Goodbye Goddess: Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011

by Kimberly Lindbergs | March 23, 2011

Categories | News, Actresses, Elizabeth Taylor, Movie Morlocks, TCM

I was crushed when I learned that Elizabeth Taylor had passed away today due to heart failure. Like many people who write about movies I’m often asked who my favorite actress is and I almost always answer with Elizabeth Taylor because I adore her and her name is easily recognizable. When I added the image of her and David Bowie to my blog’s sidebar a few years ago it wasn’t a careless gesture. A lot of thought went to it because I thought the image was a wonderful tribute to the two things that make Cinebeats’ tick - movies and music. Taylor was a goddess among women. A Hollywood legend and a genuine superstar. They don’t make them like her anymore but I’m not sure that they ever did. Taylor was one of a kind. My tribute to the much missed and much loved actress can be found at the Movie Morlocks.

- Goodbye Goddess: Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011 @ TCM’s Classic Movie Blog

Recommended Links:
- From the Cinebeats’ Archives: Lots more on Elizabeth Taylor
- Elizabeth Taylor Obit at IMDB
- Elizabeth Taylor Obit & Tributes at The Guardian
- Unpublished photos of Elizabeth Taylor from LIFE Magazine
- From Velvet to Helena: A Life of Launching Herself Into the Imaginary at The Sheila Variations
- Links to many tributes at MUBI

Comments Off

Happy Birthday Joseph Losey!

by Kimberly Lindbergs | January 14, 2011

Categories | Movie Reviews, Directors, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Losey

Two of my favorite people: Director Joseph Losey & actor Dirk Bogarde

Today marks what would have been Joseph Losey’s 102 birthday. Unfortunately very few of us live that long and Losey died in 1984 at age 75. Lately critics around the world seem to be rediscovering his work and rethinking their opinion of the director’s impressive legacy. Joseph Losey is gaining new fans every day and it’s wonderful to see this sudden resurgence of interest in his films. As a lifelong Losey fan this makes me extremely happy! I’ve enjoyed writing about Losey’s work here at Cinebeats as well as contributing to Harkit Records release of John Barry’s soundtrack for Boom! which happens to be one of my favorite Losey films. I hope to write more about his work in the future but if you would like to read my previous posts about the director you can find them here:
- Joseph Losey @ Cinebeats

Comments Off

The Glamorous World of Paul Hesse

by Kimberly Lindbergs | June 24, 2010

Categories | Actresses, Elizabeth Taylor, Movie Morlocks, TCM, Bette Davis, Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney

Four of my favorite actresses photographed by Paul Hesse
Top: Gene Tierney and Elizabeth Taylor
Bottom: Bette Davis and Ava Gardner

Like most film buffs, I absolutely love old Hollywood glamor photography. I’m an amateur photographer myself so I own a lot of photography books and some of my favorites are jam-packed with beautiful photos of classic Hollywood film stars. In the ’70s the practice of taking glamorous head-shots of the stars and hiring photographers to shoot on sets seemed to quietly fade away. Studios didn’t want to spend money on it and the public became more interested in fashion photography, rock stars and realistic portraits. But from roughly the ’30s to the ’60s movie magazines around the world were overflowing with glamorous photographs of movie stars. One of the most interesting photographers working during this period was Paul Hesse who helped pioneer the use of color film in commercial art. His colorful and hyper-realistic portraits of celebrities still grab my attention every time I come across one. Hesse had a very distinct style that is still noticeable today. If you’d like to learn more about Paul Hesse or just enjoy some of his other photos you can read my brief write-up about the man and his work at TCM’s Movie Morlocks Blog.

Comments (5)

Ash Wednesday (1973)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | February 28, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, Romance, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Helmut Berger

Yesterday was Elizabeth Taylor’s 77th birthday. Last year I wasn’t able to properly complete my tribute to Taylor and I never finished writing about a few of her films that I want to cover here sooner or later, but today I thought I’d offer up a few brief thoughts about her 1973 film, Ash Wednesday.

The paper thin plot of Ash Wednesday was summed up perfectly by Roger Ebert in his review of the film (published in his book I Hated This Movie) so I’ll just quote him here:

“Ash Wednesday is a soapy melodrama that isn’t much good as a movie but may be interesting to some audiences all the same. It’s about how a 50ish wife (Elizabeth Taylor), her marriage threatened by a younger woman, has a face-lift in order to keep her husband (Henry Fonda). It doesn’t work, but she gets a nice winter in a ski resort out of it and an affair with Helmut Berger.”

In all honesty that’s all there is to Ash Wednesday. Trying to read some kind of subtext into Jean-Claude Tramont’s flimsy script is utterly pointless so I won’t bother. But when you consider the film’s 1973 release date, the movie becomes somewhat notable for the way it dared to tackle aging and beauty myths. In a memorable opening sequence featuring actual footage from real operations; viewers are subjected to an appropriately ugly and unflinching look at cosmetic surgery as an elderly Elizabeth Taylor decides to reluctantly go under the knife. The makeup used to age Taylor (who was only 41 years old) is pretty convincing, but she’s soon magically transformed into the flawless middle-aged beauty that she actually was at the time.

As the film slowly unfolds the audience is supposed to be surprised by the May-September romance that blossoms between 41 year-old Elizabeth Taylor and 29 year-old Helmut Berger, but that’s impossible. Taylor still looked stunning at 41, which only manages to muddle the plot. And when a ragged looking Henry Fonda finally shows up as the cold distracted husband who is having an affair behind Taylor’s back you’re left wondering, why? There is a great scene where Taylor confronts Henry Fonda telling him that she only had plastic surgery in an effort to get him back, but Fonda isn’t moved. Elizabeth Taylor’s character is forced to realize that plastic surgery can’t save a marriage that is emotionally dead.

The only real reason to sit through Ash Wednesday is to watch lovely Liz and handsome Helmut Berger exchange passionate glances and loaded words until they finally fall into bed together. Elizabeth Taylor looks amazing in the film and waltzes through it wearing some fabulous Edith Head costumes and impressive Valentino fashions. Her performance is also rather convincing and low-key even if the material is completely forgettable. She could have easily hammed it up, but Taylor obviously has some emotional connection to the character she’s playing and her sincerity is believable. On the other hand, the talented Helmut Berger is wasted here and he seems more than a little distracted in the film.

Rumor has it that Taylor’s husband Richard Burton thought Ash Wednesday was incredibly vulgar and he was bothered by the love scenes Berger shared with Taylor. Richard Burton was sure that Berger and Taylor were having an affair off screen as well, even though Helmut Berger was open about his homosexuality. According to writer Dominick Dunne who produced Ash Wednesday, the behind-the-scenes drama happening during the making of the film was more interesting than anything going on in front of the cameras. Elizabeth Taylor was chronically late to the set prompting Paramount Studio head Robert Evans to fly off the handle and the fights that occurred between Taylor and Burton were explosive enough to frighten the rest of the cast and crew.

Director Larry Peerce previously had some success directing episodes of Batman (1966) and The Wild Wild West (1967), as well as popular films such as Goodbye, Columbus (1969), but he brings none of the style or humor from his earlier efforts to Ash Wednesday. The film takes much too long to get going and there aren’t enough bedroom scenes in it, but what does occur is a bit steamy so if you happen to love watching Elizabeth Taylor and Helmut Berger on screen as much as I do, you might find Ash Wednesday worth a look. On the other hand, Ash Wednesday is really just a blueprint for the type of dull and lurid melodrama that you might find playing on the Lifetime Movie Channel at 1am. And if I didn’t know any better I’d swear the script was adapted from some Harlequin romance novel. If that sort of thing holds no appeal you should avoid this film at all cost.

Ash Wednesday is only available on video and I can’t really make a case for its DVD release. Many of Elizabeth Taylor’s adoring fans would probably like to see the film become more easily available, but for now they’re going to have to pick up a used copy of the Paramount VHS at Amazon if they want to see it.

You can find more images from the film in my Ash Wednesday Flickr Gallery.

Comments (19)

The Eyes Have It

by Kimberly Lindbergs | December 10, 2008

Categories | Rants & Raves, Actresses, Elizabeth Taylor, Pamela Franklin, Brigitte Bardot, Claudia Cardinale, Julie Christie, Carroll Baker, Isabelle Adjani, Delphine Seyrig, Ursula Andress, Barbara Shelley, Barbara Steele, Ingrid Pitt, Marisa Mell, Florinda Bolkan, Bette Davis, Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney, Ann-Margret, Natalie Wood, Monica Vitti, Meiko Kaji, Anna Karina, Catherine Deneuve, Edwige Fenech

My blogging buddy Peter Nellhaus over at Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee has asked me to contribute my own list of “20 Favorite Actresses” to a new film meme making the rounds of the blogosphere. Frankly I was just going to blow him off and ignore his request because these meme things tend to make me nuts but Peter is too nice a guy to ignore. I tried to throw caution to the wind and just quickly put together a list of 20 of my favorite actresses, but as usual I spent way too much time thinking about this and managed to give myself a headache in the process. This meme madness must end! But at least it gave me an excuse to post a bunch of fabulous photos of some of my favorite actresses.

Naturally I ignored the rules and decided to post a list of 23 40 favorite actresses instead of limiting myself to only 20. My list could have been even longer and I’m sure I’ll regret forgetting to include a few more favorites but over time I felt the need to keep adding to the list and finally just doubled the size. Some of these talented and lovely women were never offered the better roles they so richly deserved, while others are acclaimed Academy Award winners and celebrated Hollywood legends. They do have a couple of things in common though; they’ve appeared in a lot of great movies and I never get tired of watching them!

So without further blabbering, here are 20 40 Women I Love Watching . . .

Elizabeth Taylor

Monica Vitti

Sarah Miles

Julie Christie

Barbara Steele

Charlotte Rampling

Kim Novak

Anna Karina

Carroll Baker

Meiko Kaji

Catherine Deneuve

Isabelle Adjani

Brigitte Bardot

Natalie Wood

Deborah Kerr

Sophia Loren

Gene Tierney

Glenda Jackson

Ava Gardner

Ursula Andress

Delphine Seyrig

Ann-Margret

Edwige Fenech

Ingrid Pitt

Judy Garland

Florinda Bolkan

Marisa Mell

Katharine Hepburn

Soledad Miranda

Barbara Shelley

< a href="http://cinebeats.blogsome.com/category/bette-davis/">Bette Davis

Pamela Franklin

Barbra Streisand

Claudia Cardinale

Anita Ekberg

Paula Prentiss

Geneviève Bujold

Marlene Clark

Diana Rigg

Jenny Agutter

Comments (28)

My Top 20 Favorite Films of 1968

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 6, 2008

Categories | Horror, Giallo, Comedies, Crime, Westerns, Hammer Horror, Elizabeth Taylor, Alain Delon, Mario Bava, Steve McQueen, Terence Stamp, Jess Franco, David Hemmings, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Burton, 1968, Klaus Kinski, Brigitte Bardot, Joseph Losey, Girl On a Motorcycle, Julie Christie, Peter Sellers, Marisa Mell, Stanley Kubrick, Terence Fisher, Roman Polanski

At the Britannica blog Raymond Benson has finished listing off his Top 10 Favorite Films of 1968 so if you’re interested in the final results stop by and give them a look. I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions how much I dislike making lists of favorite films myself since they’re limited by what I’ve seen and are subject to change at anytime. Roger Ebert recently asked his blog readers to “. . . agree that all lists of movies are nonsense.” I agreed with him wholeheartedly at the time, but in the process of watching Raymond Benson share his list favorite films from 1968 I naturally began thinking of my own favorite films released the same year.

Compiling a list of favorite films restricted by their release date without implying that they’re “the best” (whatever that means) started to seem like a fun exercise. And while reading the complaints and reservations about Raymond Benson’s own selections I even suggested that it would be interesting if all the participants of the Britannica blog “round-table” supplied their own list of Top 10 Favorite Films for 1968 so we could compare them. I figured that if we were going to scrutinize Raymond Benson’s selections we might as well scrutinize each other. I also thought that it would probably enrich the discussion. No one else seemed willing or able to share a list of there own picks, but for the past two weeks I’ve been quietly compiling a list of my own favorite films from 1968.

I wasn’t planing on sharing my own list with anyone, but over the weekend I listened to an interesting discussion between Greencine’s David Hudson, Film Comment’s Gavin Smith and film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum about the current state of film criticism that got me contemplating my list again. During the discussion Jonathan Rosenbaum smartly pointed out that, “People love lists now because they need to. There’s too much to navigate through.” In my own experience I’ve found this to be very true. Since I started blogging my “Favorite DVDs of the year” lists for 2006 and 2007 have become some of my most popular posts and they’ve generated some lively discussions and lots of email. I think other people appreciate them because they offer a brief look at some films I’ve enjoyed and recommend. And in the words of Jonathan Rosenbaum, the lists are easy to navigate through.

So without further explanation, here’s a list of some of my own favorite films from 1968. I couldn’t manage to narrow all my choices down to a mere Top 10 so I just decided to share my Top 20 list instead. I purposefully left off documentaries so you won’t find any listed and four of the films on my list were also on Raymond Benson’s list. The numerical order doesn’t mean much and naturally my list is subject to change at anytime since I’m continually being exposed to new movies. It also should be noted that after looking at various print and online sources I’ve come across different release dates for some films. As far as I know, the following 20 films were originally released in 1968.

Comments (16)

Burton’s First Encounter with Taylor

by Kimberly Lindbergs | September 13, 2008

Categories | Books, Actors, Actresses, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton

I recently stumbled across this fascinating description of Richard Burton’s first meeting with Elizabeth Taylor written by Burton himself and borrowed from his book Meeting Mrs. Jenkins (1966). I enjoyed reading it so much that I just had to share it. Not only is it an amazing read but it’s also a great showcase for Burton’s wicked sense of humor and his wonderful way with words. Besides acting, directing and producing, Richard Burton was also an avid writer and he kept journals for most of his adult life.

“It was my first time in California and my first visit to a swank house. There were quite a lot of people in and around the pool, all suntanned and all drinking the Sunday morning liveners – Bloody Marys, boilermakers, highballs, iced beer. I knew some of the people and was introduced to the others. Wet brown arms reached out of the pool and shook my hand. The people were all friendly, and they called me Dick immediately. I asked if they would please call me Richard – Dick, I said, made me feel like a symbol of some kind. They laughed, some of them. It was, of course, Sunday morning and I was nervous.

I was enjoying this small social triumph, but then a girl sitting on the other side of the pool lowered her book, took off her sunglasses and looked at me. She was so extraordinarily beautiful that I nearly laughed out loud. I didn’t, of course, which was just as well. The girl was not, and, quite clearly, was not going to be laughing back. I had an idea that, finding nothing of interest, she was looking right through me and was examining the texture of the wall behind. If there was a flaw in the sandstone, I knew she’d find it and probe it right to the pith. I fancied that if she chose so, the house would eventually collapse.

I smiled at her and, after a long moment, just as I felt my own smile turning into a cross-eyed grimace, she started slightly and smiled back. There was little friendliness in the smile. A new ice cube formed of its own accord in my Scotch-on-the-rocks.

She sipped some beer and went back to her book. I affected to become social with the others but out of the corner of my mind – while I played for the others the part of a poor miner’s son who was puzzled, but delighted by the attention these lovely people paid to him – I had her under close observation. She was, I decided, the most astonishingly self-contained, pulchritudinous, remote, removed, inaccessible woman I had ever seen. She spoke to no one. She looked at no one. She steadily kept on reading her book. Was she merely sullen? I wondered. I thought not. There was no trace of sulkiness in the divine face. She was a Mona Lisa type, I thought. In my business everyone is a type. She is older than the deck chair on which she sits, I thought headily, and she is famine, fire, destruction, and plague, she is the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, the on lie true begetter. She is a secret wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery, I thought with a mental man-to-man nod to Churchill. Her breasts were apocalyptic, they would topple empires down before they withered. Indeed, her body was a miracle of construction and the work of an engineer of genius. It needed nothing but itself. It was true art, I thought, executed in terms of itself. It was smitten by its own passion. I used to think things like that. I was not long down from Oxford and Walter Pater was still talked of and I read the art reviews in the quality weeklies without much caring about the art itself, and it was a Sunday morning in Bel Air, and I was nervous, and there was the Scotch-on-the-rocks.

Like Miniver Cheevy I kept on drinking and, in the heady flow of the attention I was getting, told story after story as the day boozed slowly on. I went in swimming once or twice. So did she, but, lamentably, always after I’d come out. She swam easily and gracefully as an Englishwoman would and not with the masculine drive and kick of most American girls. She was unquestionably gorgeous. I can think of no other word to describe a combination of plentitude, frugality, abundance, tightness. She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much, and not only that, she was totally ignoring me. I became frustrated almost to screaming when I had finished a well-received and humorous story about the death of my grandfather and found that she was turned away in deep conversation with another woman. I think I tried to eavesdrop but was stayed by words like – Tony and Janet and Marlon and Sammy. She was not, obviously, talking about me.

Eventually, with half-seas-ed cunning and with all the nonchalance of a traffic jam, I worked my way to her side of the pool. She was describing – in words not normally written – what she thought of a producer at M.G.M. This was my first encounter with freedom of speech in the U.S.A., and it took my breath away. My brain throbbed; I almost sobered up. I was profoundly shocked. It was ripe stuff. I checked her again. There was no question about it. She was female. In America the women apparently had not only got the vote – they’d got the words to go with it.

I was somewhat puzzled and disturbed by the half-look she gave me as she uttered the enormities. Was she deliberately trying to shock me? Those huge violet-blue eyes (the biggest I’ve ever seen, outside those who have glandular trouble – thyroid, et cetera) had an odd glint in them. You couldn’t describe it as a twinkle…. Searchlights can not twinkle, they turn on and off and probe the heavens and so on.

Still I couldn’t be left out. I had to join in and say something. I didn’t reckon on the Scotch though. I didn’t reckon that it had warped my judgment and my sense of timing, my choice of occasion. With all the studied frenzy of Dutch courage I waded into the depths of those perilous eyes.

In my best chiffon-and-cut-glass Oxford accent I said: “You have a remarkable command of Olde-Englishe.”

There was a pause in which I realized with brilliant clarity the relativity of time. Aeons passed, civilizations came and went, brave men and cowards died in battles not yet fought, while those cosmic headlights examined my flawed personality. Every pockmark on my face became a crater of the moon. I reached up with a casual hand to cover up the right-cheeked evidence of my acne’d youth. Halfway up I realized my hand was just as ugly as my face and decided to leave the bloody thing and die instead. But while contemplating the various ways of suicide and having sensibly decided, since I had a good start, to drink myself to death, I was saved by her voice which said, “Don’t you use words like that at the Old Vic?”

“They do,” I said, “but I don’t. I come from a family and an attitude that believe such words are an indication of weakness in vocabulary and emptiness of mind…. Despite Jones’s writing that in times of acute shared agony and fear, as in trench warfare, obscenities repeated in certain patterns can at times become almost liturgical, almost poetic….” I ran out of gas.

There was another pause; more empires fell. Captains and kings and counsellors arrived and departed. She said three four-letter words. These were, I think, “Well! Well! Well!”

Somebody laughed uneasily. The girl had turned away. I had been dismissed. I felt as lonely as a muezzin, as a reluctant piano lesson on a Saturday afternoon, as the Last Post played on a cracked bugle.

I went home and somebody asked, when I told them where I’d been, what she was like. “Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark. She probably,” I said, “shaves.” To nobody in particular I observed that the human body is eighty percent water.”

Comments (8)

Brian G. Hutton’s Night Watch (1973)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | March 10, 2008

Categories | Movie Reviews, Horror, Giallo, Elizabeth Taylor, Alfred Hitchcock, Thrillers, Laurence Harvey

By 1973 Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s nine year marriage was coming to an end and both actors wanted to focus on their individual careers. Night Watch (1973) features one of Elizabeth Taylor’s few solo performances as an actress while she was married to Burton and it’s one of my favorite Taylor films from the 70s’ for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it’s a thriller and I love a good creepy thriller with an unexpected twist ending. The film also stars the gorgeous Laurence Harvey who had previously appeared with Taylor in the Oscar winning melodrama Butterfield 8 (1960) and I enjoy watching Taylor and Harvey together. Not only do they provide some incredible eye-candy, but they also have an interesting chemistry on screen. Taylor delivers one of her most unusual and unexpected performances in Night Watch that clearly mocks some of her previous roles, while playing smartly with audience expectations. And lastly, Night Watch evokes many of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films.

The film was based on a play by Lucille Fletcher who made a name for herself writing suspenseful radio plays in the early forties such as The Hitch-Hiker (1941), which was originally performed by Orson Welles and The Campbell Playhouse and later turned into an episode of The Twilight Zone, as well as Sorry, Wrong Number (1946), which became an Oscar nominated film in 1947 directed by Anatole Litvak. Lucille Fletcher was married to the great film composer Bernard Herrmann, who also got his start working with Welles on classic films like Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) before he made an even bigger name for himself composing scores for popular Alfred Hitchcock thrillers like Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). Although Lucille Fletcher and Bernard Herrmann divorced in 1948, it’s impossible to watch Night Watch and not be reminded of many of Hitchcock’s best films. The script seems to borrow a bit from Suspicion (1941), Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960), while combing elements of Fletcher’s earlier plays.

Top: Elizabeth Taylor watches a murder take place
Middle: Taylor dreams of hospital morgues
Bottom: The corpse of Linda Hayden gets her kill face on*

In Night Watch Elizabeth Taylor stars as a wealthy but reclusive woman called Ellen Wheller who suspects that her current husband John (Laurence Harvey) and her best friend Sarah (Billie Whitelaw) are having an affair behind her back. Things take an odd turn one dark and stormy night when Taylor peers through a window and much like James Stewart in Rear Window, she thinks she’s seen a murder take place in an old abandoned house next door. Since she’s prone to hysteria Ellen ’s husband doesn’t believe her, but he reluctantly calls the police anyway. When the police finally arrive and search the old house they find no evidence that a murder has taken place there. Ellen suspects that her neighbor (Robert Lang) might be involved and remains convinced that she’s seen a horrendous crime occur. Taylor’s character is also plagued by terrible nightmares involving her first husband (Kevin Colson) who was killed in a car crash that happened while he was fooling around in his car with a pretty young woman (Linda Hayden). Ellen’s nightmares and paranoia about her husband’s infidelity cause her a lot of anxiety. And as the film progresses she tries to numb her emotional pain and strange visions with alcohol and pills that are often administrated by her husband and good friend. Are horrible crimes taking place in the old abandoned house next door or are they just a figment of Elizabeth Taylor’s disturbed mind? Is Laurence Harvey trying to kill Taylor or drive her mad and take control of her fortune? The surprising answers to these questions are unveiled in the film’s shocking climax!

Warning - before you keep reading I suggest stopping here unless you’re familiar with the film because there are spoilers ahead and being aware of the film’s important plot twists before you have the opportunity to see Night Watch can definitely ruin the effectiveness of the film!

On the surface, the plot of Night Watch appears to be similar to many “women-in-peril” thrillers, but just when you assume you know the direction the film is taking, Night Watch explodes in a bloody finale that’s sure to leave a few viewers shocked. Instead of playing the typical female victim prone to hysteria, Elizabeth Taylor’s charactor turns out to be a cold and calculating murderess who brutally kills her philandering husband and best friend before gracefully exiting the film in grand style.

Top: Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey
Bottom: Robert Lang and Billie Whitelaw

Night Watch was directed by the American director Brian G. Hutton whose other films include Where Eagles Dare (1968) with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, as well as Zee and Co. (1972) which also featured Elizabeth Taylor along with Michael Caine, Susannah York and Margaret Leighton (who was once married to Lawrence Harvey). In Night Watch, the director was able to create a suspenseful atmosphere and maintain it throughout the course of the film. Since the story takes place in London with a mostly British cast, the film is reminiscent of other great British thrillers released during the same period. The film also contains closeup shots of gloved hands and large kitchen knives that were commonly seen in numerous giallo films at the time. Hutton’s directing skills are really on display during Taylor’s extremely eerie and effective nightmare sequences, which are creatively shot with the help of the Oscar winning British cinematographer Billy Williams. The director manages to include some interesting visual clues that suggest that Elizabeth Taylor is controlling the events unfolding in the film. Taylor’s constantly seen playing with a puzzle and trying to fit the pieces together while the audience is left in the dark tripping over multiple red-herrings.

The Italian designer Valentino made all of Taylor’s outfits for the film and frankly I just get a big kick out seeing Taylor playing a crazy, hard-drinking, pill-popping woman wearing fabulous purple robes designed by Valentino. She also gets to wear some low-key Valentino tailored fashions in the film as well. Elizabeth Taylor was no longer the slender young woman seen in her earlier roles, but she still looks terrific in Night Watch and manages to make the most of her role. Her performance is surprisingly nuanced and probably somewhat inspired by Anthony Perkins turn as Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s Psycho. Even the murders she commits in the film are slightly reminiscent of the way Bates killed his victims, but I’ve rarely seen an actor have so much fun pretending to slit throats. During the frantic murder scene at the end of the film Taylor looks utterly maniacal and plain frightening as she slashes her way through her costars.

None of the other actors in the film besides Laurence Harvey, Billie Whitelaw and Robert Lang get more than a few minutes of screen time, which is a shame. I really like the British actress Linda Hayden who’s appeared in some great British horror films and she’s wonderfully creepy in Night Watch, but she has no dialogue in the film and if you blink you just might miss her.

Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey become friends on the set of Butterfield 8 and remained close until his untimely death. Both actors were heavy drinkers and their careers were in decline when they decided to team up again and make Night Watch in late 1972. Taylor and Harvey ended up having such a terrific time on the set of the film together that they started making plans to co-star in another thriller in the near future, but unfortunately it never happened. Harvey was diagnosed with cancer during the making of Night Watch and it’s assumed that he was in considerable pain during filming. His performance here is rather low-key and seems to suggest that he wasn’t feeling his best, but he’s still very believable as Taylor’s neglectful husband. Sadly, Laurence Harvey died just three months after Night Watch was released.

Top: Taylor channeling the spirit of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates
Middle: Billie Whitelaw suffers the same fate as Janet Leigh in Psycho
Bottom: Comparison shot of Janet Leigh from Psycho

Night Watch is currently only available as a poor quality pan and scan video at the moment and I’d really like to see Brian G. Hutton’s film get restored and released on DVD since it should definitely hold appeal for Elizabeth Taylor fans and anyone who enjoys unusual Hitchcock inspired thrillers. I’ve heard rumors that a PAL Region 2 DVD of Night Watch might be released later this year, but I haven’t been able to confirm it anywhere. If anyone else happens to know anything about the rumored PAL Region 2 DVD release of Night Watch, please let me know!

If you’d like to see more images from the film please see my Night Watch Flickr Gallery.

* Note: The term “kill face” was borrowed from Arbogast on Film.

Comments (19)

Joseph Losey’s Boom! (1968)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | March 4, 2008

Categories | Movie Reviews, British Cinema, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Joseph Losey, John Barry

Joseph Losey’s Boom! (1968) is one of the most famously criticized and misunderstood films from the late sixties. Its original $3.9 million dollar budget seemed to have ballooned into 10 million by the time shooting stopped and the money was mainly used to pay the million dollar salaries of the film’s two main stars (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) and dress Elizabeth Taylor in her amazing Tiziani costumes (many designed by Karl Lagerfeld) and Bulgari jewelery, build a fabulous set and keep the Bloody Marys’ and champagne flowing from dawn to dusk. Critics by and large despised Boom! and many viewers walked out of the theater before the film had ended utterly perplexed by what they had just seen.

Boom! was an uneven European art film masquerading as a mainstream Hollywood movie and the general public just wasn’t interested. They wanted to see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in more easily defined roles such as “tenacious slut” (Taylor) or “troubled saint” (Burton), and they longed for simpler drama with a basic narrative that was easy to follow. But by 1968 both Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had grown weary of the typical roles Hollywood was offering them and they wanted to make more challenging films together. Boom! would turn out to be one of the most challenging films that the actors ever worked on. But it would also receive the worst reviews of their careers and mark what many consider to be the decline of one of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples. A shared addiction to alcohol and Taylor’s growing reliance on prescription drugs was starting to take its toll on the two actors and their very public marriage. The couple’s wealth, fame and glamorous lifestyle made Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton appear larger than life and at first glance unusual film projects like Doctor Faustus (1967) and Boom! appeared to be self-indulgent vanity projects made without much thought for the general movie-going audiences that had helped make them famous. Resentment seemed to be growing between the popular actors and their adoring fans. And critics were eager to take a swipe at Hollywood’s royal couple. Boom! became an easy target and it’s not too hard to see why.

Boom! was based on one of Tennessee Williams’ least accessible and most esoteric plays called The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (originally published in 1963) and Williams was also responsible for the film’s script. After two failed Broadway runs of the play Universal Studios still thought they could turn The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore into a hit film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Both actors had appeared in financially successful film versions of other Tennessee Williams’ plays individually including, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks; 1956), Suddenly Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz; 1959) and The Night of the Iguana (John Huston; 1964) so Universal assumed the couple could turn The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore into a hit with their double star power. Taylor and Burton gladly accepted the exorbitant salaries Universal Studios offered them to star in Boom! and they looked forward to working on the project with exiled American director Joseph Losey. Losey had been making smart and successful films in Britain for years and the director seemed capable of effortlessly moving between dark psychological dramas with noir overtones such as The Servant (1963) and entertaining pop art extravagances like Modesty Blaise (1966). If Losey had been able to successfully mix multiple elements of his earlier films, as well as better manage his actors, the final results of Boom! may have been more rewarding. But I personally think it’s one of the director’s most fascinating and inspired efforts.

The film focuses on the last two days in the life of Flora ‘Sissy’ Goforth (Elizabeth Taylor). Mrs. Goforth is a wealthy, self-absorbed and terminally ill woman who has buried six husbands and is spending the summer at her isolated coastal villa dictating her sensational memoirs to her servant Miss Black (Johnna Simcus). Her health problems and tortured memories cause her to be in constant pain so she numbs herself with booze, pills, morphine and shots of vitamin B administrated by her doctor. With “Keep Off” signs surrounding her property and a pack of vicious attack dogs controlled by an aggressive dwarf (Michael Dunn), Sissy Goforth assumes she won’t be bothered. But her isolated existence comes to an end when a handsome stranger named Chris Flanders (Richard Burton) unexpectedly arrives by boat. Chris is a poet who also makes modern Alexander Calder-style mobiles out of metal. These mobiles are designed to symbolize freedom and Sissy Goforth soon finds out that Chris has come to the island to free her from her shackled existence. After inviting her only close friend known as “The Witch of Capri” (played by celebrated playwright Noel Coward) for an unusual dinner of boiled “sea monster” and roasted pig, The Witch uses his powers of divination to inform Sissy Goforth that Chris Flanders is also known as the “Angel of Death” due to his uncanny ability to arrive at the home of wealthy women just as they’re about to die and relieve them of their valuable possessions. Sissy Goforth is sexually attracted to Chris but she’s deeply disturbed when she hears this news. She hasn’t finished her memoirs yet and she has no desire to leave the world and “go forth” into the great unknown, so she refuses to feed Chris and spends her last hours verbally sparring with him. This strange allegorical fable ends with Sissy Goforth drifting into oblivion as Chris guides her through her final moments and relieves her of her precious jewels, which he promptly throws into the sea.

Tennessee William’s script for Boom! is very similar to his original play The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore but the title was simplified by using a word that Richard Burton’s Angel of Death character utters every time he hears the waves crashing against the rocks below the cliff-side villa. He explains to Sissy Goforth at one point that “Boom!” is the sound of “the shock of each moment of still being alive” and it’s meant as a sort of wakeup call to get her to appreciate her final hours on earth. In some ways Boom! rehashes many of the topics found in Tennessee William’s previous work such as A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which explored the lives of sexually frustrated and isolated individuals, alcoholism and terminal disease, a fear of death and an inability to let go of the past. But Boom! is more of an allegorical fable that tackles Williams’ favorite themes in a more abstract and mythological way. It was also inspired by Japanese kabuki theatre and the structure of Boom! resembles traditional kabuki plays as re-imagined by Williams.

The talented set designer and artist Richard MacDonald was hired to design the lavish set for Boom!, which was built in Italy on the beautiful Sardinian coast. McDonald had worked with Joseph Losey on many of his best films such as Eva (1962), The Servant (1963) and Modesty Blaise (1966) but his set design for Boom! would become one of his greatest creations. In a style that’s reminiscent of the magnificent modern structures designed by Le Corbusier, Richard MacDonald gave Sissy Goforth’s isolated summer home curving white walls, round windows and stark interiors framing numerous paintings and objects of art that were often meant to convey death. The structure is supposed to symbolically represent the transitional state that Sissy Goforth has found herself in and it’s surrounded by giant rock sculptures that are similar to the ones found on Easter Island. Losey and the brilliant cinematographer Douglas Slocombe shot the film in spectacular Panavison, which captured every lush detail of the expansive set and gave the film an other-worldly look.

Joseph Losey is one of my favorite filmmakers and in Boom! he resurrects many of the elements that made his previous films so interesting while exploring some of his favorite themes involving alienation and the artificial superiority often caused by class distinctions. Losey is truly a master of framing and composition, and in Boom! these skills are used to great effect in order to show the isolation faced by all the characters in such an expansive, yet claustrophobic space. Characters are seen peering through round windows and shot in distorted mirrors, which can represent a reflective moment or the distorted view that individuals often have of themselves and the world around them.

Losey uses sound very creatively in Boom! by having Sissy Goforth dictate her memoirs through the villa’s elaborate intercom system so they can be heard by her entire staff. She also occasionally controls the music heard in the film by turning the sound system on or off depending on her mood. When the camera zooms in on the sun or an electric light you can often hear a strange shimmering or buzzing sound in the background. And the repetitive noise caused by the sea crashing against the rocks is obviously an important metaphor for the natural ebb and flow of life on the island, which could be seen as a small microcosm of the transitory world we all live in. John Barry is responsible for the film’s impressive soundtrack and it’s one of the British composer’s most experimental scores. Barry worked closely with Losey on the film and the director made many suggestions that were incorporated into the soundtrack.

Unfortunately, Losey’s focus on shooting the fabulous manufactured interiors designed for Boom! and perfectly framing all the drama and action made him neglectful of his actors. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Johanna Shimkus and Michael Dunn are all talented thespians and Taylor and Burton are able to deliver truly great performances but in Boom! they often seem a bit lost and in need of direction. At least Noel Coward is very funny in his role and he may have been the only person on the set who completely understood the humor in William’s original script. It’s been assumed and confirmed by Losey himself that the cast and crew were occasionally drunk from too much sea, sun, celebrity and booze during the filming of Boom! and it’s a shame that the director wasn’t able to gain more control over his cast. But I’m sure Taylor and Burton were not very easy to manage at the time. On the other hand, Johanna Shimkus and Michael Dunn don’t fare any better so I’m inclined to blame the uneven performances from all of the actors in the film on Losey’s direction. It’s unfortunate that the dark humor found in Tennessee Williams’ original play seems as if it’s occasionally suffocating under all the artistry of the director’s elaborate production but at its best Boom! should make you laugh as well as think and the film manages to make this viewer do both at times.

Elizabeth Taylor is the undeniable star of Boom! and the film spends most of its 110 minute running time focused on her. Since she looks fabulous in the film it’s easy to understand why. Taylor gives a completely over-the-top and scene-chewing performance in Boom! that must be seen to be believed. But it’s also a rather daring role for an actress who was much younger then the character in Tennessee Williams’ original play. In one of the movies most unforgettable moments Taylor has a five minute long coughing attack and you can’t help but assume that she’s actually choking to death on the set or attempting to cough up an unwanted lung.

The role of Flora ‘Sissy’ Goforth struck a little too close to home for Elizabeth Taylor and she saw a lot of herself in the character. In the script Taylor is forced to talk on and on about Sissy Goforth’s numerous dead husbands, that were abusive and suffered from impotence (two things Taylor had supposedly experienced herself) as well as her “one true love” who was an adventurous mountain climber that fell to his death. As much as Elizabeth Taylor deeply loved Richard Burton she was also still troubled by the unexpected death of her previous husband Mike Todd. Mike Todd had been killed in a terrible plane crash years earlier but his death still bothered the actress. Many of Taylor’s monologues in the film were supposed to be humorous but when the director tried to get Taylor to lighten up and have more fun with her role she would often become withdrawn or overact. Richard Burton told Joseph Losey later that Elizabeth had been haunted on the set of Boom! by the specter of Mike Todd, which could possibly explain the uncomfortable distance between Burton and Taylor that seems somewhat apparent in the film at times.

Richard Burton’s part was a lot less demanding and in many ways it resembled the role that Taylor previously had in his film version of Doctor Faustus. His character was actually a much younger man in the original play and Burton expressed concern about taking the role. Richard Burton managed to make the most out of his part and the actor actually gives a very measured performance in the film. Burton’s Angel of Death doesn’t speak often but when he does his words are carefully chosen, even when he’s arguing with Taylor’s character Sissy Goforth. One of Burton’s greatest gifts was his voice and it’s smartly used in the film as a tool to seduce Taylor’s character with. As mentioned above, Burton’s Angel of Death also repeats the phrase “Boom!” over and over again, and in the end it is his booming voice that guides Sissy Goforth towards her death and into the great unknown.

Besides providing some unforgettable eye-candy, the costumes in Boom! add an important element to the film. Since the structure of the script and the original play resemble a modern take on traditional Japanese kabuki plays, Burton’s Angel of Death is dressed in a black kimono throughout the movie. But instead of carrying a scythe, he carries a Japanese samurai sword. Elizabeth Taylor insisted that her own character be dressed in white and black flowing costumes throughout Boom!, which were supposed to represent death shrouds. Taylor is also seen wearing an elaborate kabuki inspired costume during her memorable dinner scene with Noel Coward and she even pretends to act out a bit of kabuki theater after she’s had a few too many cocktails.

Even though Boom! has suffered from negative criticism since its original release, the film does have its defenders. Richard Burton believed that Elizabeth Taylor delivered one of her greatest performances in Boom! and Tennessee Williams thought that Boom! was “an artistic success” and he hoped that eventually it would “be received with acclaim.” The critic Andrew Sarris criticized what he thought were the film’s “metaphysical posturing and pretenses,” and the “tendency for nothing much to happen for the longest stretches” but he also complemented Joseph Losey’s skilled use of mise en scène and his ability to create “glamorous fantasy.” Boom! is also director John Waters’ favorite film and he has even championed it at universities. Waters’ considers Boom! to be the ultimate “failed art” film from the sixties. But even with its failings I think there is a lot to enjoy in Boom!

If you’re not interested in contemplating the larger ideas that Joseph Losey and his cast and crew were trying to communicate with Boom!, you can still enjoy the film purely for Elizabeth Taylor’s show-stopping performance, John Barry’s experimental score, Richard MacDonald’s stunning set designs and Taylor’s jaw-dropping wardrobe. Many people consider Boom! to be a “camp classic” and if the original humor of Williams’ script is lost on you, you might still discover plenty of unintentional laughs in Losey’s film.

Boom! is currently only available in widescreen on a PAL Region 2 DVD from the Dutch company De Filmfreak Distributie and it currently sells at Amazon for $28.99. You can also still find copies of the original Universal Studios video of Boom! selling at Amazon for ridiculous prices. Hopefully a Region 1 DVD of Boom! will be released in the future. If you’d like to see a clip from Boom! you can view one at the official De Filmfreak Distributie site linked below:

- Clip from Boom!

It’s taking me much longer than expected to write about some of my favorite Elizabeth Taylor films due to real world responsibilities and lack of free time, so my small Tribute to Taylor will be ongoing for at least another week. There are still some other Taylor films I’d like to cover here. In the meantime, I’ve just learned that Elizabeth Taylor is currently in the hospital and not doing very well. Hopefully she’ll recover quickly since she seems to have an extremely strong constitution that has saved her from numerous brushes with death in the past.

* This text was published as part of the soundtrack notes for the official CD release of John Bary’s score for Boom!.

Comments (26)