The Big Cube

Adriana Roman, Lana Turner, a successful stage actress, retires to marry Charles Winthrop, Dan O’Herlihy, a wealthy tycoon. Winthrop’s daughter, Lisa, Karin Mossberg, is instantly distrustful of Adriana as the “other woman” stealing her father’s affection. Charles Winthrop’s sudden death in a boating accident leaves Adriana shaken, and she also suffers a concussion that colors her perception of later events.

Lisa’s new boyfriend, Johnny Allen, George Chakiris, a womanizing, fortune-hunting medical student, seizes the moment to convince Lisa that her father’s death was murder. The accusation is complicated by the terms of Charles’s will, which makes Adriana the executor and threatens to disinherit Lisa if she marries Johnny. Johnny helps push Lisa toward a plan and together they lace Adriana’s prescribed sedatives with LSD to drive her into madness. During one episode, Adriana hallucinates that Johnny and Lisa are pushing her off a cliff, a vision that feels all too real.

Later, while Adriana is in the grips of another LSD-born hallucination at home, Johnny plays pre-recorded subliminal messages that deepen her instability, one instructing Adriana to leap from a window; Lisa remains unaware of this cruel scheme. As Adriana stands at the edge of the balcony or car, ready to jump, Lisa intervenes and saves her. Yet Lisa continues with the plan, and Adriana is committed to a mental hospital, where she is declared legally insane and thus unable to fulfill the will’s directives.

After their wedding, Johnny exposes his true colors by openly flirting with other women, including Lisa’s free-spirited best friend, Bibi, Pamela Rodgers. He tries to force a divorce by bribing Lisa with a $100,000 settlement in exchange for her silence about their mistreatment of Adriana. Lisa divorces him, but then decides to come clean to Frederick Lansdale, Richard Egan, a playwright friend of Adriana’s who has long loved her. He resolves to help by turning Adriana’s trauma into art.

Frederick writes a play that centers on Adriana’s experiences and casts her in the lead role, hoping that replaying the events on stage will unlock her memories. The opening night brings fleeting glimpses of memory, but Adriana doesn’t yet understand what she is seeing. In the climactic third act, the play presents the actual tape recordings of Lisa and Johnny’s manipulation. Frederick has the recordings played, and the voices remind Adriana that her real name is being used in the moment, not the stage persona. Lisa storms the stage and finally confesses what she did; Adriana’s anger explodes in a sharp, visible rebuke: a single, searing slap.

The play becomes a sensation, and Adriana’s healing arc appears tangled with romance as she and Frederick move toward marriage. Lisa reconciles with Adriana, facing the consequences of her lies and actions. Meanwhile, Johnny, now ostracized by his peers, begins a troubling personal LSD spiral, ending the film on him in the throes of an acid trip.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 09:20