Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

patroklosmech This Southern erotic drama casts Taylor, Brando and Julie Harris, three actors of unrelated background to create perfectly cast roles. Harris had worked in a previous McCullers adaptation and had been nominated for an Oscar. Brando had his well known background and Taylor had just started her track into decline after a decade in the limelight. A number of factors derailed the intended result: Brando replaced other considered actors as Richard Burton and Montgomery Clift (who died just before filming began). On one side it is good that We were spared another Burton-Taylor pairing in the form of protagonists, although I think Burton would make a great love interest of Taylors in the role of her extramarital affair in this movie. Furthermore, Brando had been plagued by failures in the '60s and was not the hot billing he was back in the mid fifties though he is of course quite satisfactory here! The sepia tone and a general state of hypnotism and summer laziness are evident in the film and I think this makes it a little unbearable to watch uninterruptedly.Also, the depiction of the locations of the events in the film do not provide much evident imagery that the film indeed unfolds in the South. It cold be anywhere in the warm states of the US. If I remember right, the novel was written not before World War II so it is almost contemporary to the film. No mentions or depictions of blacks, of the social routine in the South or the boiling discontent is depicted, much less is shown about segregation and racism. Of course I believe that, though unspecified, the exact place in the South that the film takes place is somewhere outside the Deep South. THat is supported by the film itself. Virginia, NC, Tennessee, Kentucky would be ideal for the setting of the film but not e.g. Mississippi. The setting is well restricted and confined. Finally, it is one of the cases I think a team of directors would do a better job than a single director. John Huston would be perfectly matched with a theatrical director to improve direction. To add a further positiv point, it is a film that really pushed the boundaries of erotic scenes and depictions. This is evident as there are scenes which you cannot believed were shot with the specific actors(!!!), especially a particular scene with Taylor that surprised me. Violence, sexual repression and a general atmosphere of desire boil into the film not always explosively but the film nonetheles deserves the characterisation of an erotic drama, in my opinion.

Prismark10 Welcome to the world of Southern Gothic, a genre in its own right as director John Huston adapts Carson McCullers novel.The breakdown of the Hays Code only allowed such a picture to be released in the mid 1960s with a daring depiction of sexual mores and sexuality in an army base along with some nudity and repressed emotions.The film deals with a group of grotesques in a Southern army base after the second world war. Elizabeth Taylor plays the slutty wife, Leonora of Major Penderton (Marlon Brando) who loves her horse, Firebird and as an affair with her neighbour Lt Colonel Langdon (Brian Keith.) There is a touch of the Cat on the Hot Tin Roof about Taylor's character, very much a spoilt rich girl on heat.A more subtle but also visceral performance is given by Brando. Left embarrassed by his wife's antics, in awe with army life and culture. Just look at the way he works out with weights, gives the lecture to a class and talks about the army at a dinner party. Yet Penderton is a repressed homosexual maybe why he is prepared to turn a blind eye to Leonora's infidelity.Langdon's only solace is his time with Leonora, his own wife played by Julie Harris has had a traumatic breakdown resulting in self harm and he also has to deal with an effeminate Filipino houseboy who brings great comfort to his wife.Robert Forster is the final piece in the jigsaw. His Private Williams cares for the horses in the army stables and has the habit of riding the horses naked in the fields. He becomes an object of Penderton's lust but Williams is also a creep himself. A voyeur who has a perverted desire for Leonora and sneaks into her bedroom and watches her.Huston uses subtle use of light and visual tricks such as reflection in Private Williams golden eye to infuse the film with some artistic pretensions as well as various symbolisms.Its a steamy, hothouse melodrama from the south, it imbues carnage, a tragic ending. Forster says few words in this film and his character has a dark edge, Brando despite a few heated argumentative scenes is more subtle here. He brings machismo and sympathy to a complicated character.The film just feels too pretentious though, Taylor is kind of replaying A Cat in a Hot Tin Roof and would go on to play a more better known role a year later dealing with the breakdown of a twisted, bitter married couple in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf.Its Brando thats makes the film watchable and gives it a sort of quirkiness but I felt that this adaptation never gained full steam.

sunznc Reflections of a Golden Eye is not a fantastic film in itself. It doesn't show off a great script or groundbreaking acting. What it is though is something completely different. In a world that now is enamored of mind numbing CGI and artificiality this is a breath of fresh air in that everyone is acting and they know they're acting. They're trying to say something. Okay, so maybe what they are saying isn't all that deep or new. Hell, repressed homosexuality is dated right? But there was a time when men didn't just come out of the closet and feel free to be gay. There was a time when we didn't talk about gay men except in a demeaning fashion.Elizabeth Taylor is acting for the sake of acting. So is Brian Keith and Robert Forster. Robert Forster's character goes out in the woods and sunbathes nude and rides his horse bareback while nude. Now, does anyone do this? No! But this is the vision of the director and he's trying to show you that this activity makes this man feel free. And because he's enlisted in the army his life is regimented. Does any of this matter? No. I wouldn't call this an art film but in a way it is. The film is a work of art. The most sane person in this group of people at a Southern Army base in peace time is a woman that everyone else considers disturbed or the verge of a nervous breakdown. But she isn't. She is the only one who is able to see how disturbed those around her truly are. And her companion is a gay Asian man who is totally dedicated to her. The bravest man around. Don't watch this film unless you are willing to accept that it's an artist's vision. That even seems too pretentious for this. It isn't for everyone but there are people out there who appreciate what it's intent is.

treeline1 There's big trouble at a southern Army base: The colonel (Marlon Brando) is a closeted wacko married to a beautiful but cruel woman (Elizabeth Taylor); she's having an affair with his best friend (Brian Keith) while a mysterious, horse-loving, enlisted man is a freaky prowler.This story of endless domestic turmoil is in the style of Tennessee Williams' work, but the script is confusing, shallow, and pointless with no likable characters to root for. Taylor's shrill, girlish voice is grating as is Brando's drawl which is so bad I needed subtitles. Brian Keith and Julie Harris, as his wife, are good but he's dull and she's spaced-out and dependent on a weird houseboy. The movie was originally filmed entirely in a dark, golden color which got old, fast. Also, the story is set in the 40s, but some of Taylor's wardrobe, make-up, and hairdos are right out of the sixties and her post-Cleopatra-look.This is an incredibly disjointed and slow-moving film that meanders around some pretty dysfunctional people without ever addressing their shortcomings straight on. Taylor and Brando's acting can only be described as hammy and I was more confused than entertained.