The Killing of Sister George (1968) Queer Film (B)

The Killing of Sister George
DIRECTOR: Robert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George plays like a bruised, airless chamber piece about identity, power, and the unravelling of a woman who has built her life on performance. Adapted by Lukas Heller from Frank Marcus’s play, it follows June Buckridge—“Sister George” to her millions of radio listeners (Beryl Reid)—a beloved, saintly nurse on a BBC soap. Off‑air, she’s a hard‑drinking, foul‑mouthed bully, terrified that the role sustaining her public image and private ego is slipping away.
Her home life offers no refuge. June lives with Childie (Susannah York), her much younger, emotionally fragile partner, whom she alternately smothers and intimidates out of fear of being left. When whispers begin that the BBC intends to kill off Sister George, June’s panic metastasizes, and the boundaries between professional humiliation and domestic cruelty collapse. Into this emotional wreckage steps Mrs. Croft (Coral Browne), an impeccably controlled BBC executive who senses weakness and exploits it with surgical calm, widening the gulf between the two women.

THE FIRST LOOK INSIDE A LESBIAN BAR

STREAMING: Kino Lorber (YouTube)

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