The Killing of Sister George

Am I the only one who finds it painfully touching that Robert Aldrich went from the biggest hit of his career--the almost woman-free DIRTY DOZEN--to the kind of movie he really wanted to make, i.e., a stagebound melodrama about an aging lesbian soap star's love for a demented nymphet? In its day, SISTER GEORGE was considered the ne plus ultra in coarse homophobia; critics saw the sweaty thumbprints of the Aldrich Touch on every girl-on-girl scene. (Does anyone now lambaste THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT for not being hardhitting docudrama?) In retrospect, the movie seems to me one of Aldrich's most affecting, with Coral Browne (December) and a teeny, teenaged Susannah York (May) grand-slamming this folie a deux to a fare-thee-well.