Remembering Elizabeth Taylor

I was saddened to hear of Elizabeth Taylor's passing this morning. As a classic film addict I've enjoyed many of her films throughout the years. She was talented, gorgeous, classy, and relished living life to the fullest, through heartache, tragedy, and (many) marriages. I thought I'd take this opportunity to highlight a few of my favorite Liz Taylor films, in the hope that perhaps you'll be inspired to revisit a classic or discover a new favorite.

Ivanhoe (1952):

Stand and pledge loyalty - or prepare to lie cold beneath your shields. Chivalrous knight Wilfrid of Ivanhoe is determined to restore Richard the Lionhearted to England's throne.
Gallantry and costumed pageantry combine in this crowd-pleasing nominee for 3 Academy Awards including Best Picture. Robert Taylor plays the title role and Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Fontaine also star in a rousing adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's novel. The film's jousting tournament is a galloping display of steed and stout-hearted men. Most spectacular of all is the siege of Torquilstone Castle, a wave-after-wave combat of arrows, fire, boulders, battering ram, and blade. To the battlements! (From the DVD, click to purchase.)

Growing up I went through a phase where I was absolutely obsessed with tales of knights and chivalry. This 1952 film was my first introduction to the tale of Ivanhoe, and one of the main reasons I developed a crush on Robert Taylor. The film holds up today as a wonderful example of technicolor spectacle from Hollywood's Golden Age, and Taylor gives a luminous, compelling performance as Rebecca. An absolute classic! Here's the film's trailer:

Elephant Walk (1954):

Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Finch, and Dana Andrews star in this action-packed drama set in Ceylon. Taylor plays a newlywed who accompanies Finch to his sprawling tea plantation called Elephant Walk...and falls for overseer Andrews. But this love triangle is soon dwarfed by other events. A cholera epidemic breaks out, drought blights the land and herds of thirst-maddened elephants devastate the plantation in a thundering stampede.

This famed sequence is a triumph of moviemaking. The palatial "bungalow" is reduced to rubble as onrushing elephants pound across polished floors, rip walls from their foundations and knock over kerosene drums to ignite a terrifying inferno. You have to see it to believe it! (From the DVD, click to purchase.)

This is one of the first films I can remember watching on AMC after my parents got cable when I was nine or ten years old. The feeling I got when I first saw the elephant stampede is still, to this day, seared in my memory. It blew me away then, and I still love it now. This is a fantastic, passionate story of romance and survival against the most overwhelming force of all - nature unleashed. L-O-V-E it in all of its over-the-top, cheesy glory. :)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958):

"I'm not living with you," Maggie snaps at Brick. "We occupy the same cage, that's all." The raw emotions and crackling dialogue of Tennessee Williams' 1955 Pulitzer Prize play rumble like a thunderstorm in this film version, whose fiery performances and grown-up themes made it one of 1958's top box-office hits.

Paul Newman earned his first Oscar nomination as troubled ex-sports hero Brick. In a performance that marked a transition to richer adult roles, Elizabeth Taylor snagged her second. Her Maggie the Cat is a vivid portrait of passionate loyalty. Nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and also starring Burl Ives (repeating his Broadway triumph as mendacity-loathing Big Daddy), Judith Anderson and Jack Carson, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof sizzles. (From the DVD, click to purchase.)

I ADORE this movie. If you're looking for a scandal-ridden, juicy family drama (I confess I have a weakness for such!), look no further than Cat. The performances are electrifying, and Newman and Taylor's on-screen chemistry sizzles. Wildly entertaining! (And isn't that Italian version of the poster fab?!) Here's the movie trailer:

Cleopatra (1963):

Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison star in this sweeping tale of power and betrayal - the legendary story of the Queen of the Nile and her conquest of Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony. Here is the truly unforgettable portrayal of the beguiling beauty who seduced two of Rome's greatest soldiers and changed the course of history. Breathtaking in scope and grandeur, the picture won Oscars for cinematography, art direction, costumes, sets and special effects. In the tradition of epic romantic adventures like Braveheart and Titanic comes the greatest spectacle of all...CLEOPATRA. (From the DVD, click to purchase.)

Cleopatra is a film that has always fascinated me. I love the actual history and the sheer spectacle of the movie, and the film's story off-screen is as fascinating as the history that plays out over a sprawling run-time that exceeds four hours. And for as long as that is, this movie never drags and is as riveting an experience as the first time I can remember watching it years ago. Elizabeth Taylor OWNS the screen in this movie. Sure, it's over-the-top, but I love it. You can read an article about the film's tumultuous history here - they sure don't make 'em like this anymore. Here's a crazy-long film trailer:

The Taming of the Shrew (1967):

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton sparkle and amuse as Katharina and Petruchio in William Shakespeare's comic look at male chauvinism and women's lib in the 16th century. Petruchio, a poverty-stricken gentleman from Verona, journeys to Padua in search of a wealthy wife. There he encounters the fiery Katharina, a self-willed shrew who leads Petruchio on a merry chase before he successfully circumvents her attempts to avoid marriage. Their honeymoon becomes a humorous battle of wit and insult with Kate as determined to maintain her independence as Petruchio is to "tame" her. When the embattled couple returns to Padua, Kate helps Petruchio win a wager that his is the most obedient of wives. But in reality, the shrewish Kate has found a more effective way to dominate her mate. (From the DVD, click to purchase.)

I mentioned this movie a couple of weeks ago when I blogged about the Shakespeare Retold version of Shrew. This movie is, in my estimation, one of the best film versions of a Shakespeare play ever made (yes, I'm equating it with my beloved Kenneth Branagh films! *wink*). It's wildly entertaining from start to finish, and Taylor and Burton's chemistry just can't be equaled - I think they were a perfect pair to play Shakespeare's feuding lovers. Here's the trailer:



Rest in peace, Dame Elizabeth, and thank you for the fabulous films.

Shakespeare Retold: The Taming of the Shrew

Last week in a discussion on Facebook I was trying to convince Liz to watch the Shakespeare Retold version of The Taming of the Shrew, since Rufus Sewell is TO DIE FOR in it. And I realized, to my everlasting horror, that I hadn't watched this movie in years (an absolute TRAVESTY!). Since then, I'm on my second viewing in a week, and all is once more right in the Rufus Sewell-loving portion of my world.

Shakespeare Retold was a series of four made-for-television films that the BBC aired in 2005 (I can't BELIEVE it's been that long!). The series was made up of brilliantly realized modern takes on Shakespeare's plays (Shrew, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Much Ado About Nothing). Shrew and Much Ado are my favorites, in most part thanks to the aforementioned Sewell in the former and Damian Lewis in the latter (but that, my friends, is another blog post).

Shirley Henderson plays Kate Minola, a hilariously psychotic MP who's the bane of her harrassed secretary's existence and an exasperating curiosity to her fashion-obsessed mother and sister. Her career is her life, and she's trying to organize a leadership campagin in her party with an eye to eventually becoming Prime Minister. She's advised that she has a better chance of winning her leadership campaign if she gets married - the question is, who'd possibly marry her? 

Henderson, perhaps best known as Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films, is pitch perfect as a modern incarnation of Shakespeare's shrew of a heroine. She may only be a tick over 5'0", but she is an absolute terror and I LOVE it. NO ONE does wonderfully pyschotic and intense like Henderson. She's first introduced while some Jaws-like theme music plays as she stomps through the halls of Parliament...and everyone she passes positively cowers in the face of her fury. In contrast, her sister Bianca (Jaime Murray, recently seen as H.G. Wells in the latest season of Warehouse 13), a model, is universally liked and receives multiple proposals a week. I've just got to say, I think Kate handles the having a stuck-on-herself model for a sister and Twiggy for a mother much better than I ever could. *wink*

Bianca's manager - instead of a tutor - Harry (Stephen Tompkinson), is in love with Bianca and toys with the idea of fixing up Kate with someone, anyone, so Bianca will be more marraige-minded. He introduces Kate to Petruchio (Rufus Sewell), an eccentric aristocrat looking for a rich wife to bail him out of his financial woes. They meet in an elevator -and, well...I can't really say anything to do justice to the brilliance of the moment except that the elevator scenes are hysterically funny. And freaking hot. I am convinced that Rufus Sewell has never been more swoon-worthy than as the appealing bad boy in the elevator. It's an absolutely classic moment as Kate and Petruchio exchange lightening fast zingers. The entire script, in fact, is full of fabulous, quotable moments (the insults are particularly noteworthy, LOL).

Everything comes together brilliantly in this adaptation, which remains remarkably - and surprisingly, perhaps - true to the source material, right down to Petruchio showing up to his wedding dressed in women's clothes (instead of an outlandish clown costume), and the ways in which he subsequently seeks to "tame" his furious bride, to the sun-is-the-moon discussion. It's interesting to compare this incarnation of the story to the other famous film version of the play - the 1967 Franco Zeffirelli film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the title roles. In particular, I think Sewell's Petruchio owes a great deal to Burton's gregarious, over-the top turn in the role. It's brilliant, Rufus is brilliant, and I just love, love, LOVE seeing him play a "good guy" like this.

Henderson and Sewell have unbelievably amazing on-screen chemistry. Whether they're fighting or making nice the sparks positively explode off the screen. The barbs and zingers fly fast and furious and non-stop in all of their scenes, but underneath the sparring they both manage to convey their respective character's insecurities and fears, really humanizing Kate and Petruchio, letting you see the motivations, pain, and fear behind their gloriously, wonderful, hilariously over-the-top personalities. I think Henderson does a fantastic job transforming Kate and making her emotionally vulnerable. She's a woman who has spent so long presenting a tough shell to the world, constructing impenetrable walls around her heart that have made her a raging and feared political success, that opening her heart to another requires more bravery than she's ever had to muster before.

Sewell's Petruchio is wonderful. WONDERFUL. I love how when we're introduced to him he's at such loose ends, not sure what to do with his life, only that he really needs to come into some money to get the tax man off his back. When he first meets Kate, you can see this instant transformation on his countenance - rather than being put off by her abominable rudeness, he's intrigued. This woman's something different, a glorious challenge, someone who isn't afraid to give as good or better than she takes. As Harry describes him to Kate during the critical, do-or-die moment, Petruchio is really just an "unstable, unbalanced exhibitionist who needs someone to think the world of him." Say it with me: awwww. :) I just adore Kate and Petruchio in this film, and the "wives obey your husbands" scene at the end is SO well played. I think the scriptwriter did a really great job translating Shakespeare's play to the present day.

Ratings-wise, this is probably a PG-13. There's some language and innuendo, bawdier than most regular Masterpiece fare, but so was Shakespeare when it comes down to it. :) Bawdy and hilarious in the best Shakespearean tradition, and  pro-marriage? Love it.

Rufus, m'dear, I promise I won't ever again let us spend so much time apart.