Hysterical, and most definitely strained: Shirley MacLaine's a closet lesbian with a thing for Audrey Hepburn, only it's, like, forbidden 'n all. And when a spiteful young girl at the boarding school they run gets the funny idea they could be more than just close friends, she blurts to her blue-blooded Grandmother – and you know what they say about rumours. Soon, every other mother in town's recalled her daughter from school; rednecks in a pickup truck circle the premises; even the delivery guy leers, fantasizing lewd thoughts about the hot pair. James Garner doesn't strike me as a romantic foil to Hepburn at all, but he's cast as her husband-to-be with a flawed noble streak. They look nothing like a couple, but it gets under MacLaine's skin anyway. She pines and pines some more until she can no longer bear to hide it: she likes girls!

An early sixties adaptation of the Lillian Hellman play by William Wyler (nearing the twilight of his career), it's shot in "serious" black and white, but is as genteel as a Disney special: any talk of homosexuality occurs out of earshot, while there's a constant of euphemisms and skirting around the L word. Wyler even commandeers the costume department to avoid stating what he can imply: one's made to look frumpy, while the other's feminine and well-dressed. And when it comes time for MacLaine's big coming out, there's plenty of talk about feeling "so damn sick and dirty", but no actual declaration that she's gay. The words never leave her mouth, and Hepburn has a pretty hard time comprehending it, with some titanic brow contortions that threaten spontaneous combustion. God bless her, but this is so not her territory.—Tim Wong

» William Wyler | USA | 1961