Reflections in a Golden Eye

At a southern army base, a Major’s wife (Elizabeth Taylor) carries on an affair while her husband (Marlon Brando) becomes increasingly obsessed with a young private (Robert Forster).

Reflections in a Golden Eye is an interesting, but flawed, film that has lost much of its edge since its release.

The movie starts promising. Director John Huston does a fine job introducing the characters and establishing a quietly unsettling atmosphere that seems to permeate through every scene.

Then the movie stumbles through a long sequence involving Julie Harris’s character that keeps both Taylor and Brando off the screen and the movie starts to drag. And it keeps dragging right up to the abrupt and—by today’s standards—almost laughable conclusion.

In many ways, Reflections in a Golden Eye was a movie ahead of its time. In 1967, Huston simply couldn’t fully explore the themes the movie touches on, and the film suffers for it. While it may have packed a punch in 1967, the years have not been kind.