Way, way too much film for 1967 . Huston and the cast made a good job out of difficult material, but the mediocre box-office should not have surprised anyone; audiences brought up on films filtered by the production code simply weren't ready for the themes portrayed.
Liz Taylor does a master turn as a a southern virago penned up in a patently unsatisfactory marriage with Marlon Brando's insipid Major Wendel. One may well ask how they came to be married in the first place. She prefers men of a more red-blooded persuasion and is accommodated by one of Wendel's superior officers, whose own marriage is equally problematic. The greater part of the story revolves around the dynamics of these two marriages in the fishbowl world of the rural army post. With the nation at peace, the soldiers apparently have little to do and the devil obligingly provides them with some alternative activities to relieve their idleness.
I liked Brian Keith's portrayal of the laconic Lt Col Langdon, who cares for his wife deeply, but who doesn't agonize unduly over the moral dimensions of his affair with the voluptuous Leonora Presumably, the entire post is aware of this relationship with the sole exception of Major Wendel, who is treated with ill-disguised contempt by just about everyone. "Your wife is cheating" , Langdon casually informs Wendel in the context of a card game Langdon is playing with Mrs Wendel.
Marlon Brando clearly has some trouble with his role, and it is by far the most difficult part in the film. Huston's directorial style may have impeded Brando from properly coming to grips with the character, and in any case, sharing a stage with Liz was a tough number for even the best of them. However, the most important scene between the two, the "riding crop" incident, was excellently portrayed by both actors. This scene is correctly treated by Huston as being the essential climax of the whole story.
The role of the fragile, tragic Alison Langdon is superbly performed by Julie Harris. Alison is only too well aware of her husband's waywardness and despises Mrs Wendel to the point of insanity. Mrs Wendel for her part does not even see the problem and (apparently genuinely) pities Mrs Langdon and wants to be her friend. The appalling dynamic between the two women is well portrayed, as is the platonic relationship between Alison and her strange manservant.
Less well structured is the portrayal of Wendel's unrequited love interest with Private Williams, who himself is rather "alternative" sexually, but apparently not homosexual and therefore unable to appreciate or reciprocate Wendel's feelings. The film as a whole could possibly have benefited from a more explicit definition of Wendel's homosexuality , but the director could obviously only go so far in 1967. Alternatively, the opposite tack could have been pursued of letting the audience "do most of the work" in regard to Wendel's sexuality, but that would have required a lot more Brando on screen and somewhat less Liz; a devil of a choice for any director.
In fact, Huston deserves top marks for this film. It would have been a very tough call for any director and the combination of Liz Taylor and Brando was a most unusual casting combination. Liz is a fine actress, but was very much of the "old school", trained to expect and hence demand careful attention from the director at all times in all her scenes. Brando, on the other hand (and like Eli Wallach in this respect) was the "master of the method" and only really needed a director on hand to organize the camera angles and arrange the lights. Accommodating these diametrically different acting philosophies as well as the two gigantic egos on the one set would have made for a hard day's work, even for John Huston.
R. B.
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