Butterfield 8

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Butterfield 8

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Butterfield 8

Betty Field, Dina Merrill, Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, Jeffrey Lynn

"I was the slut of all time!" declares Elizabeth Taylor in the role for which she won her first Academy Award®. Taylor plays Gloria, a model of loose morals who discovers a last chance at love an...( read more  read more... )d redemption when she spends a week with Weston Ligget (Laurence Harvey), a man who married into money and hates himself for it. They fall in love, but before they can find happiness they have to overcome their own worst natures. BUtterfield 8 (named after Gloria's answering service) is a big boozy melodrama, full of gorgeous clothes, catty comments, and emotional showdowns--but along the way it plumbs some genuine sadness. No one can be simultaneously overblown and utterly sincere like Elizabeth Taylor; the movie is mired in the morality of the time, but her performance makes Gloria's mixture of grief and anger seem immediate and genuine. --Bret Fetzer

Id: 10906099

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Butterfield 8 Recent Reviews
  • Saxia
    May 27, 2009
    Saxia
    I love this woman to pieces! The more I see of her, the more I'm convinced what a phenomenal actress she is! And boy is she HOT!!!

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  • ebs90
    January 30, 2009
    ebs90
    Elizabeth Taylor shines as a collapsing femme fatale . She plays the role of an elegant call-girl, a woman whose social status and possessions are a fraud, depending only on who she's with and what she's working on. Formally, a model hired to show off and take photographs in desi...( read more)gner clothes at social happenings... informally, "the slut of all time". Gloria, the character, is an earlier, more aggressive version of Holly Golightly, perhaps less idealistically naive or cute. BUtterfield 8 (call now... or not?) is an early 60s variation of the story we often hear: a woman changes her immoral ways a cause of the love of a man. Despite the cliche, the story rather breaks the mold by establishing the characters as doomed, and portraying how it is simply not that easy to forget or erase a lifetime's reputation. The actions have repercussions on the actors, nothing is precisely rose-tinted, and I believe that is what makes BUtterfiled a worthy watch. It has no styllistic pretentions beyond the figure of Gloria herself, and concentrates, almost too closely, on the human drama.

    As in many 60s films, BUtterfiled 8 is everything but puritan. Gloria is unapologetically sensual and at times obscene; her character is fascinating. Regardless of the Oscar that she won, Elizabeth Taylor's performance is towering, and her presence alone saves her character from becoming an overtly dramatic figure, so unfortunate that it might end up becoming the outline of a caricature of itself. She pulls the lines with enough skill to keep Gloria afloat. The rest of the cast may be less outstanding, but is there another reason to watch this besides Liz?

    I don't know if BUtterfield 8 is essential 60s viewing, in many ways it's still a 50s film but with one foot on that following decade. I don't know if it's essential cinema at all. But I do know it is no waste of time to see Liz Taylor in a good role as an interesting, although not very sympathetic, man-eater in search of profoundity and redemption.
  • groaningbitch
    February 24, 2008
    groaningbitch
    could anyone associate the story of "butterfield 8" with audrery hepburn romantic tear-jerker "breakfast at tiffany's"? as a matter of fact, they're literarily on the issue of the purgation for the "women of libertine" which means T. R. A. M. P. you might be marvelled at the simi...( read more)liarity these two tales have. personally i assume "breakfast at tiffany's" would be another "butterfield 8" without audrery hepburn (but marilyn manroe instead) and its revised ending which differentiates from original novella.

    it is highly suspicious that elizabeth taylor gained academy award for it just becuz she looks damned ravishing in the first scene of her in half-naked gown, you tremebles as she moans "legget" on the bed, the excert of her ultimate sex appeal, then the "respitefully elegant" mink coat is also another attention-grappler. how could any judge refuse to vote for her unless he suffers from som private grudge of importency.(pardon me)

    the story is about gloria, an alleged high-class call-girl who juggles between men of wealth for a living. one incidental one-night-stand with the abrasive tycoon weston legget (laurence harvey) who lives under his wife's fortune, then he infuriates her by actually leaving money to pay off her "service"....rageous gloria struts out of his 5th avenue apartment with an extravagent minkcoat....after the wrestling of animosity, legget and gloria make love in their cozy shabby motel which is a symbol of their common beastly vulgarity. due to the very minkcoat which induces his suspicion of her frivolosity, legget severely humuliates gloria in public that pushes gloria into examining herself on her traumatic reflection which forces her to memerize the sexual taboo she tasted with her mother's former boyfriend at the age of 13, and that very forbidden fruit makes the way she is now...to regain her self-esteem, gloria aspires to repudiate with leggot that ends at the swift-speeded highway motorbile-racing then she dies at the course of escaping leggot.

    the two leads are characters in void of pride and dignity: her pride is depraved by her pretentiously gay laughs in booze and men, her reputation gets rotten by her easy virtue; his dignity is also descended for his wimpish futility to seperate from his wife to keep his stance firm as a man of independence. both are graunchy and full of angsts like two degenerates seek solace at each other. the reclaim of self-esteem is the main drive for the characters to conduct upon their joy and sorrow.

    "butterfield 8" is another flick upon the topic of woman in crossroad and her choices, and taylor's gloria chooses her individuality and her self-respect as a human, and then her death also inspires leggot to step out as his own without his generous wife, so both of them could fledge into maturity and decency....

    taylor always plays woman with the vigor of life as well as a merciful undertone of feminine maternality. despite her abitrary flatulency, gloria is actually a soft woman of frailty who could be easily battled by the cash of 250$, some mannerish poise of a plain rich dame and also the harsh bombardments of a violent brute. and she also shrinks back at the last encounter of motel "conference"...taylor's shrew always has an self-apologetic humbility to beseech your sympathetic forgiveness. is that a principle of femininity? why can't she just shamelessly grab the $ 250 then leave that imperious cocky man for good? why she has to assert "no sale"? annd why can't she just take possession of that damned gaudy minkcoat as conquest? why can't she just survive instead of dying to acquire pathos? briefly "butterfield 8" is a melodrama about a woman who just feel too sorry for what she has done.
  • jaynyca1
    June 25, 2007
    jaynyca1
    Hmmmm, I love Elizabeth Taylor and this is one of her best films in my opinion. She did a great job opposite Laurence Harvey as her lover.
    Cudos for the chase scene at the film's end, too!. . .
  • mjgildea
    November 7, 2006
    mjgildea
    Liz Taylor at the pinnacle of her powers.
  • jam233
    September 16, 2009
    jam233
    I think this often criticized film is quite good, and Elizabeth Taylor is among those who put the film down. But, she does give an excellent performance for which she won her first Oscar. It's her film all the way, I was never bored and it's well produced.
  • SageSlowdive
    August 24, 2009
    SageSlowdive
    Taylor gave the WORST performance by an best actress to win an Oscar. Enough said.
  • salianom
    May 25, 2009
    salianom
    this is when elizabeth taylor won her 1st oscar. great performance...
  • SaintFrancisofAssisi
    June 8, 2008
    SaintFrancisofAssisi
    Not at all interested
  • 01MovieMan
    May 8, 2008
    01MovieMan
    This is a good movie
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