Legendary film director Robert Aldrich, known for helming such tough guy films as Kiss Me Deadly, The Dirty Dozen, Ulzana’s Raid, and The Longest Yard took his career in a dramatically different direction when he directed the ground breaking, black comedy-drama about a middle-aged lesbian (Beryl Reid) and her much younger lover (Susannah York) in The Killing of Sister George. Reid plays June “George” Buckridge, an actress who plays the likable and wise nun Sister George on a successful BBC soap opera, that is nothing like her barbed tongued, alcohol imbibing, real life self. As characters start to get killed off the show, June worries that her character might be next in-line, which causes erratic and paranoid behavior on her part – spilling over into her complicated and at times emotionally abusive relationship with her lover Alice (York), who depends on June financially. As June’s job on the show is threatened at the hands of the no-nonsense BBC executive Mrs. Croft (Coral Browne), who is quite taken with the beauty of young Alice, Aldrich builds towards an ending that captures betrayal in an eerily seductive scene that was ahead of its time.
