BUtterfield 8

On the surface, Taylor was all sex and devil-may-care… Everything in her was struggling toward respectability… She never gave up trying…The film concerns her fashionable life which is part model, part call-girl—and all man-trap… Her performance is one of her best and was nominated for her third Academy Award…

Her remarkable scene is her confession to Eddie Fisher about how she got started in the life: she was seduced by a house guest when she was thirteen, and she liked it! She has always 'liked' it! Emotionally, she dominates the screen at this moment and her serious attitude simply fills it up…

Filmed in and around New York, "Butterfield 8" is an intimate portrait of a tormented woman daringly beautiful and sexy

For any movie fan who loves Elizabeth Taylor, a slick, glossy movie with high 50's-early 60's production values, sharp writing, dramatic moments, and a superb supporting cast of wonderful characters, Butterfield 8 is the movie to watch. Ms. Taylor simply shines in and dominates this glamourous, but ultimately tragic drama. In spite of Ms. Taylor's negative feelings regarding this film, and even her own performance, she is marvelous because her acting makes her character a three dimentional, highly believeable, and ulimately tragical woman.

Simply stated, the movie is fun. The only real problem with this film is Eddie Fisher's wooden performance. David Janson, the original choice for the Fisher role, would have given a far better performance. In fact, he would have been as perfect for this role, as all of the other members of the fine cast of this truly entertaining movie.

When I started watching this film, I didn't know what to expect. At first it seemed like a slick, empty showcase for Elizabeth Taylor's beauty. However, it gradually turned into an involving (and extremely good-looking) little drama. You may have heard that it is campy; that's not true, although there is an unnecessary little speech by Harvey at the end. It's slickly produced, well-paced, entertaining and has an excellent cast.

... and just a few years away from the production code being dumped altogether it seems like a demonstration of what was the worst about the code years combined with films in the 60s trying to use what shock value they could get away with, and today , overall, it just looks cheesy.

In most summaries of this film I see Elizabeth Taylor's character, Gloria, described as a call girl. I never really see that happening. Instead Gloria just seems to like sex a lot. As in lots of sex with lots of men. Maybe to come out and say that when the goal of all women was still supposed to be having dishpan hands was going too far.

Gloria wakes up one morning in the apartment of wealthy but married playboy Weston Liggitt (Laurence Harvey), with him having left behind a note with $250 asking "Is this enough". She writes "no sale" in the mirror and takes a mink coat she finds in the closet - only to teach the guy a lesson for assuming she is for sale, but as they get more involved and do so immediately, she forgets all about that coat, and that causes a huge misunderstanding down the line.

The title comes from Gloria's answering service which is "Butterfield 8", and it is the subject of some - today - howlingly unintentionally funny scenes as Liggitt pleads with these people to find Gloria, curses at these people because they don't know where Gloria is, thanks them when they do find her. Gee, fellow, these are just operators eking out a living. They don't know their clients and they don't know you!

With Liz' husband at the time, Eddie Fisher, as a musician who has been Gloria's platonic friend since childhood and who also has a jealous girlfriend who oddly enough looks like Debbie Reynolds. There are some great location shots on the road between New York and Boston with the little independent diners and hotels that once dotted that landscape. I'd mildly recommend it.

An aside - Jeffrey Lynn, once strangely promoted as a romantic leading man over at Warner Brothers just before WWII, does a good job in a small role as Liggitt's friend.

As a lad I well remember in 1960 Elizabeth Taylor's struggle for her life with a deadly form of pneumonia. The news which usually when it talked about Liz Taylor it was usually about her various amours. this was different, the whole world was watching the bulletins as they came from London where she was in hospital. It was touch and go, but she made it.

Because she made it, she got an Oscar for Best Actress in 1960 for BUtterfield 8. It was not an award she highly prized. While she was filming BUtterfield 8 she cracked to the press loud and often about what a trashy film it was. She did it because she had only one more film to do on her commitment to MGM and MGM had this property kicking around for decades.

BUtterfield 8 was a novel by John O'Hara about a high priced call girl named Gloria Wandrous. It was based on the infamous Starr Faithful who was killed in 1931 and had a black book of some very influential clients.

Though it was written in 1935 the film is updated to the present. Taylor has a tempestuous relationship with her number one client played by Lawrence Harvey. He's the problem with the film. He's basically a cad, so much of one that one wonders what Taylor saw in him other than a successful social marriage. She certainly has some twisted values and finds that out too late.

Taylor got Eddie Fisher cast in the film as her friend. This was Fisher's second attempt at a movie career and there were no further offers from Hollywood for his services. As an actor he was a dud, Taylor says he doubled in that department as husband. She was quoted as saying that while she could think of good qualities in most of the men she was involved with, she couldn't for the life of her understand why she married Eddie Fisher.

But more than that, to me it was obvious that Fisher's character is gay, despite him having a girl friend played by Susan Oliver. Back then that was one area Hollywood didn't go into.

So Liz got her Oscar at last more for her courageous battle with pneumonia than her performance. She sure did better work. Her second Oscar for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was one she really felt she earned. She was not on screen again until 1963 when Cleopatra was released. And that's a whole other chapter in the Elizabeth Taylor saga.