Superbly adapted with blistering performances from Taylor and Hepburn.

The main trouble with the picture is not its subject or its style, but its length.

The cast packs enough sexual ambiguity to satisfy the most rabid Williams fan (not to mention a screenplay by Gore Vidal), but Mankiewicz leaves much of the innuendo unexplored -- thankfully, perhaps.

Madness, homosexuality and cannibalism were just some of the ingredients that turned the picture into a cause celebre, with the end result alternating between stately serenity and outright hysteria.