An egocentric artillery captain and his venomous wife engage in savage unremitting battles in their isolated island fortress of the coast of Sweden at the turn of the century. Alice, a former actress who sacrificed her career for secluded military life with Edgar, reveals on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary, the veritable hell their marriage has been. Edgar, an aging schizoid who refuses to acknowledge his severe illness, struggles to sustain his ferocity and arrogance with an animal disregard for other people. Sensing that Alice together with her cousin and would-be lover, Kurt, may ally against him , retaliates with vicious force. Alice lures Kurt into the illusion of sharing a passionate assignation and recruits him in a plot to destroy Edgar.
Director: David Giles.
Stars: Laurence Olivier, Geraldine McEwan, Robert Lang, Janina Faye, Malcolm Reynolds, Jeanne Watts, Peter Penry-Jones, Maggie Riley, Carolyn Jones, Frederick Pyne, Barry James, David Ryall.
thanks Jon, one of those films kept avoiding me and thanks to you I have this opportunity
Dreadful sets.Larry going over the top. Dull direction. Bob Lang is worth a watch, As he always is.
Friends who saw this on stage, found this an interesting attempt by Olivier..
I wish they had spent more time on lighting.
The set is just an officers quaters in a fortrait.
When John Guare was a student in London, he saw this Old Vic D of D at a matinee, and A Flea in Her Ear w/Olivier as a waiter, that same night.
(or perhaps the other way round), Which inspired Guare to write his play, House of Blue Leaves.