Butterfield 8

The ceremony for the 1960 Oscars was basically the Elizabeth Taylor show. The megastar had a near-fatal bout of pneumonia, and showed up for the awards bearing a tracheotomy scar. Her win was such a foregone conclusion that only one of her competitors, Greer Garson, bothered to show up. Indeed she won, for her performance in Butterfield 8.

Ironically, she didn't want to do the movie and hated it. "I still say it stinks," she said, after someone mentioned its success. Her hatred seemed to be two-pronged: her existing contract with MGM required her to do it; and her role as a husband-stealer may have cut too close to the bone, as she had recently gone through scandal when Eddie Fisher left Debbie Reynolds for her.

The film, directed by Daniel Mann, is tawdry. Taylor is Gloria Wandrous (a great name), a "model" who is the mistress of Laurence Harvey, a self-loathing business executive. When he leaves $250 behind for her one morning, she is enraged and steals his wife's mink coat. All through the film we are told that she is not a prostitute, but this seems to be a sleight of hand that was indicative of the times (Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's was another example); a woman of easy virtue that doesn't call herself a prostitute, but certainly offers her body up for monetary favors notwithstanding.

Taylor has a childhood platonic friend (played by Fisher), and a mother (Mildred Dunnock) who refuses to see her for what she is (Taylor later yells at her, "I'm the slut of all time!"). We get a speech, late in the film, during which Taylor explains how she was molested by her mother's boyfriend when she was thirteen, and adds, "I loved it!"

I love a good movie about sleazy sex, but Butterfield 8 is not one of them. It tries to have it both ways--she's a slut, but she's misunderstood, and Harvey is a cad, but he really is a good guy. The roles must have been difficult to play, because they both have to change emotions on a dime, without any particular rhyme or reason. Another tough part is Harvey's wife, (Dina Merrill), a woman who, even after confronted with Harvey's infidelity, swears her love for him. This was the kind of woman The Feminine Mystique was written for.

I was mostly interested in the obsolete facets of 1960 life, especially the phone number of the title. I have faint memories of the days when telephone exchanges were used, but in this film they also could be used as an answering service. As a parlor game with friends, try thinking of films that would have completely different plots if they were set in the era of cell phones. Butterfield 8 is one of them.