Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1966 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols in his film directorial debut, produced and adapted by Ernest Lehman from Edward Albee's 1962 play. It stars Elizabeth Taylor as Martha, Richard Burton as George, George Segal as Nick, and Sandy Dennis as Honey. The film depicts a late-night gathering at the home of a college professor and his wife.
The film was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on June 21, 1966, and was both a major critical and commercial success. It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Mike Nichols. It is one of only three films to be nominated in every possible category at the Academy Awards (the others are Cimarron and Sinners). All four main actors were nominated in their respective acting categories, the first time a film's entire credited cast was nominated.
The film won five Oscars: a second Academy Award for Best Actress for Taylor, Best Supporting Actress for Dennis, Best Cinematography, Best Black and White Art Direction and Best Costume Design.
In 2013, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot George, an associate professor of history at a small New England college, and his wife Martha, the daughter of the university president, return home drunk from a party. Martha has invited a young married couple she met at the party for a drink. Surmising that the invited husband is the blond, athletic new professor, George is reluctant, but Martha gives him no option.
The guests arrive — Nick, a biology professor, and his wife, Honey — just before 2:30 a.m. As the four drink, Martha and George engage in back and forth scathing verbal abuse in front of Nick and Honey. The younger couple is first embarrassed and later entangled. Martha angers George by telling Honey about their son, who will celebrate his 16th birthday the next day. Martha's divulging of this information sets off another fight between the two and the women leave the room.
Alone with George, Nick confesses that he was attracted to Honey for her family's money and married her only because he mistakenly believed she was pregnant. George describes his own marriage as one of never-ending accommodation and adjustment, then admits he considers Nick a threat. George also tells a story about a boy he grew up with who had accidentally killed his mother and, years later, his father, and lived out his days in a mental hospital. Nick admits that he aims to charm and sleep his way to the top and jokes that Martha would be a good place to start.
When their guests propose leaving, a drunken George insists on driving them home. The four approach a roadhouse, and Honey suggests they stop to dance. While Honey and George watch, Martha suggestively dances with Nick while continually mocking George. George finally unplugs the jukebox and announces the game is over. In response, Martha alludes to George’s having murdered his parents like the protagonist in his unpublished novel, prompting George to physically attack Martha until Nick pulls him away. George comments that since they've already played "humiliate the host", and it’s not yet time for "hump the hostess", they should try playing "get the guests". He adds that he's written a second novel about a teacher and his wife who marry because of her false pregnancy and family money. Honey realizes Nick has told George about their past and runs from the room.
Another argument, in which George warns Martha to stop the verbal attacks and Martha claims that George married her for the verbal sparring, leads to the two declaring “total war”. Martha drives off with Nick and Honey, leaving George to make his way back home on foot. He arrives to see the silhouettes of Martha and Nick together in the bedroom window and Honey distraught in the front yard. Through Honey's drunken babbling, George begins to suspect that her pregnancy was real and had been terminated secretly by abortion. Furthermore, he conjectures that Honey’s regular propensity to vomit, observed by Nick when Honey vomited earlier in the evening, flagged other secretly terminated pregnancies of which Nick remained unaware.
Inside, Martha accuses Nick of being sexually inadequate, which he blames on the large amount of liquor he has consumed. With the quartet together again, Martha and George resume arguing about their son, with each making lurid accusations about how the other negatively affected him. George finally ends the back and forth by dramatically announcing that he has received a telegram saying their son has been killed in a car accident.
As Martha begs George not to "kill" their son, Nick realizes the truth: Martha and George had been unable to have children and filled the void with an imaginary son. George explains that their one mutually agreed upon rule was to never mention the son to anyone else. George "killed" him because Martha broke that rule by mentioning him to Honey, dangerously confusing fantasy and reality. “Get the Guests”, unearthing Honey and Nick’s secrets, has neutralized their ability to gossip.
The young couple departs awkwardly at dawn, leaving George and Martha alone. George starts singing the song "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", and Martha responds, "I am, George, I am", while the two hold hands.
Cast The film features only four credited actors (as in the opening credits):
Production Development The film's title alludes to the English novelist Virginia Woolf. She died by suicide at age 59 in 1941, leaving a note in which she expressed love for her husband Leonard Woolf and sorrow for the anguish she was causing him. Twenty years later, playwright Edward Albee corresponded with him, asking permission to use his late wife's name in the title of a new play, according to literary critic Leon Edel, an acquaintance of Leonard Woolf. Woolf granted permission, according to Edel.
Albee's 1962 play was filled with dialogue that violated the standard moral guidelines for films at the time, including multiple instances of "goddamn" and "son of a bitch", along with "screw you", "up yours", "monkey nipples" and "hump the hostess". It opened on Broadway during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and audiences who had gone to the theater to forget the threat of nuclear war were shocked by the provocative language and situations that had not been seen before outside of experimental theater.
The immediate reaction of the theater audiences, eventually voiced by critics, had been that Albee had created a play that would be a great success on Broadway, but could never be filmed in its existing form. Neither the audience nor the critics understood how much the Hollywood landscape was changing in the 1960s, and that it could no longer live with any meaningful Production Code. In bringing the play to the screen, Ernest Lehman decided he would not change the dialogue that had shocked veteran theatergoers in New York only four years earlier. Despite serious opposition to this decision, Lehman prevailed.
Casting The choice of Elizabeth Taylor—at the time regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world—to play the frumpy, fifty-ish Martha surprised many, but the actress gained for the role. When Warner Bros. head Jack L. Warner approached Albee about buying the film rights for the play, he told Albee that he wanted to cast Bette Davis and James Mason in the roles of Martha and George.. In the script, Martha references Davis and quotes her famous "What a dump!" line from the film Beyond the Forest (1949). Albee was delighted by this cast, believing that "James Mason seemed absolutely right...and to watch Bette Davis do that Bette Davis imitation in that first scene—that would have been so wonderful". However, fearing that the talky, character-driven story would land with a resounding thud—and that audiences would grow weary of watching two hours of screaming between a harridan and a wimp—Nichols and Lehman cast stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Edward Albee was surprised by the casting decision, but later stated that Taylor was quite good and Burton was incredible. In the end, though, he still felt that "with Mason and Davis you would have had a less flashy and ultimately deeper film".
Filming Filming began on July 26, 1965, and around that time the Catholic Legion of Motion Pictures (formerly the Catholic Legion of Decency), issued a preliminary report announcing that, if what they heard was true, they might have to issue Virginia Woolf with the once-dreaded "condemned" rating, although they promised to wait to see the film. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) followed with an even stronger statement, warning the studio—without promising to wait for a screening—that if they were really thinking of leaving the Broadway play's language intact, they could forget about getting a seal of approval.
Most of the film's exteriors were shot on location at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Nichols insisted on this for verisimilitude, but later stated that he had made an error, that the location added nothing artistically, and that these scenes could as well have been shot on any soundstage. (Interior scenes indeed were filmed on a soundstage on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California.)
By December 13, 1965, all of the filming had wrapped, both in Northampton, Massachusetts and in Burbank, California.
Music The film's music is an original score by Alex North. At the time of the film's release, Warner Bros. Records released a gatefold two-LP record soundtrack album set that included the entire film's dialogue as the "Deluxe Edition Two-Record Set". The music was issued as a one-LP release that featured 11 tracks of North's score.
Differences from the play The film adaptation differs slightly from the play, which has only four characters. The minor characters of the roadhouse owner, who has only a few lines of dialogue, and his wife, who serves a tray of drinks and leaves silently, were played by the film's gaffer, Frank Flanagan, and his wife, Agnes.
The play is set entirely in Martha and George's house. In the film, one scene takes place at the roadhouse, one in George and Martha's yard, and one in their car. Despite these minor deviations, however, the film is extremely faithful to the play. The filmmakers used the original play as the screenplay and, aside from toning down some of the profanity slightly—Martha's "Screw you!" (which, in the 2005 Broadway revival, is "Fuck you!") becomes "God damn you!"—virtually all of the original dialogue remains intact, although a major monologue by Martha is cut. In the version released in the UK, "Screw you" is kept intact; in an interview at the time of the release, Taylor referred to this phrase as pushing boundaries.
Nick is never referred to or addressed by name during the film or the play.
Distribution Warner Bros. studio executives sat down to look at a rough cut, without music, and a Life magazine reporter was present. He printed the following quote from one of the studio chiefs: "My God! We've got a seven million dollar dirty movie on our hands!"