Years before "A Clockwork Orange," "Se7en," "12 Monkeys," "The Matrix," "Fight Club," "Memento" and all of those other weird psychological films designed solely to mess with the audience's mind, there was "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?." It's not science fiction, it's stagy, shot in stark black-and-white and (unless you count a shotgun prop) there's no special effects. Therein is the brilliance of it. The whole story is relayed through layered dialogue, much of which seems so innocuous that it doesn't feel crucial to the plot. I'd heard the name before but knew absolutely nothing about the film when I first caught it on cable a decade ago -- and that was probably for the best. I'm not a stupid guy, but I'm not ashamed to admit it took me three or four times watching the movie to fully comprehend everything. And because that never happens (I usually have films figured out long before the characters do), the movie sort of endeared itself to me.
We have the movie to thank (or blame, depending upon how one perceives it) for shattering the old Hollywood conventions. The film is littered with profanity and sexual innuendo, the likes of which had never been included in a film up to this point. Although movie ratings weren't yet in place, this was the first picture where theatre managers prohibited admittance to people under 18. The profanity and sex talk seems rather tame today (since they drop 50 f-bombs a minute in every other movie) but it was pretty shocking for 1966.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was the first (and only?) film to be released in its entirety on LP . This is probably because it's so convoluted that it takes more than once for the audience to digest everything. There was no home video or internet in those days -- and there was no way in hell that any of the three existing networks were going to broadcast the movie without hacking it to pieces. So a dialogue album was actually a pretty clever marketing move.
There's a few interesting things about the album. For starters, the only piece of music heard on the entire double-LP is "Virginia Woolf Rock," which plays while Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and Nick (George Segal) are dancing -- however, it plays a little differently than it does in the film. Also, there's at least one alternate take (Taylors memorable "Goddamn you!" line is "Screw You!" on the album, and I think some of the dialogue from the dancing sequence might be lifted from a different take). It's also worth mentioning the Martha's boxing story is heard clearly while in the film it becomes muffled as George goes into another room to get his gun. The album runs about a half hour shorter than the movie -- virtually every line remains intact, but most pauses and long silent moments were removed.
I can't take any credit for this rip. It was contributed by Rick, who is the proprietor of an incredible site on Sonny & Cher. According to Soundtrack Collector, this album was issued on CD a few years ago, but I really think that's a mistake -- seems to be the score that was re-released, not the dialogue album. Though you'd hardly know this wasn't ripped from a CD because Rick did such a fantastic job remastering it, and he even included scans of the covers and gatefold! Copies of this LP are scarce today and tend to sell in the double-to-triple digits, so get it now!
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Dialogue Soundtrack Album
01. Disc 1
02. Disc 2
We have the movie to thank (or blame, depending upon how one perceives it) for shattering the old Hollywood conventions. The film is littered with profanity and sexual innuendo, the likes of which had never been included in a film up to this point. Although movie ratings weren't yet in place, this was the first picture where theatre managers prohibited admittance to people under 18. The profanity and sex talk seems rather tame today (since they drop 50 f-bombs a minute in every other movie) but it was pretty shocking for 1966.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was the first (and only?) film to be released in its entirety on LP . This is probably because it's so convoluted that it takes more than once for the audience to digest everything. There was no home video or internet in those days -- and there was no way in hell that any of the three existing networks were going to broadcast the movie without hacking it to pieces. So a dialogue album was actually a pretty clever marketing move.
There's a few interesting things about the album. For starters, the only piece of music heard on the entire double-LP is "Virginia Woolf Rock," which plays while Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and Nick (George Segal) are dancing -- however, it plays a little differently than it does in the film. Also, there's at least one alternate take (Taylors memorable "Goddamn you!" line is "Screw You!" on the album, and I think some of the dialogue from the dancing sequence might be lifted from a different take). It's also worth mentioning the Martha's boxing story is heard clearly while in the film it becomes muffled as George goes into another room to get his gun. The album runs about a half hour shorter than the movie -- virtually every line remains intact, but most pauses and long silent moments were removed.
I can't take any credit for this rip. It was contributed by Rick, who is the proprietor of an incredible site on Sonny & Cher. According to Soundtrack Collector, this album was issued on CD a few years ago, but I really think that's a mistake -- seems to be the score that was re-released, not the dialogue album. Though you'd hardly know this wasn't ripped from a CD because Rick did such a fantastic job remastering it, and he even included scans of the covers and gatefold! Copies of this LP are scarce today and tend to sell in the double-to-triple digits, so get it now!
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?Dialogue Soundtrack Album
01. Disc 1
02. Disc 2
