Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) on Netflix
George, a history professor, and his wife Martha, the college president's daughter, come home drunk from a faculty party. Martha has invited a young couple, Nick and Honey, over for drinks.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb8.0/1083,774 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
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Plot summary
Martha is the daughter of the president of a New England college, and George teaches history there. They come home drunk from a faculty party, and Martha has asked a young couple she met that evening to join them for drinks, without telling George first. Nick teaches biology at the college and Honey is his wife. The two reach the house around two in the morning and walk into an argument between their hosts. George and Martha insult each other in front of them, and each attempt at ordinary conversation sets off another round. Martha brings up their son, who is about to turn sixteen, and George grows angrier still while their guests sit caught in the middle.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Edward Albee wrote to Leonard Woolf around twenty years after his wife Virginia Woolf's suicide, asking permission to use her name in the title of his play; according to critic Leon Edel, Woolf agreed.
- Elizabeth Taylor, then thought one of the most beautiful women in the world, gained 30 pounds to play the frumpy, fifty-ish Martha.
- It was the first film to have its entire credited cast nominated for acting Oscars, a feat matched only by Sleuth in 1972 and Give 'em Hell, Harry! in 1975.
- Haskell Wexler's stark black-and-white photography won the last Academy Award ever given for Black and White Cinematography before the two camera categories were merged into one.
- As filming began in July 1965 the Catholic Legion of Motion Pictures warned it might brand the film "condemned", and the MPAA told Warner Bros. that keeping the Broadway play's language meant no seal of approval.
- Approval came only after Warner Bros. cut some profanity, put an adult-content warning on every advertisement and wrote a no-under-18s-without-an-adult clause into theater contracts; with Antonioni's Blow-Up the film pushed Jack Valenti towards the rating system of 1968, and Jack L. Warner is said to have paid a 5,000 dollar fine to keep the language.
- A Life magazine reporter sat in on the Warner Bros. executives' screening of the music-less rough cut and printed one studio chief's reaction: "My God! We've got a seven million dollar dirty movie on our hands!"
