So, full disclosure, the Minions: Rise of Gru (2022) review is running late. I still haven’t seen the film - that level of late. I’d apologise, but this newsletter is free. There’s a few reasons behind this sudden betrayal (unseasonable storms, spending money elsewhere, laziness) but the end result is the same. You’ll get it next week; I’m planning on seeing it after work one day. Get off my back!
But I did have something I was half working on that I can finish up this week, so here we are: Elizabeth Taylor Ranking!
Now, obviously, I’m not ranking every Elizabeth Taylor film. I have a job that means I don’t watch 5 films a day. To acknowledge my inspirations, the definitive ranking thing is very much a Twitter user @itsnotjess123’s realm (read their ranking of Meryl Streep’s Oscar nominated filmography here, and Marilyn Monroe’s here). But what I can do, because I have seen them all, is rank Elizabeth Taylor’s 5 Oscar nominations.
Elizabeth Taylor is an interesting beast of a film star, because unlike many of her peers, I genuinely cannot tell if her persona has overridden her performance legacy. On one hand, she was the ultimate glamour Queen, had more husband’s than Henry VIII did wives (without the murder because she’s classy), and the phrase “White Diamonds” carries its own parodic weight. There’s an argument that she lived the embodiment of what we think of as a movie star.
On the other hand, we don’t really see her in the same ways her peers are. Marilyn is an obvious example, and her legacy is more now iconography than substance. But moving past her, Audrey Hepburn’s lasting legacy, despite her talent and quite interesting personal life, is the Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) poster. Rita Hayworth has been reduced to a series of viral tweets about her Hollywood makeover. But Taylor, despite her tabloid history and some performances that feel like easy joke fodder, is more often lauded for her talent. Maybe I’m just following exclusively Elizabeth Taylor stans, but I’m more likely to see someone gush over her monologue in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) than discuss her remarriage to Richard Burton. That lack of cultural interest is, itself, kind of fascinating. Is it just that we saw her grow old, and subsequently self aware? I’m not sure, and that’s not what this is about.
Anyway, I have seen every Elizabeth Taylor nominated performance. At least twice. Some many, many, many times over. You’ll probably guess from the ranking. But I wanted to quickly point out that Ms Taylor has been honoured at the Academy Awards thrice, not twice, as she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1991 for her commitment to the war on AIDS. While I mentioned Taylor’s tabloid exploits before, it would be unfair to not also acknowledge her support of the LGBTQ+ community, even when it wasn’t popular to do so. She left a legacy of kindness and generosity that is often under-explored…
Ranking time!
The one that time forgot.
Raintree County (1957) is a film in the genre I like to call “Gone with The Knock Offs”. Basically, after that (racist) film won all the awards and made a ridiculous amount of money, Southern melodrama became THE thing. Every starlet that could semi-convincingly pull off the accent was gifted a chance to swan around in a puffy dress, “oh my” their way through a performance, and be some level of evil. Not many of them did nearly as good of a job as Vivien Leigh does in Gone with The Wind (1939). The first to do it, Bette Davis in Jezebel (1938) actually won an Academy Award before Leigh, because Warner Bros. was the jealous stepbrother of Hollywood in those days.
This film is, to put it mildly, the worst Gone with The Wind knock off I’ve seen. Like many of these attempts to recreate the success of that film, it’s meandering and pointless. Montgomery Clift plays a man with none of the charm of Clark Gable, the production somehow manages to look cheap, and the ending leaves me feeling empty. It’s a mess of expensive cost-cutting.
Elizabeth Taylor doesn’t embarrass herself in this, but the fact that she got nominated for such a derivative performance is astounding. As is her accent, which would never be this…I’m going to be kind and say Nicole-Kidman-esque, again. During one monologue, she straight up gives up on her Southern lilt and just falls back into MGM voice (not quite the Transatlantic accent, but not quite posh British). In a career that had already seen a ridiculous number of highlights by this point, the nomination feels unearned.
Oh, and like all the films in this genre, it does centre the Civil War, slavery, and is racist (and just generally unpleasant) for that reason.
Just skip it.
Not even Elizabeth Taylor liked this one. Her first of two wins, BUtterfield 8 (1960) is the story of a model/girlfriend/not-sex worker who everyone slut shames until she dies tragically. It’s like if Breakfast at Tiffany’s ended with Holly Golightly being murdered by the cat.
Her performance is, admittedly, better than it is in Raintree County. Her accent is consistent because she is not asked to do one, she looks gorgeous, and she sells her pain well. But it is not a fun film to watch, because it feels like something inherently compromised. Taylor’s character plays a woman so torn between her wants (to make money for being hot) and needs (marriage to a boring man, I guess).
Sex work is inherently a complicated topic, and a film about someone who regrets their choices and is driven to self-destruction is not a bad idea. We know this because it’s a very popular screenplay topic. But Butterfield 8 goes the extra mile of making everything confusing. She’s both not a prostitute but also considered one. Her lifestyle isn’t immoral; but then the doctor tells her falling in love “cures her promiscuity”. The character is erratic, the film seems mostly a vessel to give Taylor monologues and faux-feminist moments of rejecting everyone’s perception of her sexuality.
The film is always going to have the stink of the win she earned for almost dying, but it’s also not the win people remember. Elizabeth Taylor’s filmography is too jam packed with actual classics for anyone to care about BUtterfield 8 outside of the data point. It’s a film you put on to complete a list, not to enjoy.
I’d say skip this one too, but if I’m being fair, go watch a few clips on YouTube.
Oh, now I’m getting controversial!
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) is Tennessee William’s best script -a jam packed category- which was watered down into the best Southern melodrama of the 1950s. Unlike Raintree County - which is bad and explicitly racist and outdated and should have consider a different career - this is a story that was damn near contemporary. And it shows. While there’s an obvious nostalgic quality to it today, the dialogue is snappy and the performances work off of that.
I like this film a lot. It’s arguably the best on this list. But in a ranking of Elizabeth Taylor performances, I do think there’s parts of it I don’t care for. Or rather, I care for less than the next two rankings. This is her second-best Southern accent, but she still consistently slips up and down the border in quieter scenes. In fact, there’s one of two moments where her refusal to let it slip (you go girl!) translates into her being almost impossible to understand. That being said, she’s damn near fantastic and only lost the Oscar because Hollywood hates to see a woman be happy even if someone stands in her way.
Sorry not sorry to Debbie Reynolds.
Yes, the film is not without faults, but the end product is fantastic. It may have conveniently written out the gayness of the marriage crisis, but it’s still there in subtext (kinda) and that’s not the focus. Or rather, it’s not the forefront. When Paul Newman is lying on the floor, throwing himself and his broken leg across the room in panic and rage, it’s astounding. Taylor doesn’t fade into the background, but in a film so stacked, it’s hard to focus on just her.
Definitely watch this one. It’s a classic for a reason.
This is another Tennessee Williams joint, but unlike Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1959), this ensemble feels pointedly more focused on Elizabeth Taylor. Which, in context, is a strange thing to say about Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She’s in it for about the same amount of time, Katherine Hepburn is no pushover, but this feels distinctly more like an Elizabeth Taylor vehicle than anything else.
Hepburn and Taylor play two women meeting after the death of Hepburn’s son leaves them at each other’s throats. While the older actress plays the grieving widow/mother (not incest except emotional), Taylor plays the woman who broke them apart before the son’s death. She’s been in a psych ward since, and Hepburn wants the doctors to perform a lobotomy. To cut the memories and secrets out of her brain before they bubble to the surface.
The third Southern accent on the list, this is the best. That isn’t why it’s number two, but it very well could be. It’s more subtle than either other one, maybe even unintentional, but Taylor’s lilt gives the sense that she’s well out of her depth against the clipped consonants of Hepburn at her most acidic. She’s also more expressive than she usually is, acting from the eyes in a way that’s magnetic. If one criticism could be had about her usual acting style, it's that she regularly played for the camera. It was likely more a directing problem, the issue many beautiful women of the studio system had, but this is a film that rarely focused only on her beauty. She’s still Elizabeth Taylor, but until the flashback sequence, she’s mostly covered up and simply allowed to perform. That isn’t to say being hot was a handicap to her acting, but more that this film allows her to (mostly) transcend her looks.
I’ve already admitted this isn’t the best film on the list. It’s too heavily stylised for the average viewer to enjoy multiple times over, and the ending is brutal. But it’s beautiful, the acting is superb, and I love it the most. But there’s still one more to go.
Go watch it today.
This was always the obvious choice.
There’s no film in the Taylor catalogue as revered and overpraised as this film. For a reason, mind you, it’s excellent. But part of me had to be pulled from putting it as number two. The dialogue, while great, is arguably less fun for me than Suddenly, Last Summer. Her performance is outstanding, but she’s never been as beautiful as she was in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. The screenplay is amazing, but is it as good as a Tennessee Williams play?
The answer is simply that this is the performance of her career that is undeniable.
Richard Burton is a fantastic actor, one of the best to ever do it, and he never even comes close to overtaking Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966). In a small cast, with a limited set, she’s able to simply control the room. The rest of these films ask her to spend portions in the background, give focus to other performers, wait her turn - except BUtterfield 8, but that sucked.
This film does not.
She owns every scene, not just in her larger moments, but in the intimate details. She isn’t just berating her husband, she’s searching for leftover chicken. Her smile tightens at the jabs, her eyes shoot daggers, her face droops in defeat. For a woman so tied to glamour, this is the roughest she’d ever look. Elizabeth Taylor the Star and Elizabeth Taylor the Actress were constantly at odds throughout her career. In this film, maybe for the last time, the actress in her won. This is a performance that is more than her persona. She’s simply outstanding.
If you haven’t watched this film and don’t plan to, I consider you my enemy.
We’ve come to the end. It arguably shouldn’t be, because this is an actress snubbed many times over. She’s great in Giant (1956), could easily have secured a Best Supporting Actress nomination and win for A Place In The Sun (1951), and while the film is underwhelmingly bad, Cleopatra (1963) is the type of expensive mess the Academy loved in the 1960s, so I don’t get that snub. But on the whole, I’m happy with at least one of her wins and 3/5 of her nominations.
So if I have one final message for you, it’s to go watch her Razzie nominated performance in The Flintstones, and then send hate mail to everyone involved in that awful, stupid, condescending awards show.