Elizabeth Taylor won her second Oscar for this abrasive four-hander about an embattled middle-ageing couple living on a college campus. `You are cordially invited to George and Martha's for an evening of fun and games,' said the publicity at the time. But George and Martha's idea of fun and games is a marathon, macabre shouting match, in which the young couple who are their guests for the evening become semi-willing participants. The film's main strength is its very powerful dialogue, the creation of playwright Edward Albee, admirably translated for the screen in Ernest Lehman's screenplay, which tinkers little with the original, leaving sufficient strong language to preserve the flavour of the thing, without alienating the more general cinema-going public. Alex North's music offsets the mood in exactly the right proportion. As Martha and George, Miss Taylor and Richard Burton never quite get away from being Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, although Miss Taylor, de-glamourised at least about the face, and looking most unlike her usual self, is every bit as good as we have any right to expect in such a demanding part.

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