Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Freaking Me, That's Who

It seems bad to say now, but I never liked Elizabeth Taylor. You know how sometimes in life you just meet someone and you don't know why, but you take an instant dislike to them? Elizabeth Taylor is the cinematic equivalent of that for me.

By the time I was born, Elizabeth Taylor was already a legend, having been in movies since she was a small child, the product of her mother's lost ambitions to be an actress. She somehow made the transition from child star to ingenue to leading lady to freaking movie boss, succeeding where so many other actresses got lost along the way. Indeed, I knew her more for her charitable works, eight marriages and perfume by the time I got around to knowing who she was.

The eight marriages gave me a reason to dislike her. By now, we all know of the Fisher-Taylor-Reynolds affair subsequently followed by the Taylor-Burton-Fisher affair. The first movie I seriously watched Elizabeth Taylor in was Cleopatra and it's easy to dislike her in that movie. I mean, every guy that likes her ends up dead by shanking. It's so easy to see her as a siren luring men to their downfall, certainly some of the evidence supports that. But take the marriage to her third husband, Mike Todd and his sudden death in an airplane accident during the making of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.



I'm sorry, it's just hard to hate a woman that's playing with a duck. Oh my God, did you see that outfit? How cool does she look? Why can't I look like that while I play with a duck while Edward R. Murrow interviews me? Oh, right. The tragedy of Mike Todd's death spurred Elizabeth on to one of her greatest performances, one I've covered already, in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.



I started to turn. Hell, this is tragic. You're married to Paul Newman and he's a depressed alcoholic with a weird fixation on his dead friend, so you can't even enjoy being married to Paul Newman. TRAGIC. I've started to think differently about the Eddie Fisher thing, too, like I'm pretty sure that Eddie Fisher could be the scumbag in that instance. Just a theory.

Yet, as quickly as Elizabeth Taylor could make you feel sympathy, she could scare the hell out of you. I am talking about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, probably the finest performance of a career full of fine performances and definitely the best collaboration between her and Richard Burton. If you don't know the story by now, it's this a young couple visits a university professor and his wife (Burton and Taylor) for an evening and finds out that you never know what's going on in people's marriages and sometimes you don't freaking want to.



This movie scares the hell out of me. I caution you to watch it, but do not start after midnight, intriguing as Taylor and Burton are in this movie, I had to turn it off just so I could be sure that I slept. It is a fantastic film, that perplexes you and keeps you guessing and I am seriously not ruining the ending here. Last Christmas, Turner Classic played this movie and I couldn't believe it. Worst Christmas Programming Ever. This movie is the opposite of a Merry Christmas. It might be better for Festivus, sometime during the Airing of Grievances. Accounts of their time on the set of this film differ. Director Mike Nichols insisted that they fought, but it was all in fun. Colleagues insisted that they weren't kidding, again, you never know what's going on in other people's marriages. Don't ask. Yet everyone asked, Liz and Dick were the thing, in their day making Brangelina look lame and uncool. When did Brad Pitt ever buy Angelina a 241 carat diamond?



Or what about the La Peregrina Pearl? Other owners include Mary Tudor, you know FROM HISTORY.



I mean, come on, Brad, step it up.

Their relationship, collaboration and two marriages would come to define both of them. I think about the tragedy of their relationship, that they loved each other desperately, hopelessly, but ultimately were not very good for each other.

So, what more can I say about Elizabeth Taylor? I hated her, then I kind of started to feel bad for her and she scared the hell out of me. Now I'm feeling bad for hating her as so often happens in life. Farewell, Elizabeth, I hardly knew ye and I get the feeling I never quite will. I guess that's just how it's got to be.

And from Turner Classic, a tribute from Paul Newman. See? I'm not entirely off topic.

The Paul Newman Retrospective: Another Brick In The Wall: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, 1958

You have no idea how I have been dying to use that title! See it's a pun, right? And yet it actually kind of fits. Because this film is all about deciding if you should conform to what people expect from you. I'm not sure what Pink Floyd: The Wall is about.



Welcome to the fifth edition of the Paul Newman Retrospective. Today we'll be dealing with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the first film for which Paul Newman received an Academy Award Nomination and his first appearance in the world of Tennessee Williams with whom he was also friends. That does not mean Tennessee liked this film at all, in fact he told people not to see it. The obvious reason is that since his play dealt with homosexuality, most of that had to be done away with because of the Production Code and you've seen Mad Men, right? I think maybe he was too dismissive, though. Even though they had to take the homosexual storyline out (not like it's totally out, though, it does seem weird for a while that Brick is so hung up about this) they did leave us with a protagonist struggling to find any meaning in life that to him seems to be too often lived dishonestly.



The great dilemma in this film is that the part of Maggie The Cat is played by Elizabeth Taylor, who makes me want to spit blood. It's not even her fault, I think, I just usually don't like her, but I do like her in this performance. It's rendered all the more impressive by the fact that Elizabeth Taylor's husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane accident during filming. Her performance in this is so flawless in spite of that. Now, for you Hollywood history buffs, that was the catalyst of the Taylor-Fisher-Reynolds Affair, soon to be followed by the Taylor-Burton-Fisher Affair. I was watching Oprah with Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher recently and it occurred to me that if I was Elizabeth Taylor and I was going to steal another woman's husband while I made this movie, I would make a play for Paul Newman and not Eddie Fisher. That would make much more sense. People would understand that. Anyway...

The supporting parts are filled out by Burl Ives as Big Daddy, who also sings "Holly Jolly Christmas." Big Mama played by Judith Anderson, Brick's brother Gooper played by Jack Carson (Where are these people getting these names?) and his wife, the perpetually procreating, Sister Woman, played by Madeleine Sherwood, who also appears in another Newman-Williams effort, Sweet Bird of Youth.

We start out in a scene on a high school athletic field where Brick attempts to jump the high hurdles while drunk and breaks his ankle. By the way, has anyone else noticed that the best Paul Newman movies seem to start with a long scene with Newman alone somewhere? Cool Hand Luke, this one, I know there are others. Next, we're back at the Pollitt family home where everyone has gathered to celebrate Big Daddy's birthday. Brick doesn't seem to care about the whole proceeding except where he's going to get his next drink from. Maggie laments the connivings of Gooper and Sister Woman to get their hands on the Pollitt fortune, Brick's lack of interest in it as well as the decline in their love life. Who can blame her, really? Anyway, Big Daddy comes home from a clinic thinking he has a bill of clean health. The family doctor informs Gooper and subsequently Brick that Big Daddy is going to die. Brick's instinct is to bail, which is symptomatic of his larger problem.

Much of the guts in this film derives from the confrontations between Brick and Big Daddy. Big Daddy wants Brick to inherit his empire, Brick doesn't want to. Big Daddy wants to know why Brick drinks and Brick doesn't want to talk about it. Most of it comes down to something called mendacity.



Big Daddy makes Maggie say what happened to Brick's friend, Skipper. It comes down to Brick failing his friend since it is clearly not what happened in the play and even I thought we were getting a little convoluted at this juncture. Big Daddy tries to get brick to face the truth about that and their confrontation leads to Brick spitting out to Big Daddy that he is going to die. It's the first time we see both of them exhibiting vulnerability. This becomes a turning point for father and son, as they're both forced to confront the truth about their lives. As this happens, Sister Woman and Gooper try to talk Big Mama into giving them control of Big Daddy's interests. Maggie stays in the fray there, fighting for position. Big Daddy and Brick come to a similar conclusion, that even if life is fraught with mendacity, it had better be lived than not. Big Daddy seemingly resolves to live out the rest of his days and Brick is going to stop using alcohol to hide from his problems. Meanwhile, Maggie says she is pregnant which is patently untrue, but it really pisses off Sister Woman, everyone else seems to know it's not true, but enters it in the "Who the hell cares?" column. This is ultimately what I like best about the film, we didn't quite get the happy ending, but we're happy enough, as happy as we can be.

What else about this film? It's beautifully shot, even if it's small. The whole thing takes period over a single night. I feel like we get a sense of the heat in the film, even though I can't put my finger on it. Also, this movie has the most monstrous collection of child actors ever and a great line about the Cotton Bowl that I couldn't quite work in here, so you will have to watch the movie. They were going to originally film it in black and white, since most films with an artistic bent were shot in black and white at the time, but director Richard Brooks decided that was crazy given Elizabeth Taylor's eyes and Paul Newman's eyes. Good call. It is obviously different than the play, but I don't think it suffers for it. You just have to look upon it as something separate. I think it becomes about something else, about facing life rather than isolating yourself from it.

So, does the Production Code suck? Would you have liked a real adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play better? Would you have gone for Eddie Fisher, too? If so, why? Will you listen to "Holly Jolly Christmas" differently next time? Do those kids in the meat grinder bother you too? Explain all in the comments section.

Best Picture 1958: Gigi

1958 was a remarkable year in the history of film. It was the year when Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo came out, along with Orson Welles' Touch of Evil along with Some Came Running. However, none of these films were nominated for Best Picture. Instead, the nominees were Auntie Mame, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, Separate Tables and Gigi. Now, let's review the contenders. Separate Tables is the story of several couples as they stay at a seaside hotel. Auntie Mame is the story of an orphan who goes to live with his eccentric aunt. The Defiant Ones is the story of two prisoners one black, one white escaped who have to work together. It was also the film that Sidney Poitier was first nominated for an Oscar for, making him the first African American man to get the honor, and only four African American women had gotten any nominations before that. (Dorothy Dandridge for Carmen Jones, Ethel Waters for Pinky and Hattie McDaniel for Gone With The Wind, the only woman among these three to actually win.)



Then Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, my personal favorite of these films. Admittedly, there are flaws to my selection. It is the film that Tennessee Williams famously told people not to see because the filmmakers had to cut out all the homosexual elements present in the play and talk around things. They also had to kind of give it a happy ending. Yet the movie still feels like it's about something and Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor both give incredible, tortured performances. Burl Ives also gives a great performance as Big daddy. (Your piece of trivia for the day is also that Burl Ives sings "Holly Jolly Christmas")

So, how the hell is Gigi the Best Picture of 1958?





Gigi was directed by Vincente Minnelli and one of the last musicals to come out of the storied Arthur Freed production unit at MGM. Overall, it's not a bad movie and pretty good so far as musicals about French courtesans go, but Moulin Rouge remains my favorite of the genre. Gigi, played by Leslie Caron, is a young girl being groomed to be a courtesan by her grandmother and great aunt. She enjoys a friendship with man about town, Gaston, played by Louis Jourdan. The friendship unfortunately gets sidetracked by the fact that Gigi is grown up and her family would like to see her put in a comfortable situation. Gigi's grandmother points out to Gaston that Gigi is grown up. He first refuses to believe it and leaves in a huff, wandering the streets and singing. Gaston proposes to Gigi that she becomes his mistress. Gigi rejects him, saying that such a life would only be fraught with misery and scandal for her. Gaston storms out, unable to see that. Gigi calls him back and announces that she would rather be miserable with him than without him. Gigi and Gaston go out to dinner that evening where the combination of Gigi's coquetry and the reaction of the other patrons convinces Gaston that Gigi's original interpretation of her life as a mistress was accurate. Dismayed, he takes her home and wanders the streets of Paris only to return and ask Gigi's grandmother for her hand in marriage.

So, a pretty fanciful story, but it was 1958 so we can't exactly count that against it. It's just in the broad strokes that some things bother me. Take this scene in the opening where Maurice Chevalier sings "Thank Heaven For Little Girls."



Am I the only one thinking old guy alone in the park singing this song equals pedophile? It doesn't help that the plot of this film just about adds up to being about training your granddaughter to be a high class prostitute. The whole concept of this film is creepy. Vincente Minnelli has his usual skill with color and spectacle, it has all the charm of an MGM musical, but there's nothing particularly wonderful or groundbreaking about it, especially when compared with the competition and even more so when compared with the films that got snubbed that year.

So, what do you all think? Fill in the blank in the comments section: "Yo, Gigi, I'm really happy for you, I'mma let you finish but ________ was the hottest film of 1958."