The Driver's Seat

Ah, Elizabeth Taylor, Empress of Batshittery.

"Who asked you for a stain-resistant dress!?"

And I say that with absolute love and respect. Elizabeth Taylor is the definitive movie star in many ways: She starred in film classics such as A Place in the Sun and National Velvet and big-budget blowouts like Cleopatra and Giant. Hell, she was denounced by the Vatican and in the United States House of Representatives and she was just like, "Whatever. Me and Richard Burton are going back to our yacht to eat diamonds." La Liz was one of the great film queens gifted with an abundance of beauty and a dearth of fucks to give: Louise Brooks, Kay Francis, Ava Gardner, none of whom cared that much for their careers, but saw glamour as a means to an end, to live, live live! (Usually in a way that involved lots of handsome men and top-shelf liquor and gorgeous clothes and five-star hotels.)

"In her walk, in her look! There was something about her that made you notice her right away. Something unseemly!"

But, anyway, long after Cat in a Hot Tin Roof and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf--hell, long after Butterfield 8--she made an array of weird-ass 70s movies like Boom! and Hammersmith Is Out and The Only Game in Town (which might have worked if it had been shot in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra as originally planned, rather than faking Vegas in Paris with Warren Beatty). The Driver's Seat, also known as Identikit, is one such odd entry in the filmography.

The Driver's Seat is based on a short novel by Muriel Spark and has a plot best described as "stuff happens." It feels like an improvisational film or at least one made by someone who'd never made movies before--scenes of phone calls, letter writing, scarf buying, etc. go on and on in real time. Choosing a book involves a long, slow pan of paperback mystery novels. When characters go form one place to another, we watch a bunch of scenery go by and a few establishing shots.

"Not a presence, but a lack of absence. That's what it is."

I mean, I don't like spending time waiting for takeoff when I'm on a plane, much less watching someone else wait. Have you ever wanted to be trapped in a car with a guy who can't stop ranting about his macrobiotic diet? Me neither, but you get to in The Driver's Seat. The only time this time-consuming, time-wasting method of filmmaking is at all worthwhile is when we get to watch Taylor do her eye makeup in closeup, which is better than any YouTube tutorial.

"When I diet, I diet. And when I orgasm, I orgasm. I don't believe in mixing the two cultures."

There is a scene where she leaves her apartment in a crazy, mixed-pattern ensemble, looking for all the world like Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon. then, as though the movie can read your mind, a little Italian lady jumps out of the shadows and crows "Are you going to join the CIRCUS in that outfit?!"

"Excuse me, which do you think would be more exciting? More sadomasochistic?"

So she has a shitty plane flight--middle seat, lecherous creep on one side, panic-attacking basket case on the other. Although we are reminded of a more innocent time, when you could buy knives at the airport gift shop and joke with security about having a bomb in your purse. And she lands and some dude gets shot and there's a lot of running and screaming and then Andy Warhol shows up with a white suit and a dubbed British accent to return the paperback she dropped--and, for all the noise made about his appearing in this film, it amount to three 60-second bits with someone else's voice. She carries the paperback everywhere, cover facing out, like a spy meeting a contact or a Tinder date that actually reads books (the former being more likely).

"It was as though something came out of her, some force that all women feel latent within themselves, stifled--a potential for catastrophe!"

At one point she and some weird old lady go to a deserted art deco department store with entire floors of grand pianos. They buy slippers and letter openers, there's a random act of terrorism that makes it hard to get a ride back to the Hilton..

This is not a picture of Divine.

It is a picture of Elizabeth Taylor in The Driver's Seat. For reals.

She spends a of of time smiling vacantly and then yelling at people. It's supposed to be a nervous breakdown, but it looks more like pills. Or perhaps just diva fits. And it seems Interpol is looking for her. Or will be looking for her: We get footage of various people being interrogated about Liz--or Lise, as she is called here--and even a few Rashomon-like revisions, which only add to the intertia and confusion. Also, everyone talks about going to the Hilton like the movie is a damn ad.

"I am an idealist."

Taylor may be having some kind of meltdown but you feel no sympathy for her. Mostly because she's a raging cunt to the help--dress shop salesgirls, hotel doormen, maids, she hollers at them all about stain-treated dresses, unwashed glasses, etc. She snaps her fingers at waiters, when she wants to know what time it is, she just shouts the question until someone answers....

She also keeps hanging out with the macrobiotic MRA creep she met on the plane who keeps talking about his need for a daily orgasm and how he can charge her hotel room "to the company." But, like every other man, she flounces off, shouting about how he's "not my type!" I'd say a good 25% of Taylor's dialogue consists of "Are you my type?" or "You're not my type" or "He wasn't my type." See, what Lise/Liz wants is to find a man who will kill her and the problem of the film is that she's looking for a murderer but she keeps meeting rapists. (Maybe she should asks one of those salesgirls she bitches at to gut her like a flounder. Pretty sure they'd be happy to.)

"I want to go back home, to feel all my loneliness again."

The Driver's Seat makes me think of that incredibly stupid movie with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp wandering around fancy hotels in Venice and running yachts into people. (Which may or may not be worse than the movie with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt wandering around fancy hotels in Malta and sighing a lot.) If you want to see a suicidal, clothing-obsessed diva have a nervous breakdown amidst European scenery, The Scarlet Lady is far more enjoyable. If you want a confusing story about a crazy woman loose in a strange city, Daughter of Horror has more giggles and more panache.

"After you stab, make sure you twist the knife upwards to penetrate deeply enough."

Overall, The Driver's Seat is just a bad movie. But gawd knows it'd be worse without Elizabeth Taylor.

Butterfield 8

Ah, Butterfield 8. Much as Bette Davis was ashamed of Beyond the Forest, Elizabeth Taylor was embarrassed by this movie. Even though it won her an Oscar. (Although the tracheotomy and the widow-ing and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof helped.) And, really, she's made worse films than this -- Butterfield 8 is just an over-the-top melodrama that she carries on beauty and star power.

The novel by John O'Hara is actually an interesting work, the heroine is something of a cross between a female Gatsby and a self-sufficent Sister Carrie. It was based on the true story of Starr Faithfull, a socialite who committed suicide (or didn't) in 1931.

The movie pulls the story out of it's jazz age/Depression milieu and sets it vaguely in the fifties, which removes the context and relevance to its times but does provide some lovely Helen Rose sheath dresses and fabulous Hollywood Regency interiors.

The opening is classic -- a hungover Liz awakens in a strange apartment, hollers for the man who's just leaving, then rolls out of bed to pour herself a Scotch and figure out what to do next. It's just like the beginning of a Bukowski novel, except the apartment is a palatial six-bedroom on the Upper East Side, the man is walking into his private elevator, the Scotch is in a Baccarat crystal decanter and the drunk is Elizabeth Taylor in her prime, lush curves packed into a silk satin slip, hair tousled but eye makeup flawless.

La Liz discovers her gown torn in half on the floor, but this does not bother her in the least. but then she finds a note with a check for $250 and flies into a rage. This makes no sense for two reasons. One, i'd consider it payment to replace my trashed frock, plus a little something for my trouble in the form of accessories. Two, even if Liz -- here called Gloria Wandrous -- is taking it as payment for services rendered, she is a freaking callgirl fer chrissake. Hence the generous amount of ennui that accompanies her glamor. She tears up the check, yanks a mink coat from a closet full of furs and struts out into the New York City morning. Attagirl!

She goes to see Eddie Fisher. Liz was married to him at the time and insisted he be cast in the film. He can't act for shit -- turn off the cameras and he's jacked up on speed, playing Vegas and banging Elizabeth Taylor, turn on the cameras and he's boring. But he's just the best friend anyway.

Liz is hung up on the dress-tearing check writer, whose name is Weston Liggett and who is played by Laurence Harvey in the most uptight style possible. He is a selfish jerk and her attraction to him is inexplicable.

He's a lawyer married to a wealthy socialite. How wealthy? Well, one, he's her trophy husband and this is her Fifth Avenue penthouse. (And that was her mink.) Two, look at the bitch's fucking closets! Rows of shoes! Aqua-upholstered hatboxes to match the walls! Why do i not live here!?

Poor Liz. It's always dangerous to think that you've finally met the man who'll save you, who's your reward for your years of loneliness, of being misunderstood, of knowing everyone and knowing that not one of them cares if you live or die. Because Mr. "Right" will indeed ditch you cold and the pain or rejection will be augmented by the pain of being a damn deluded fool. (Or, as the truly great band, ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead put it, "every inch of hope becomes a wall of shame.") If you're the heroine of Butterfield 8, he will call you nasty names, get drunk and fuck you in roadside motels before going back to his wife.

Seriously, this guy is an asshole and i have no idea why his calling her a tramp and banging her on the side is so much special than anyone else's doing so. Especially since Harvey and Taylor have zero chemistry.

Much is made of the fact that Harvey's wife has the money, wifey's dad owns the company he works for. But the story never makes the connection that Taylor and Harvey are both pretty pieces that have been bought and paid for, except she's rented and he's owned. But i guess back in the 50's the idea of the manwhore was still something one did not discuss. When a movie needs the viewer to bring their own subtext, it's a problem. Actually, nothing reads -- all of the players seem to be pretty much sleepwalking through this film, save for occasional actorly outbursts.

Ultimately, Butterfield 8 is a pretty dull movie. (Compare it to Breakfast at Tiffany's, which also does the NYC party/call-girl story a year later, and infinitely better. The characters have actual depth, the dialogue is actually clever and there's even a few laughs -- intentional laughs.) It's fun to ogle the costumes and sets. The opening worldess scene is a classic for the La Taylor highlight reel -- as well as an object lesson to every woman that she looks far more alluring wandering around the house in a slip than sweats -- and there's some hilarious dialogue, but that's about it. I'll leave it to the star to pass judgement...

"I still think it's a piece of shit."

Liz & Dick

Quick! Open the liquor cabinet! The movie is about to start!

I would like to think that this is how they would react. After they changed the channel.

Now, I know it is impossible for Liz Taylor to be incarnated by anyone other than Liz Taylor -- they truly broke the damn mold on her. But casting Lindsay Lohan? Hollywood's ultimate star played by a washed-up wannabe? One of the great beauties of all time portrayed by a once-pretty 26-year-old who's blown enough rails and had enough truly unfortunate plastic surgery to look like a 43-year-old streetwalker? A woman renowned for high-profile relationships with some of the most famous men of her time acted by someone who's only notable score was banging some DJ whose stepdad was in Foreigner. (And that would not have provoked any interest at all if said DJ hadn't been a lady.) A multiple-Oscar winner who starred in a number of film classics impersonated by someone who last decent film was over a decade ago... Well, okay Zee and Co. was pretty dreadful, but not nearly as bad as I Know Who Killed Me. And, yes, while Machete was a fucking masterpiece, I would not count Lohan's brief contribution as crucial. Welcome and amusing, yes, but not essential.

Obviously, Lifetime did not intend Liz & Dick to be a quality product. No one who tuned into this movie expected it to be good. Which is not a bad thing: My friend Laura recently stated that she wished Lifetime was "a real women's movie channel with lots of schlocky biographies. Mommie Dearest twenty-four-seven." One would hope that Liz & Dick would be a step in this oh-so right directions. But, alas, no. It's a poor-to-middling biopic with some idiotic stunt casting.

I'd have no idea who this was supposed to be if they didn't keep telling me.

The movie is idly framed with the idea of Burton's love letters to Taylor -- they open with one, mention it at some point again later, whatever. they also repeatedly come back to what I suppose is supposed to be their 1972 interview with David Frost (you know, there one was Liz was so hammered on Jack Daniels that she always regretted doing it), but comes off more like some kind of faux Inside the Actor's Studio crap. What follows is an endless procession of brief scenes of the life of someone who they claim is Elizabeth Taylor. And i do mean brief: There is not a scene longer than 90 seconds. I don't know if that's because the writer had severe ADHD or maybe that's the longest Lindsay could go without her eyes rolling back into her head.

Listen, before we go any further with this, let me share the most memorable thing about viewing Liz & Dick, which was the perfecting of my newest cocktail invention...

The Pushkin
2 parts Stoli salted caramel vodka
1 part caramel-flavored Bailey's
1 part whole milk.

Shake and serve over ice. Like a White Russian, but a bit sweeter and with a more cafe au lait color. I'm not sure exactly what kind of drinking game to play during this movie. Rick suggested that every time someone shoehorns backstory into dialogue: "I made twenty-nine pictures in the last fifteen years." Drink! "This is your fourth marriage!" Drink!... Fuck! Let's make it easy: Every time they drink, we drink.

Honestly, i'm not sure this movie is even worth wasting your liquor. (And you know Lindsay can feel that snap from here, even passed out!) But, as Ginger pointed out, "The good thing about this being on television with commercials is that there's time to freshen your drink. Early. And often."

The guy who plays Burton at least does a competent Richard Burton voice, but his abs are definitely not the abs of a middle-aged 1960s alcoholic. At one point he wears a mink coat that inspires one to put their hand in the air and do the "'Big Pimpin' Whistle," but ends up in Jimmy Buffet shirts. Taylor's overprotective mother is played by Theresa Russell -- Remember Black Widow!? Remember Ken Russell's Whore!? Now she's here, playing down her still-fabulousness in the service of Lindsay Lohan. And Lohan -- Jesus, she's not even trying. I could do a better Liz Taylor than that. Watch her movies/clips with a bit of observance and you quickly notice a distinct timbre to her voice and a certain blowsy-yet regal body language.

Divine as Francine Fishpaw was a better late Taylor than this. Hell, at least we would have enjoyed that. I'm sure La Liz would too.

We're also lacking for historical accuracy or even truthfulness to the spirit of the character. The Liz of Liz & Dick is curiously prissy: The woman who would beam benignly as Mike Todd yanked down her top for a feel of the Imperial Bosoms in full view of two dozen dinner guests is here a princess who flounces away scandalized at the mere mention of her cleavage. Well, at least the double chin is accurate.

See, this is what we're going for! Clock that. That is over-the-top goddess-on-earth.

And at least for the 90's Liz Taylor TV miniseries they got an actually beautiful woman and an actual costume designer. Instead of the collaboration between David's Bridal and Bed, Bath & Beyond used by Lifetime for Liz & Dick.

See what I mean? They didn't even spring for Party City. That is another beef i have with this movie:  It's cheap. The costumes are off-the-rack, the sets are basically the same hotel suite shot from different angles, a yacht they rented for a weekend and various corners of the set with some work lights in them. And then....

It's the Elizabeth Taylor Story: Jewelry by Claire's Boutique!

The romance is about as shoddy. If you want to do the full tabloid diva Taylor, you gotta start sooner. Begin with the Mike Todd years, which gave her the taste for over-the-top luxury. Or the "Liz Steals Eddie from Debbie" superscandal of the post-Todd years. Actually the only time Lohan seems to spring vaguely alert is when she's being nasty to Sybil Burton (the hip nightclub owner who, after Burton, stole Roddy McDowall's boyfriend and then married a rock n' roller 12 years her junior, here as a pearl-clutching priss). Maybe a Liz vs. Debbie Mean Girls would have worked out better. Actually, you know what's a lot better, now that i'm thinking of it : The Jayne Mansfield Story TV movie starring Loni Andersen as Jayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mickey Hargitay. Now that was a brilliant piece of affectionate schlock!

So, back to the tedious tale of Liz & Dick. When the two finally get together, he recites poetry to her as they lie in a candle-surrounded soaking tub in a bed and breakfast in the Tuscan countryside... yep, Richard Burton's seduction of Elizabeth Taylor looks just like Antonio Sabato Jr. putting the moves on Jennie Garth. Dick tries to leave Liz, but then she runs off to her suite and starts speed-chasing pills with vodka. See! This part's convincing. Now Lohan's really acting... oh, wait.

They reunite and begin drinking a lot and making ridiculous movies like The V.I.P.'s, driving aghast directors to utter lines like :
"It's 8 a.m. and they're already drinking!"
"For God's sake, let's go for a take while they can still walk."

I know, that sounds pretty awesomely campy, but that's about as good as it gets. Here. I'll give you the two other amusing lines and save you the trouble of watching or, at least, paying attention:

"I need a ring. A big ring." 

"I'm not saying that it's colon cancer, but it's serious enough that I have to run more tests."

Liz & Dick overall is pretty lousy. Elizabeth Taylor herself made a string of uber-campy B-movies back in the late sixties/early seventies, but her presence always lit them up, whereas Lohan is a lead weight on Liz & Dick. Just because the paparazzi went after you and after her does not make you her. Having something in common does not mean you play yourself. The moment where the lights flashed in your face like they did in hers --that was two lines crossing. It was the path you could follow down the line from you to her. Jump the line. That's the magic of acting: You can be someone else. Or at least fucking try.

Blah blah blah, Liz & Dick, they drink, they fight, they divorce, they remarry, they divorce. She wants drinks and jewelry, he bitches and moans and cries about not winning an Oscar (the accepted explanation for Burton's non-win despite seven nominations was that he had slept with too many Academy member's wives). He puts some grey streaks in his hair and falls over dead, Lohan slaps on a Liza Minnelli wig and some shoulder pads and cries. Oh, wait! Back to the nearly forgotten framing device.

So, this is the epitaph for the great romance of the twentieth century? She didn't throw away his letters? That is the ultimate proof of eternal devotion? Hell, i still have the letters of the most evil of my exes (he wrote quite a bit while he was in prison) and i certainly would not say that i'll love him until the end of my days. (Although i am a bit of a pack rat when it comes to the written word and i'm especially intrigued by any piece of paper that blasts out the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" whenever it is unfolded.... What? Only i can hear that? Never mind.)

It's no wonder they waited until Elizabeth Taylor passed on to render forth this travesty. While i doubt she could have stopped it, the force of her displeasure would be enough to make the folks at Lifetime think twice. I'm imagining full excommunication from any party of note, having most of your phone calls ignored, your credit line declined on Rodeo Drive and in Gstaad, as well as being denied the services of any of the gays of West Hollywood, be they hairdresser, makeup artist, stylist, agent, producer or Geffen. in fact, such a mandate may exist even as the Grand High Exalted Mother of the Abbey has passed on from this world. Although i suppose no one can punish Lindsay Lohan any worse than she has herself already...

Really, bitch? I think not.