister George is put into the same category as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. This I do not agree with (discounting Baby Jane and its own self-contained effectively Gothic world) as I believe Aldrich returns in Sister George to the same emotional depths of pain and endurance as films like Autumn Leaves and above all The Big Knife (perhaps his greatest masterpiece). In The Big Knife, an actor is burnt out of the media system in a similar way; Coral Browne as Rod Steiger. Even the howl of utter anguish at the end is similar if not the same as the cry of horror that Ida Lupino gives in The Big Knife. And the physical abuse that lovers inflict on each other: the cigar butt eating scene in Sister George mirrors the crashing of the typewriter on Joan Crawford's hands in Autumn Leaves. The Aldrich vision is stark and seemingly cold; but it is the burning coldness of fire. This is rightly a bold film on Lesbianism. It is an Aldrich view of it, as mental illness was in Autumn Leaves, and the picture of both are of their time. What is timeless is the consistency of vision and the contemplation of a flawed humanity

Beryl Reid gives the performance of a lifetime in this film about lesbian roommates, one of which is an actress. The main plot revolves around the possibility of Beryl Reid's character on a TV show being written off (the show.) Her relationship with roommate Susannah York is very interesting. But, suffice it to say, Beryl is very dominating, possessive, and demanding. She wants to know where she's been all the time and likes to throw her weight around. At middle age and with extra weight, she is no longer the beauty she once was, and, as someone points out to her late in the film, she is not the ideal desired sex object for young women. To describe this film with mere words really doesn't do the film justice. Granted Beryl's performance is the whole show. But the movie is an experience you're not likely to forget, especially with a love scene between two ladies near the end of it. Coral Browne is quite good and memorable in her role as well. But "The Killing of Sister George" belongs to Beryl Reid and this film's hard-to-find status is only hurting people's chances at seeing Ms. Reid at her best.

This movie is a heck of a lot more relevant than more recent films dealing with lesbianism -- the shallow, lame DESERT HEARTS comes to mind. Though over two hours long, TKOSG held me with little effort. The action moved freely from the studio to the apartment to the pub. And the seduction scene was totally erotic and ... well ... never mind. Was this particular scene overly long? Only to a generation raised on sex scenes which rarely last as long as it takes to cook a three-minute egg. Explicit? Grow up!And the performances ... wow! I had no problem with the hold George had over Childie, with Beryl Reid's superior portrayal complemented perfectly by Susannah York's fragile and, at the same time, forceful Childie. I must admit, York was a bit over the top in the beginning, but I wouldn't say that if I didn't count her as one of my all-time favorite actresses. And how about Coral Browne -- she was sensational! Sublty menacing, eerily sensuous -- and when I realized this was the same woman from AUNTIE MAME and LYLA CLARE, well, I nearly fell off my chair. I love this lady!

I never saw Reid on stage, but I saw a production by a local amateur groupwhich was much, much better than this film version. The director doesn'tunderstand the timing of the very British irony, wit, bitchiness and waspishness, and consequently the actresses flounder and the camera doesn't frame themright. Reid and York's flat should look sinister, with its mounds of dolls and grown woman in a babydoll nightie in the daytime, but these details are justTHERE. Imagine what a British noir director (Rober Hamer?) would have donewith them. York is lovely, but her voice is wrong, wrong, wrong. She shouldhave a whiny, slightly Cockney accent. She sounds like a debutantecomplaining that her icecream has gone runny. As for Reid, she is too cuddlyand lovable for the part. It would be fun to make this film again. xxxxx