Abstract
The chapter seeks to explore how Beryl Reid’s roles as she entered middle age cultivated the persona of the grande dame guignol within the context of relationships with younger partners in the dark comedies The Killing of Sister George (Robert Aldrich, 1968) and Entertaining Mr Sloane (Douglas Hickox, 1970). These roles departed from the dominant representations of ageing femininity in film comedy which typically elided any suggestion of sexuality. Drawing on Mary Russo’s work on the ‘female grotesque’, the chapter will explore Reid’s performance as the older woman in dysfunctional relationships, in roles which articulated a profound cultural distaste for ageing sexuality. The ageing spinsters at the heart of the narratives are deployed as warnings of the dangers of both family and social dysfunction, and the consequences of unbridled sexuality and the breakdown in traditional gender roles.
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