BUtterfield 8

1960

Action / Drama / Romance

9
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 47% · 19 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 56% · 2.5K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 7746 7.7K

pianist modeling marrying money 1930s mink coat

Plot summary

Gloria Wandrous, a promiscuous fashion model, falls in love with Weston Liggett, the hard drinking son of a working class family who has married into money.

Director

Daniel Mann Photo
Daniel Mann

Top cast

Elizabeth Taylor Photo
Elizabeth Taylor as Gloria Wandrous
Eddie Fisher Photo
Eddie Fisher as Steve Carpenter
Betty Field Photo
Betty Field as Mrs. Francis Thurber
Laurence Harvey Photo
Laurence Harvey as Weston Amsbury Liggett
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
996.46 MB
1280*528
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds 2
1.81 GB
1918*790
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 48 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by bkoganbing 6 / 10

An Oscar for Courage

As a lad I well remember in 1960 Elizabeth Taylor's struggle for her life with a deadly form of pneumonia. The news which usually when it talked about Liz Taylor it was usually about her various amours. this was different, the whole world was watching the bulletins as they came from London where she was in hospital. It was touch and go, but she made it.Because she made it, she got an Oscar for Best Actress in 1960 for BUtterfield 8. It was not an award she highly prized. While she was filming BUtterfield 8 she cracked to the press loud and often about what a trashy film it was. She did it because she had only one more film to do on her commitment to MGM and MGM had this property kicking around for decades.BUtterfield 8 was a novel by John O'Hara about a high priced call girl named Gloria Wandrous. It was based on the infamous Starr Faithful who was killed in 1931 and had a black book of some very influential clients. Though it was written in 1935 the film is updated to the present. Taylor has a tempestuous relationship with her number one client played by Lawrence Harvey. He's the problem with the film. He's basically a cad, so much of one that one wonders what Taylor saw in him other than a successful social marriage. She certainly has some twisted values and finds that out too late.Taylor got Eddie Fisher cast in the film as her friend. This was Fisher's second attempt at a movie career and there were no further offers from Hollywood for his services. As an actor he was a dud, Taylor says he doubled in that department as husband. She was quoted as saying that while she could think of good qualities in most of the men she was involved with, she couldn't for the life of her understand why she married Eddie Fisher.But more than that, to me it was obvious that Fisher's character is gay, despite him having a girl friend played by Susan Oliver. Back then that was one area Hollywood didn't go into.So Liz got her Oscar at last more for her courageous battle with pneumonia than her performance. She sure did better work. Her second Oscar for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was one she really felt she earned. She was not on screen again until 1963 when Cleopatra was released. And that's a whole other chapter in the Elizabeth Taylor saga.
Reviewed by jotix100 7 / 10

That mink coat!

John O'Hara's novel was way ahead of its time. Daniel Mann's "Butterfield 8" was a film that capitalized on the lurid aspects of the book, but actually was turned into a soap opera. By today's standards it looks kind of ridiculous, but of course, it was meant to reflect the period of the late fifties in which the action is set.

Elizabeth Taylor was at the height of her beauty when the movie was shot. She comes out as the gorgeous creature she was in this vehicle that won her the Oscar that she should have received for other films, notably "Suddenly, Last Summer".

The film will entertain whoever hasn't seen it before. It's obvious Ms. Taylor and her co-star, Lawrence Harvey, had no chemistry whatsoever, as it shows in the film. What was shocking then wouldn't raise an eyebrow now. In the supporting cast, Mildred Dunnock, Betty Field, Dina Merrill give good performances.

Watch this film as curiosity piece to see some of the New York of that era.

Reviewed by Nazi_Fighter_David 7 / 10

"You can't have everything in life. Be grateful for the few things you do get, no matter when they come from."

On the surface, Taylor was all sex and devil-may-care… Everything in her was struggling toward respectability… She never gave up trying…The film concerns her fashionable life which is part model, part call-girl—and all man-trap… Her performance is one of her best and was nominated for her third Academy Award…

Her remarkable scene is her confession to Eddie Fisher about how she got started in the life: she was seduced by a house guest when she was thirteen, and she liked it! She has always 'liked' it! Emotionally, she dominates the screen at this moment and her serious attitude simply fills it up…

Filmed in and around New York, "Butterfield 8" is an intimate portrait of a tormented woman daringly beautiful and sexy

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