Butterfield 8 (1960)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Lady D

  
  A glamourous Liz Taylor is a rebel of a lass in this (slightly controversial at the time) story, parts were enjoyable, none of it relatable and all very glamourised for such a lifestyle.

• Robert C

  
  When kept in perspective (it was late 50's early 60's) it's quite a bold film (in regard to subject matter) about a girl who is looking for love in all the wrong places. It is also a rather sad story about how when you go too far down one "path" in life, it… More
  When kept in perspective (it was late 50's early 60's) it's quite a bold film (in regard to subject matter) about a girl who is looking for love in all the wrong places. It is also a rather sad story about how when you go too far down one "path" in life, it isn't always easy to choose another. And even if you are able...you may start down the new (and better) "path" with a bad case of poison oak from the first "path". An impressive performance by Elizabeth Taylor. though I feel the Oscar was given to her just as much for the impressive (and Oscar nominated) string of solid films that she had made up to that point, as it was for this film in particular.

• moon r

  
  With lines like a comedy ridiculing this genre played straight, it took an act of will to stomach this garbage, this trash, about trash. Maybe its better than I give it credit for ... but noooooo.

• Jennifer X

  
  So what's this I hear about this film being a piece of trash? Maybe it's just due to Liz Taylor's fascinating sex appeal, but I found Butterfield 8 to be utterly sumptuous. Poor dependable sap Eddie Fisher pulsating with desire for Gloria's touch, but making do… More
  So what's this I hear about this film being a piece of trash? Maybe it's just due to Liz Taylor's fascinating sex appeal, but I found Butterfield 8 to be utterly sumptuous. Poor dependable sap Eddie Fisher pulsating with desire for Gloria's touch, but making do with simple Norma's homebody image. Laurence Harvey crusading through entire imaginable emotion on the map - orgasmic ecstasy, contentment, anger, despair, resurrection. And the clothing! The truths! The hysterics! The catfights! This is a film about one woman's effect on an entire community, and wow does Liz Taylor make it unforgettable.

• Saskia D

  
  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!!! <div style="width:290px;"><a… More
  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!!! <div style="width:290px;"><a href="http://www.flixster.com/movie/butterfield-8-photos/elizabeth-taylor-in-butterfield-8-11387861"><img src="http://content7.flixster.com/photo/11/38/78/11387861_gal.jpg" border="0"/></a><div style="text-align:center;font-size:10px;"><a href="http://www.flixster.com">

• Elvira B

  
  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… More
  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 designer 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.

• Veronique K

  
  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.… More
  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 similiarity 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.

• jay n

  
  glossy and empty, even Liz hates it but entertaining if your in the right mood

• Michael G

  
  Liz Taylor at the pinnacle of her powers.

• Laura C

  
  Absolutely riveting performance by Elizabeth Taylor. The film is excellent in its exposition of a wonderfully complex woman. One of my all-time favorite characters.

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