Reflections in a Golden Eye

An army post. Major Penderton is married and gets on badly with his wife Leonora; she openly despises him and is involved with the officer next door. Penderton's own matter is different: there is a young private on the post and the major cannot take his eyes off him. The private, meanwhile, goes to Leonora's window at night and watches her. Next door the officer's wife carries her own pain; she lost her child and speaks to nobody but her servant. Everyone on the post is watching someone and nobody talks. John Huston directs. Marlon Brando plays Penderton and Elizabeth Taylor plays Leonora; Brian Keith and Julie Harris are in the cast. The source is Carson McCullers's novel. The film was first shown in a print tinted gold, with the colour almost entirely drained, a choice referring to the novel's title. The studio later replaced it with a normal colour print. Its subject is direct for the period; suppressed sexuality is openly at the centre. It was badly received on release and failed commercially; it was reassessed in later years. Brando's playing is inward and unexpressive; the character's collapse is given largely through silence. The narrative saves no character and the post is built as a closed box. Who it is for: viewers who like literary adaptation and work that pushed the limits of sixties American cinema. Who it is not for: the register is cold, the pace slow, and none of the characters is likeable.