Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)

The DVD contains this opening statement: “The restoration you are about to see replicates Director John Huston’s original stylized color design which uses muted color and a warm golden tone to reflect the atmosphere and drama of the story. The feature appeared in theaters for just one week with this original color design before the studio imposed a full color treatment for general release which did not reflect Huston’s original vision.” What it doesn’t tell you is that Huston’s vision was rather pretentious. I haven’t read the Carson McCullers novel but suspect that (like many a sprawling tome; e.g. Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith) trying to make a film from it would be an ambitious undertaking and clearly it was. The question is – was it worth the effort? Huston also produced the film (with Ray Stark); Gladys Hill and Chapman Mortimer wrote the screenplay.

It certainly won’t be a satisfying experience for most viewers: the movie opens with a teaser about a murder on a fort (military base) down South (late 1940’s peacetime) and then proceeds to make you forget all about said clue as it delves into a psychological character study of a repressed homosexual Army Major (played like only Marlon Brando could) and his overtly heterosexual military brat wife expertly played by Elizabeth Taylor. Appropriately Montgomery Clift had been cast in the leading role before he (died in July 1966 and) was replaced by Brando. Supporting characters include Brian Keith as a Lieutenant Colonel who satisfies Taylor’s carnal needs Julie Harris as his mildly psychotic and depressed wife (she’d lost a baby shortly after childbirth some three years earlier) and professes to see things that aren’t there such that no one believes her when she really has and Zorro David as her effeminate artist-oriental house boy servant and companion. Robert Forster plays a Private who takes care of the base’s horses including Taylor’s stallion “Firebird”. Forster’s character is also an oddball – it’s through his (golden) eye that the audience sees much of the story as he stalks Taylor even entering her bedroom at night to touch her things and watch her while she sleeps; he also boldly (and skillfully) rides another horse “bareback and bare-naked”. Irvin Dugan also appears as an unlikeable Captain; his role serves to illustrate some of the Major’s other shortcomings. The drama leads to the death of two of these characters in a way that makes the movie seem longer than its 108 minutes.

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