—Variety (“Murf”)
“Ash Wednesday has some shock effect in its early surgical scenes, showing us how the subcutaneous tissue is removed (what we really see is chicken fat) to firm up the skin under Barbara’s eyes and other organs. Mostly the film is interested in what Barbara is going to wear next. This is not a male chauvinist’s conception of a woman, but her hairdresser’s, full of envy, awe and superficial compassion.”
—The New York Times (Vincent Canby)
Behind the scenes with her longtime hairstylist, Alexandre de Paris
With Ash Wednesday director Larry Peerce
notes
ASH WEDNESDAY HAS BECOME A LATTER-DAY FAVORITE AMONG Elizabeth Taylor fans. She was uniquely believable in the story of a woman who turns back the hands of time through an extensive series of head-to-toe plastic surgeries because in the post-operative scenes, Elizabeth looked slimmer and more beautiful than she had in years. It almost gave one the eerie feeling that the procedures seen happening on the screen had actually taken place. Indeed, there was some complaint from the more faint-of-heart moviegoers as to the film’s realism because during the plastic surgery sequences, studio scenes were intercut with actual footage of procedures performed by experts from a hospital of the day like the one in the film, run by Dr. Rodolphe Troques, the film’s technical advisor. Viewed today it is interesting to hear talk of such then-novel procedures as chemical peels. If it still makes viewers squeamish, in its own time the discussions and descriptions were all the more shocking as futuristic concepts.
It tells an engrossing yet simple story and in its visual intensity could even work as a silent movie.
Filmed in Italy, largely at the Cortina d’Ampezzo ski resort, Ash Wednesday is both thought-provoking and lovely to behold, from the first opening montage of photos to the finish. It tells an engrossing yet simple story and in its visual intensity could even work as a silent movie. Or as an early talkie, hearkening back as it does to the three-hankie soap operas of an earlier period in films, like a drama Ruth Chatterton or Irene Dunne would have done in the early 1930s. Elizabeth’s performance in the film was restrained and most effective and she was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Actress. Elizabeth was not known for this more reserved kind of acting but she understood its value on film, saying at the time of Ash Wednesday, “. . . the emotion has got be there behind your eyes, behind your heart. You can never act superficially and get away with it. It all had to show in the eye. The slightest movement will speak volumes.”
The transformation of Barbara from where she started; to surgery; and post-operative bandaging; and the stunning end results
With Helmut Berger, as her young lover in the film
With Henry Fonda
Ash Wednesday was a true women’s film. Henry Fonda’s role is essentially a cameo appearance. Through the character of Barbara Sawyer’s remembrances and discussions with friends and her daughter, his story has pretty much all unfolded before we ever see Fonda. All the while though, the audience anticipates his arrival because of the montage in the opening credits in which Fonda’s image is superimposed into photos of Elizabeth primarily from the ’50s. As a result, as Barbara talks about her husband throughout the movie, we are set up to picture Fonda. Keith Baxter as her friend from the plastic surgery clinic had more screen time than Fonda and used it well. He demonstrated a good rapport with Elizabeth onscreen that is interesting to note considering that Baxter had been up for the role of Mark Antony in Cleopatra at the time Rouben Mamoulian was director, before Joe Mankiewicz took the reins and cast Richard Burton.
Elizabeth played the mother of Margaret Blye in Ash Wednesday. Blye was only ten years younger than Elizabeth but because Elizabeth was playing a woman fifteen years older than she actually was, the casting worked. What was more troubling about playing a woman of advanced age was the process of making her look believable. Elizabeth said, “Playing an old bag doesn’t bother me in the least, but the damn latex makeup drove me crazy.” Beyond the heavy makeup, prosthetics, and padding, Elizabeth also suffered through a bout of German measles during the production and dealt off screen with the highly publicized breakup of her marriage to Richard Burton (for the first time). As ever, hardships could not keep Elizabeth down for long and on the contrary, seemed to bring out the best in her. Ash Wednesday was well-received in its day and decades later is fondly remembered by her admirers.
“The emotion has got be there behind your eyes, behind your heart. You can never act superficially and get away with it.”
— ELIZABETH TAYLOR
Wearing a costume from the movie during production, Elizabeth and Richard Burton attended a performance at the La Scala Opera House in Milan.
That’s Entertainment!
METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER/UNITED ARTISTS
COHOSTS APPEARING AS THEMSELVES:
Fred Astaire
Bing Crosby
Gene Kelly
Peter Lawford
Liza Minnelli
Donald O’Connor
Debbie Reynolds
Mickey Rooney
Frank Sinatra
James Stewart
Elizabeth Taylor
CREDITS
Jack Haley, Jr. (producer/director/writer); Daniel Melnick (executive producer); Gene Polito, Ernest Laszlo, Allan Green, Ennio Guarnieri, Russell Metty (photography); Jim Liles, Robert Hoag (optical supervisors); Henry Mancini (music); Jesse Kaye (music supervision); Richard Bremerkamp, Claude Binyon, Jr., David Silver (assistant directors); Lyle Burbridge, William L. McCaughey, Aaron Rochin, Harry W. Tetrick, Hal Watkins (sound); Bud Friedgen, David E. Blewitt (editors); Mort Feinstein (MGM film librarian)
RELEASE DATE: June 21, 1974
RUN TIME: 135 minutes, color and black and white
REVIEW
“[That’s Entertainment] is a documentary at heart, the sort of compilation feature that depends largely on the genius of others, a movie made by ravaging earlier movies, and, as such, a movie that one shouldn’t feel too kindly towards. Theoretically, anyway. Actually, however, That’s Entertainment is a consciousness-raising delight, an immediate high, a revue that doesn’t only evoke the past but, in addition, lays the past out there to compete with the present on its own terms. And, as any ponderous, sober-minded documentary should, it asks a question: what the hell ever happened to the movie musical?”
—The New York Times (Vincent Canby)
notes
IN AN ERA OF 1970S REALISM, WRITER-PRODUCER-DIRECTOR Jack Haley, Jr. saw a need to produce an antidote of escapism for audiences nostalgic for the glamour of the studio days. No studio of the Golden Era loomed larger or more extravagant than MGM, thus upon the fiftieth anniversary of its formation, That’s Entertainment! was assembled as a salute to the studio’s greatest musicals and the performers who made them great. The film utilized clips from such beloved movies as The Wizard of Oz, The Band Wagon, Singin’ in the Rain, and Gigi. Looking glamorous in her own wardrobe and jewelry, Elizabeth was one of eleven MGM-star cohosts who introduced various segments of That’s Entertainment! Besides her cohosting duties, Elizabeth also contributed to the entertainment by way of clips from Cynthia and A Date with Judy.
Elizabeth’s sequence was filmed in Rome, but those of other cohosts were filmed at MGM, and offered some of the last footage ever filmed of the studio’s famed back lot before it became part of a housing development. The sad fate the back lot would bring added poignancy to the intrinsic nostalgia of the production. That’s Entertainment! proved to be a hit with audiences. It inspired a sequel, That’s Entertainment! II, released in 1976, followed much later by a third edition in 1994.
At the premiere of That’s Entertainment! with Sammy Davis, Jr.
Identikit (The Driver’s Seat)
RIZZOLI/AVCO EMBASSY
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Lise
Ian Bannen Bill
Guido Mannari Carlo
Mona Washbourne Mrs. Helen Fiedke
Luigi Squa
rzina lead detective
Maxence Mailfort Pierre
Andy Warhol English lord
Anita Bartolucci saleswoman
Gino Giuseppe police commissioner
Marino Masé traffic policeman
CREDITS
Nello Meniconi (executive producer); Franco Rossellini (producer); Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (director); Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Raffaele La Capria (screenplay), based on novel by Muriel Spark; Vittorio Storaro (photography); Franco Mannino (music); Mario Ceroli (art director); Andrea Fantacci (set decorations); Albino Cocco, Aldo Terlizzi (assistant directors); Franco Arcalli (editor); Gabriella Pescucci (costumes); Mirella Ginnoto, Giancarlo Novelli (hairstylists); Giuseppe Capogrosso, Stefano Trani (makeup)
RELEASE DATE: May 20, 1974 (Monaco); October 10, 1975 (U.S.)
RUN TIME: 102 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Lise is a mysterious solo traveler across Europe who attracts attention wherever she goes because of her loud clothing, layers of makeup, and quick-to-flare personality. On a trip to parts unknown to meet persons not clearly defined, Lise has a series of adventures that land her in the arms of many men whose lives she changes with a deadly touch. Each encounter adds pieces to the puzzle the police are putting together on Lise. The journey seems to be a constant search for her “boyfriend,” but no one is a better companion to her than an eccentric older Canadian woman named Mrs. Fiedke. Could the young man of whom Mrs. Fiedke speaks so much be the one to satisfy Lise’s search . . . for the perfect man to kill her?
REVIEWS
“The Driver’s Seat is a strange, morbid, but intensely fascinating, psychological study of a woman going mad that provides Elizabeth Taylor with her most colorful and demanding role in years. She meets the challenge with imperial efficiency. With dark blue circles around her eyes and raspberry-tinted sunglasses, she had a ball and so does the audience. . . . The film is cleverly structured, alternating glimpses of her daily activities with police interrogations of the people she meets in her bizarre encounters, so you really don’t know if you are watching flashbacks or flash-forwards until the final dénouement.”
—New York Daily News
“Giuseppe Patroni Griffi’s The Driver’s Seat is quite possibly one of the best films Elizabeth Taylor has made in her long career. Taylor, under Griffi’s firm direction, gives a beautifully controlled and hypnotic performance in which she relays much about this character with subtle vocal inflections. Never once does she rely on her natural beauty, which has been toned down considerably for the film.”
—Hollywood Reporter (Ron Pennington)
On the set with French actor Maxence Mailfort
With producer Franco Rossellini
notes
“IDENTIKIT” REFERS TO A COMPOSITE PICTURE OF A CRIMINAL constructed from the descriptions provided to police by witnesses. It describes perfectly the structure of this Italian production from filmmaker Giuseppe Patroni Griffi that Elizabeth made in Germany and Italy in August and September 1973. In the U.S. the picture was known as The Driver’s Seat and in some markets, fittingly, as Psychotic. It was based on a fascinatingly unusual novella that first appeared in the New Yorker in 1970 by Muriel Spark (perhaps best known as the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), about a manic female traveler who adversely affects the lives of every male she encounters while at the same time searching for the right moment for her own downfall. The film is of added interest for containing a rare feature film performance by pop artist Andy Warhol as an English lord.
The film is of added interest for containing a rare feature film performance by pop artist Andy Warhol as an English lord.
With director Giuseppe Patroni Griffi
The movie had a lavish premiere in Monte Carlo in May 1974 hosted by Elizabeth’s friends Princess Grace and Prince Rainier. With tickets sold at $500 a piece, it served as a benefit for Grace’s favorite charity, the Monaco Red Cross. The triumvirate of prince, princess, and Elizabeth Taylor brought a flood of media attention to the world premiere of Identikit, so much so that it stole the spotlight from the Cannes Film Festival, which was hosting a ball of their own at the same time. (The festival had officially passed on screening Identikit during the season’s events.) Attendees to the premiere included Franco Zeffirelli, Ursula Andress, Andy Warhol, Paulette Goddard, Elsa Martinelli, Salvador Dalí, Vittorio de Sica, Aristotle Onassis, and Stavros Niarchos. Avco Embassy bought the rights to distribute the film in North America and released it only in select markets in the U.S. beginning in October 1975.
Elizabeth was reportedly uncharacteristically tense during filming due to her deteriorating relationship with Richard Burton.
Elizabeth was reportedly uncharacteristically tense during filming due to her deteriorating relationship with Richard Burton. She did not discuss her troubles, though was unsettled by the impending divorce. At the time Burton was also in Italy, to film The Voyage with Sophia Loren. Burton and Loren would soon be joined by Elizabeth’s Identikit costar, Ian Bannen, who recalled, “There was no mention of Richard [by Elizabeth] until, as I was leaving to join him in Palermo, she told me to give him her love when I saw him.” While making Identikit, Elizabeth was photographed in Salerno, Italy, consoling herself with a new man to whom she had been introduced by her friend Peter Lawford, erstwhile California used-car dealer Henry Wynberg. Elizabeth’s first divorce to Burton would be official in June 1974, before she made her next film, but it was, of course, far from the final word on the Taylor-Burton love saga.
At the premiere of Identikit in Monte Carlo with Henry Wynberg
By her trailer, with Wynberg
The Blue Bird
LENFILM/WENKS FILMS/TOWER INTERNATIONAL/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
CAST
Elizabeth Taylor Queen of Light/Mother/Witch/Maternal Love
Jane Fonda Night
Ava Gardner Luxury
Cicely Tyson Tylette
Robert Morley Father Time
Harry Andrews The Oak
Todd Lookinland Tyltyl
Patsy Kensit Mytyl
Will Geer Grandfather
Mona Washbourne Grandmother
George Cole Dog
CREDITS
Edward Lewis, Edward Joseph (executive producers); Paul Maslansky, Paul B. Radin, Lee Savin (producers); George Cukor (director); Aleksei Kapler, Hugh Whitemore, Alfred Hayes (screenplay), based on play L’Oiseau Bleu by Maurice Maeterlinck; Jonas Gritsius, Freddie Young (photography); Irwin Kostal, Andrei Petrov (music); Lionel Newman (music coordinator); Leonid Jakobson, Igor Belsky (choreographers); Brian Wildsmith (production design); Valeri Yurkevich (art director); Stanford C. Allen, Tatyana Shapiro (editor); Marina Azizyan, Edith Head (costumes); Sydney Guilaroff (hairstylist)
RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1976
RUN TIME: 99 minutes, color
SUMMARY: Young Tyltyl and Mytyl go on a quest for the Blue Bird of Happiness. Along their journeys, the children are able to conjure the human essences of animate and inanimate entities such as Night, Luxury, Cat, Dog, Sugar, and Bread. From each of these beings Tyltyl and Mytyl learn essential truths about life, but the greatest wisdom of all comes from the Queen of Light, who reveals to the children that the Blue Bird of Happiness is not in far-off lands but can be found nestled in one’s own backyard.
REVIEWS
“Though the film has about it a kind of lumbering tackiness that I associate with Soviet stage spectacle, I suspect that the Russian version of this co-production might be a lot more interesting than ours. For one thing, Russian audiences apparently love ‘The Blue Bird,’ the chef d’oeuvre of the Belgian-born playwright who allowed Stanislavsky to stage the world premiere at the Moscow Art Theater in 1908. This love and familiarity with the work might possibly have inspired Soviet film makers to bring to it a consistency of character and style, as well as a decisive point of view, completely absent from the hyphenated production we have here. . . . The English-language screenplay, by Hugh Whitemore and Alfred Hayes, would tax the inspirations of
anyone. What could Mr. Cukor possibly have suggested to Miss Taylor to help her read a line like, ‘I am the light that makes men see/The radiance in reality’? Keep a straight face, perhaps? The actress has some creditably funny moments as a witch and some not-so-good as a peasant mother who darns socks.”
—The New York Times
“Maurice Maeterlinck’s early century fantasy will, in this filming, bore kids when adults are mildly interested, and vice versa.”
—Variety (“Murf”)
“The Blue Bird works so hard on making history that it forgets to make sense. . . . Cukor’s direction has nothing to do with the celebrated Hepburn-Tracy era, or with the funny-sad comedy-drama that he helped to perfect in Hollywood’s better days. Some of his fantasy scenes look like rip-offs from a junior-high pageant. But the veteran filmmaker deserves credit for making even a matinee crazy quilt from the uneven conception and silly songs he had to work with.”
—Christian Science Monitor (David Sterritt)
A candid shot behind the scenes of The Blue Bird
Transforming herself into the Queen of Light
notes
Elizabeth Taylor Page 20