Rating: Approved | Runtime: 131 minutes
Release Date: June 22nd, 1966 (USA)
Studio: Warner Bros.
Director(s): Mike Nichols
Writer(s): Ernest Lehman / Edward Albee (play)

I dance like the wind!

There really is nothing more frightening than a writer. Their ability to weave a story together that touches you with its realism is a very powerful gift. You’re cast under a spell, yearning for the next page’s discoveries. What occurs when you’re the orchestrator of it all, though? Edward Albee attempts to answer this question by pitting a middle-aged couple, all liquored up and ready to verbally spar with each other, against the twenty-something-year-old guests who’ve arrived at their doorstep to be pawns in their game.

What appears to be a very late nightcap of sarcasm and sharply stinging jabs soon unravels into tales of deceit as the hosts slowly chip away at the youngsters’ resolve and turn each other’s emotional screws. The film’s title posits the question, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as a sing-song joke to the tune of ‘The Big Bad Wolf’ that soon gets answered with the fact that they all are. George and Martha are writing the evening as each minute passes, growing angry and violent as they attempt to defeat the other. Not only are they scaring their guests, but they’re also frightening themselves with how far they’re willing to go.

What makes the film so good—besides a strong story and amazing acting—is that it comes from a first-time director in Mike Nichols. I saw it many years ago and loved it, so much that I even made a point to see the play performed here in Buffalo. Albee’s words are the backbone to one of the most intelligent scripts ever put to film (another being Nichols filmed adaptation Patrick Marber’s stageplay Closer) and succeeded well in-the-round for that local performance.

I’m currently reading Mark Harris’ bestseller Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood—one of whose five films is The Graduate. Originally slated to be Nichols’ first foray in Hollywood, it soon became decided that he’d cut his teeth on this Albee adaptation instead. Harris talks about the former comedian turned Tony-winning stage director reigning in America’s most volatile couple to make Woolf work. He took control and didn’t let the studio interfere with him hiring Haskell Wexler as cinematographer despite the producers wanting someone else (and his own eventual problems with him). It may help that the story includes only four characters, but don’t let that diminish the brilliance on display.

In the hands of a lesser artist, this film could have become a strict retelling of the play both in script and blocking with all wide-shots. That’s not the case here. Credit screenwriter Ernest Lehman for taking Albee’s work and making it more cinematic. He allows for changes in scenery to enhance the words being spoken by taking George and Nick—the young biology teacher newly arrived to the college where the former teaches history and Martha’s father is president—outside to be more candid away from the women.

Just having them talk while sitting on a tree swing in front of the older couple’s home becomes a subtle inroad to the topic of a son that ultimately plays a crucial role in the games at-hand. And the idea of adding a couple drunken drives, complete with a stop over at a deserted bar for jukebox music and dancing, only increases the tension and animosity growing. It serves as the place where ‘Humiliate the Host’ makes way for ‘Get the Guest’ and George’s decision to take control of the night’s festivities.

The second reason the film is proves more than a taped performance is its extensive use of close-ups. With so many long monologues waxing poetic—whether tales of truth or illusion—the camera often lingers on a character’s face to show inebriated stupors, bubbling rage, and tears streaming down cheeks once the fun becomes too hard to handle. Because of this showcase, no one can argue Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s greatness as George and Martha.

These two live a life of love and convenience. They may have gotten together for reasons that concerned their careers and social statuses, but love did eventually win out. In a couple instances towards the end we learn how they actually revel in their ability to rile the other up, relishing the delight it cultivates with the knowledge that the other will always fight back. Martha is slightly crazed, picking her battles and asking for the pain dealt her way as though needing the abuse to punish herself. She lets George lay into her to make up for the fact she let him fall in love with her.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn these two actors were really drinking throughout the production because their stupors are completely realistic and enhance their characters’ mood swings to impressive effect. Both turn so easily from laughter to tears and screams to soothing tones with each transition adding nuance to the games by lulling the other into a false sense of security before lashing out towards their jugular.

Their powerhouse performances do sometimes overshadow the effective work of the other two actors on-screen. George Segal shouldn’t be underestimated as the self-absorbed and short-fused newcomer Nick doing his best to toe the company line while seeing an opportunity for quick career advancement. Egged on by Burton to grasp for this possibility—both to see if he’ll go that far and also to see if his wife will follow—Segal becomes the straight man to the chaos as he seemingly can hold his liquor and keep his head. Yet that ability to appear sober only renders his transgressions viler because he’s consciously letting his ambition give into temptation, angrily reacting to show exactly how weak a ‘houseboy’ he is.

Sandy Dennis is fantastic as his wife Honey. Drunk from her first frame, she has the most difficult job of having to show her vulnerability through small flashes of clarity when overwhelmed by the activities occurring around her. Often the thinly veiled butt of George’s verbal jabs, her brandy-induced malaise spins from giddy excitement at familiar yarns to horrified embarrassment upon realizing the familiarity stems from those stories being about her. She may be the naïve throwaway along for the ride, but she also becomes a crucial unwitting partner for George and Martha’s constantly changing rules.

The games Albee has these characters play propel the story forward. Everyone is living within a world composed of just as much fiction as fact. One would agree this is true for the hosts, but I believe it is for the guests too. Honey has constructed a past to explain to herself how she got married—lies that make her life bearable while Nick cheats himself by staying with her, unsure if love or duty keeps him there. With the help of alcohol and their hosts’ cunning, both youngsters find themselves spilling their worst secrets, falling prey to a false sense of trust.

George conversely knows from the beginning what will transpire and does his best to keep emotions in check. Only when Martha throws the rules out the window does he decide to adapt and change the game so the tables turn away from himself and onto the other three. After his own humiliation is complete, the only thing left is to dress-down the others, achieve his revenge, and finally put an end to the shenanigans. He must finish what Martha started by going further than ever before.

Truth and illusion become intermingled throughout as each lie unravels little by little once the stakes get higher. It culminates in a climatic moment of pure unadulterated emotion pouring loose from all onscreen. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? crescendos from the very first frame of Burton and Taylor walking from background to foreground, the tension growing heavier with each step and only reaching its peak when the story is complete.

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Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLF?