Reflections in a Golden Eye

“In the loosest sense he is her husband…and in the loosest way she is his wife!” So stated the tagline for director John Huston’s startling Southern Gothic, starring Marlon Brando (a last-minute replacement for Montgomery Clift) as a closeted gay Army Major whose domineering, horse-loving wife (Taylor) has eyes for the Lt. Col. next door (Brian Keith). In his first film role, Robert Forster is the young stable boy/voyeur who likes to touch Liz’s lingerie. Nude horseback riding, punishment by riding crop, self-mutilation and effeminate Filipino houseboys abound in this visually stunning hothouse melodrama based on the Carson McCullers novel.

“Four stars! Brando regains the peak of his magnificent talent. After his series of six or seven disastrous performances, even his admirers had given him up for lost. But it was too soon…Besides Brando, there is Miss Taylor, proving once again as she did in Virginia Woolf that she really can act, believe it or not.”

—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times