Le deuil sied à Électre

Miscast, stagnant version of something that's heavy going to begin with. Redgrave is good as Orin the haunted son. Rosalind tries but is just the wrong actress for the part, ideally it should have been Katharine Hepburn or Olivia de Havilland. She owed Dudley Nichols a favor for adapting and directing the story of Sister Kenny, a dream project for her and this was his but could only get it made with her participation, she even admitted that she was wrong for it but felt a sense of loyalty and went forward. Katina Paxinou gives an overblown operatic performance in a part that would have fit Garbo perfectly. The play is really too complex for a standard film version, the extended PBS production in the late 70s with Joan Hackett and Roberta Maxwell got it right but that one clocks in at just under five hours.