The Killing of Sister George was a dark, quasi-absurdist play about a beloved soap opera actress and her combative relations with two other women: her lover and a network executive. Robert Aldrich also produced his no-holds-barred screen adaptation, famously amplifying the lesbianism inherent in the original. The film’s semi-explicit sex scene and racy tone earned it one of the first “X” ratings in American cinema and the label of cult and/or camp classic. The Killing of Sister George also marks a high point for the Grand Guignol cinema that Aldrich had defined earlier in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) and a furthest expression of his continued fascination with cruelty, faded stardom and the spiked cocktail of impossible love.