The Killing of Sister George

Robert Aldrich's 1968 film adapts Frank Marcus's 1964 play. June Buckridge plays Sister George, a beloved nurse in a popular daytime serial, and when she learns the character is to be written out her life starts coming apart. At home she lives with Childie, a much younger lover, in a relationship built on drink, humiliation and dependency. The BBC executive who made the decision then begins showing an interest in Childie. Aldrich takes the play's black comedy and turns it into straight drama, showing the lesbian relationship with a directness unheard of in the cinema of the time, which made it the first serious film to be given an X rating in the United States. Beryl Reid had played the role on stage. Who it's for: viewers curious about bold late-sixties American cinema and the history of queer film. Who it's not for: anyone who will find what these characters do to each other hard to watch; the relationship is corrosive throughout.