The Group

The Group is a 1966 American ensemble film directed by Sidney Lumet based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Mary McCarthy about the lives of a group of eight female graduates from Vassar from 1933 to 1940. The cast of this social satire includes Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Elizabeth Hartman, Shirley Knight, Jessica Walter, Kathleen Widdoes, and Joanna Pettet. The film also features small roles for Hal Holbrook, Carrie Nye, James Broderick, Larry Hagman and Richard Mulligan. The film touched on controversial topics for its time: free love, contraception, abortion, lesbianism, and mental illness. Plot After their days at a prestigious Eastern university, eight devoted women friends go their separate ways. Wealthy and very beautiful Lakey, always regarded as their leader, leaves for Europe to begin a new life on her own. The domestic lives of the others go mainly awry. Priss marries an overbearing, controlling doctor and has two miscarriages before she gives birth to a son. Kay, who was Lakey's pet and was always less sophisticated and wealthy than the other members of the group, marries an abusive playwright who cheats on her. After an unhappy affair with a cold, sarcastic painter, Dottie gives up a flamboyant lifestyle in Greenwich Village to marry a dull Arizona businessman. Pokey has her hands full with two sets of twins. Helena travels the world, but is unable to find happiness at home, while catty and ambitious Libby becomes successful in the literary world despite lacking depth. Polly has an affair with a married man, but later finds real happiness with a kind doctor.