Thus, the movie, except for a few pertinent scenes, emerges as more talk than action, the characters themselves more interesting than almost anything the screenwriters have them doing. (Allegedly, that’s not Elizabeth Taylor nude in full figure from the back but rather a body double.) We also hear the graphic saga of the grieving Alison’s having cut off her nipples with garden shears rather than being shown that bit of graphic gore in a flashback. McCullers’ provocative book for their screenplay, but as the Production Code was still in its last gasps of existence, Major Penderton’s homosexuality (and that of both Anacleto and another Army officer Captain Weincheck) has to be implicitly rather than explicitly expressed, and the nudity of both Leonora and Private Williams (who enjoys riding horses bareback with no clothes on) must be photographed from a distance.
Gladys Hill and Chapman Mortimer have adapted Mrs. Williams becomes obsessed, too, with the major’s provocative wife who strolls around her house in the nude, rides her beautiful horse with abandon, and makes no secret of her attraction to the opposite sex. Williams (Robert Forster) and Alison in blocking out memories of her deceased child by throwing herself into projects initiated by her fey houseboy Anacleto (Zorro David). Langdon and Leonora from carrying on an affair, a situation which seems rather obvious to both cuckolded partners who are unconcerned since their attentions are directed elsewhere: Major Penderton in his growing obsession with enlisted Private L.G.
Their emotional distance from their respective spouses doesn’t stop Col. On a Southern Army base, two unhappily married couples, Major Penderton (Marlon Brando) and his wife Leonora (Elizabeth Taylor) and Colonel Langdon (Brian Keith) and his wife Alison (Julie Harris), are going through the motions of coupledom though both members of each couple sleep in separate bedrooms and are emotionally withdrawn from one other.
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