8:20 p.m.	The Killing of Sister George Robert Aldrich (U.S./U.K., 1968)

“Sister George” is a TV character portrayed by aging actress June Buckridge (Beryl Reid with wig awash). George of the soaps is a kindly matron bicycling about the English countryside; George off-screen is a catty “dyke” clinging desperately to her baby-doll lover, Childie (Susannah York). In this milieu, bitchy behavior is not a derisive reduction, but a manner of inspired repartee that sears as it soars. This notorious film, the first with an explicit lesbian love scene, was also the first produced in Aldrich’s own studio. Based on the popular play, the production was a calculated move to establish an independent vision, using risqué subject matter to stir controversy. And stir it did, though Reid’s sad souse, agonizing over her decrepit decline, is a tragicomic creation of stirring proportion. The titular demise is the cancellation of her TV character, whose ratings are falling faster than George’s sagging soul. The Killing . . . was rated X for excessive.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Lucas Heller, based on the play by Frank Marcus. Photographed by Joseph Biroc. With Beryl Reid, Susannah York, Coral Browne, Ronald Fraser. (138 mins, Color, 35mm, From Buena Vista)