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starring: Beryl Reid, Susannah York, Coral Browne, Ronald Fraser, Patricia Medinadirected by: Robert Aldrich
Audience Rating: X (Mature Audiences Only)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0013131057232
Format: Color, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Manufacturer: Starz / Anchor Bay
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay
Release Date: February 22, 2000
Running Time: 138 minutes
Sales Rank: 40794
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Theatrical Release Date: December 12, 1968
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
'Sister George' of the title is Britain's best-loved soap opera character, played by actress June Buckeridge (Beryl Reid). Buckeridge has become so identified with her character--a sweet old Miss Marple-ish nurse who putters around her quaint little village on a motor scooter--even her friends call her George. But outside the studio she's a hard-drinking, hot-tempered, foul-mouthed lesbian living with an immature young thing she's nicknamed 'Childie' (Susannah York, who makes her memorable entrance in a sheer baby-doll nightie). At her worst Sister George is an abusive monster (in a moment of rage she forces Childie to eat the butt of her cigar), but beneath the bluster is an insecure television actress. When the studio decides to kill her character off and an executive makes a play for Childie, the soap star desperately clings to her young lover. Director Robert Aldrich, best known for his tough action films and gothic thrillers, brings his fierce vision of human nature to Frank Marcus's play. In its best moments the film simmers in angry suspicion and helpless frustration, brought to life by Reid's vivacious performance, but other scenes are overlong and stage-bound and would have benefited greatly from judicious trimming and tightening. The caricatured portrayals of lesbian life have aged rather poorly--an inevitable sign of the times--but this acidic show biz drama still carries a hefty emotional punch. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Still Wonderful
THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE"
Still Wonderful
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
1968 seems so long ago and even stranger than that is the idea that a movie made about lesbians back then still holds its own today. When "The Killing of Sister George" hit the big screen back then, the public was not quite ready for it. Nonetheless, even with a lesbian plot, the reviews were good. Taboos were shattered on the screen when Beryl Reid played June, an actress ... Read More
Rating:  - Masterpiece
The Killing of Sister George (1968) is Robert Aldritch's masterpiece: one of the most harrowing films ever made on the subject of show business and masochistic relationships. Cynical yet painfully human, it is far superior to his much more well-known Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. Beryl Reid, Susannah York & Coral Browne are magnificent and their performances pack an intense emotional wallop. The fact that the movie's principals are lesbians likely prevented people from appreciating the film for ... Read More
Rating:  - Sister George of the Jungle
Beryl Reed singlehandedly saves this movie. She manages to take a character that could have so easliy slid into camp caricature and make her an actual human being. At all times she projects the humanity in George, even when she is acting like a schreechy seven year old with ADD: boozing it up, being needlessly abusive to her girlfriend, huffily walking out on her TV show (even though she's in a precarious position on it). She's shrill, foolish, self-destructive and a bit mean, but Reed manages to make ... Read More
Rating:  - Watchable for Susannah York and a bit of the naughty at the end, but that's it
It's my own fault, I guess. I knew there was a provocative angle to "The Killing of Sister George," but because of the title I thought that in addition to the naughty stuff we'd be getting a murder mystery of some kind. So it all sounded good... a little mystery, a little sex, what more can one ask? Alas, there's no murder mystery: the title refers to Beryl Reid's actress character worrying about whether or not the "Sister George" character she plays on a TV drama is going to be killed off. Okay, but ... Read More
Rating: - Best Female Orgasm
This movie contains the best
female orgasm ever seen on the silver
screen!!.
It makes 'When Harry met Sally' look
like the sound of music (!!).
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