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With her revelatory performance as Sybil Dorsett, a woman with 16 personalities, 30-year-old “TV” actress Sally Field bade a definitive goodbye to her days as Gidget and The Flying Nun, and set herself on course for big-screen stardom. Made for television in 1976, Sybil is based on Flora Rheta Schreiber's celebrated book about a withdrawn substitute teacher whose periodic blackouts compel her to seek professional help. Joanne Woodward, who won an Academy Award for portraying a woman with multiple personalities in The Three Faces of Eve, costars as the compassionate Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, who helps Sybil come to terms with repressed memories of childhood horrors inflicted by an exceedingly cruel and abusive mother. Sybil is a benchmark work, presented on home video for the first time in its original broadcast length of 198 minutes. Director Daniel Petrie (A Raisin in the Sun) and screenwriter Stewart Stern (Rebel Without a Cause) took great care in elevating Sybil’s story from exploitive disease-of-the-week fare into a redemptive story of healing. And Field, indelibly portraying a staggering emotional range, from infantile and painfully shy to poised and sophisticated, is a marvel to watch -- as is Natasha Ryan, who portrays Sybil as a child. “Examining Sybil,” a bonus featurette, recalls what an unlikely and risky casting choice Field was. Woodward recalls asking at the time, “The Flying Nun is coming in to read for this?” After this film, though, Field’s Oscar-winning triumphs in Norma Rae and Places in the Heart came as little shock. What’s not to like, really like? Donald Liebenson

All Movie Guide

The multiple award-winning made-for-TV movie Sybil was based on the book by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Sally Field won an Emmy for her portrayal of the title character, a substitute teacher in New York who has developed multiple personality disorder. As a coping mechanism to deal with the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, Hattie (Martine Bartlett), Sybil created separate personalities: aggressive Peggy Lou, suicidal Mary, baby Sybil Ann, and several others. Joanne Woodward plays Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, the psychologist who diagnoses Sybil's condition and helps her to get over it. William Prince and Jane Hoffman play her father and stepmother, while Brad Davis appears as her would-be boyfriend Richard. Originally shown in 1976 as a two-part special on NBC for a total of almost four hours, but most home video versions have been edited down to two hours. Andrea LeVasseur

Product Details

• UPC: 012569701458
• Source: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Français, Español
• Time: 3:07:00
• Sales Rank: 6,576

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