Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48525 in DVD
• Released on: 1997-10-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 131 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
A word of advice: If George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) ever ask you over for late-night cocktails--pass. On the other hand, if you have the opportunity to see Mike Nichols's scorching film version of Edward Albee's sensational play, don't miss it! Elegantly photographed in crisp black and white by the great Haskell Wexler, the play has been "opened up" for the screen by director Nichols (The Graduate, Primary Colors) and producer-writer Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest) without diluting its concentrated, claustrophobic power. Taylor has never been better or brasher as Martha, letting loose with all the fury of a drunken, frustrated academic's wife on one crazy Walpurgisnacht bender. Burton plays her husband, George, the ineffectual history prof married to the college president's daughter. And George Segal and Sandy Dennis are young, callow Nick and Honey, who have no idea what sort of mind-warping psychological games they're being drawn into. Among the most successful theatrical adaptations (artistically and popularly) ever brought to the screen. The entire principal cast was nominated for Oscars--and Taylor, Dennis, and cinematographer Wexler won. --Jim Emerson

Customer Reviews

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
I always have fun watching boozy George and Martha play "Get the Guest" throughout most of the two hours of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" New prof Nick and delicate waif-wife Honey accept a late, late nightcap invite from the dean's daughter, Martha, who happens to be married to has-been history professor George. You can't help feel sorry for Nick and Honey who have no idea what they are in for, as George and Martha hurl the most vicious insults at each other and replay the lowlights of their decaying marriage. In turn, Nick and Honey learn some unsettling things about themselves and their own wedded "bliss."

Elizabeth Taylor as Martha chews up the scenery and her fellow actors, though I hasten to add that I don't mean that pejoratively. You truly believe that she is a drunk, frustrated man-eater, totally disenchanted with her "ol' swampy" bog of a husband who never did live up to her and dean-daddy's expectations. Nick and Honey seem like slight variations on this older couple, and in their self-loathing, George and Martha delight in tearing them down as much as they do each other.

A serious yet fun portrait of a ruined marriage.

One of the best movies ever made
One of the best movies ever made. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor are outstanding. It has some very humorous lines even though the overall movie is rather depressing. I've watched it over and over.

Virginia Woolf Review
I enjoyed this movie. I like how the directors of the movie move the fear of Virginia to the humbling of Virginia. I like how Burton comes up with his plan to overcome Woolf in the movie. I even wrote a thesis on the movie. My professor loves the article and praises me in her letter that she wrote back to me. The movie shows a side of Taylor that beginning Theatre students are exposed to. All in all, I enjoyed being exposed to an old movie that still has relevance to today. Eric Davis