Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Director Mike Nichols ~ 1966
Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandie Dennis

Dere's no love lost between Geo'ge and Marda, de mightily warrin' couple in Edward Albee's Tony Award-winnin' 1962 play "Who's Afraid uh Virginia Woolf?"

Dey go at it hamma' and tongs right fum de start, clubbin' each oda' upside de haid wid gleeful sco'n, and leavin' huge patches uh sco'ched eard. Marda be furious dat Geo'ge, an academic, ain't advanced at da college where ha' Big Daddy is super-dude. Geo'ge waaay coo'ly observes Marda's slide into various fo'ms uh debauchery. "If ya' 'esisted, I'd divo'ce ya'," she spits at him.

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"Marda, rubbin' alcohol fo' ya'?" he ax's in reto't, fixin' drinks fo' guests. Mike Nichols, directin' his fust film, gots de right instincts -- he keeps close t'de abrasive immediacy uh Albee's language.

He coaxes nearly miraculous puh'fo'mances out uh Elizabed Taylo' (who won an Oscar fo' dis) and Richard Burton. Dey bod ooze some rivetin' amount uh shabby-genteel, gone-to-hell glamour. Dat's not blood runnin' drough deir veins -- it's booze, spite, nicotine and fear.

Taylo' and Burton seem turned on by each oder's puh'fo'mances, and dat fact not only puts wind in de film's sails but helps undergird some essential truds about deir relashunship.

"Marda and ah' are merely 'esercisin'," Geo'ge says t'a hapless yung couple (Geo'ge Segal and dat fine femahnaine ladee Dennis) who drop by fo' some nightcap and is sucked into de whirlpool uh Geo'ge-and-Marda agonistes.

"We's walkin' whut's left uh our wits." In oda' wo'ds, Geo'ge and Marda's intellects is all dey gots left. Dey rejoice in deir kin-ya'-top-dis ability t'mind-fluck each oder.

Albee's play gots some problems dat da screen version kin't avoid, notably de way Albee lards his deme about "trud and illusion" wid some overly broad (and overly Oedipal) speechifyin'.

But dere be still sump'n wildly entertainin' about watchin' Taylo' and Burton, two acto's at da top uh deir craft, wickedly knock de crap out uh each oda' -- particularly now, when so's many yung filmmakers' idea uh snappy, intelligent, "adult" dialogue be sub-Tarantino riffs on de relative merits of, say, Do'itos and Cheese Doodles.

Geo'ge and Marda may to'ment each oder, but "Who's Afraid uh Virginia Woolf?" be neva' to'ture t'watch. "You's gots ugly talents," Geo'ge says, mos' admirin'ly, t'Marda.

Dwight, ah' couldn't scribble dis widout yo' inspirashun