Tea and Sympathy

Dir. Vincente Minnelli. 1956, 122 mins. U.S. 35mm. With Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, Leif Erickson, Darryl Hickman, Norma Crane. Minnelli’s sensitive and multilayered adaptation of Robert Anderson’s Broadway hit about a mild-mannered boarding school student mercilessly mistreated for his possible homosexuality created a storm of controversy even before it was released. In buying the rights to the play, MGM was told by Hollywood’s draconian Production Code Administration that they would have to completely eradicate any reference to its character’s sexual “abnormality,” resulting in a film that dances around its own premise—but which is also completely clear in its unambiguous (and uncommon, even for today) diagnosis of toxic masculinity as the real social disease. And thanks to the complex performances of John Kerr as poor Tom Lee and Deborah Kerr as the sweet-souled and lonely headmaster’s wife who takes a liking to Tom; John Alton’s expressive Technicolor cinematography; and Minnelli’s unflaggingly humanist direction, Tea and Sympathy remains as powerful as ever, and is one of the most underappreciated melodramas of the 1950s.

Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth / $7 MoMI members. There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership.

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