Plot summary

On a U.S. Army post circa 1948, Major Weldon Penderton (Marlon Brando), who is an impotent, latent homosexual is married to infantile birdbrain Leonora (Dame Elizabeth Taylor), who never misses an opportunity to ridicule his masculine failings. He displaces his hostility by brutally flogging her horse and she retaliates by humiliating him before a houseful of guests, repeatedly slashing him across the face with her riding crop. She is also committing adultery with the officer next door, Lieutenant Colonel Morris Langdon (Brian Keith), whose wife, Alison (Julie Harris), cut off her nipples with garden shears after the death of her baby. She has sought solace in the ministrations of her effeminate houseboy, Anacleto (Zorro David). The sixth character, coveted by the Major, is darkly handsome non-com Private L.G. Williams (Robert Forster), a voyeur and lingerie-fondler, given to nightly appearances as a peeping tom in the birdbrain's bedroom and daily sessions of horseback riding in the middle of the woods stark naked.—filmfactsman