NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

HotToastyRag The reason BUtterfield 8 is so famous is two-fold: Elizabeth Taylor and the Hays Code. Before the fall of the Hays Code, a movie like this could never be made, so in 1960, Hollywood was thrilled to make a film about a call-girl. Since the call-girl was played by someone so beautiful and scantily clad, audiences were thrilled to see it. When they flocked to the theaters upon its release, they were greeted by life size cardboard cutouts of Elizabeth Taylor (I know movie theaters today are always decorated like that, but in 1960 it was new) and phone booths in which you could dial the phone number BUtterfield 8 and listen to a prerecorded message from the star. What a publicity campaign! Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar during the 1961 ceremony, but it was clear even at the time that she didn't really win for her performance. She'd recovered from a nearly fatal bout of pneumonia near the voting period, and since she'd recently made her way back into America's good graces after being branded as a homewrecker, the Academy rewarded her.Liz herself notoriously dissed the film, and I can't say I blame her. The film isn't that great, and it's also pretty dated, since countless movies about prostitutes have been made since. The shock value isn't there anymore. If you want to see Elizabeth Taylor in a negligee and you can't find Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I guess you can sit through this one. But try and find something else; there are so many other movies that show off her beauty.

JohnHowardReid Butterfield 8 (1960) is certainly a cameraman's film. But despite the credits, I don't believe Charles Harten photographed Butterfield 8. He is also credited as one of three photographers on a Three Stooges compilation. As a matter of fact, I don't believe there ever was a Charles Harten. It was simply a name employed to cover the use of multiple photographers. If you don't believe me, you can look up Harten's credits on IMDb. They are a dead giveaway. We all know for a fact that Joseph Ruttenberg was employed. In fact, he and the mysterious Harten were jointly nominated for an Academy Award. Some or all of the brilliant deep focus effects are undoubtedly Ruttenberg's work. These effects help to cover Daniel Mann's rather static direction. For all that, however, Liz Taylor received an Academy Award for Best Actress – an award that many of us Hollywood insiders believe was really a show of support for Liz, rather than an indication of a stand-out performance. I'll admit it was certainly a quite adequate performance. It did have its moments, for sure. But best of the year? Liz was also nominated for a Golden Globe, but for that award, we critics voted a definite "no!"

MARIO GAUCI Being one of the least-regarded among all major Oscar-winning titles, it has taken this me long to check the film out; indeed, I have missed out on countless screenings of it on both TCM UK, Italian and local TV and, for what it is worth, before acquiring the widescreen edition I finally watched, I had already landed a pan-and-scan copy (at the time of star Elizabeth Taylor's passing)! In retrospect, while such glossy melodramas seem so unenticing on paper, actually experiencing them can prove highly entertaining (if not always for the expected reasons) – and this was certainly the case here!The Academy Award bestowed upon Taylor was famously a note of appreciation from her colleagues for having pulled out of a life- threatening illness shortly before; that said, her having stolen co-star Eddie Fisher from his wife Debbie Reynolds was considered water under the bridge by this time – of course, a couple of years down the line, Richard Burton would come into her life…and the rest, as they say, is history; in fact, this was her very last film role before attaining superstardom with the long-running Burton association! Anyway, the leading lady had had an impressive run of parts during the latter half of the 1950s (this, in fact, was her fourth nomination in a row – with a second, and more deserving, Oscar coming her way for the best of her many teamings with Burton i.e. WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? {1966}): here, she plays a high class call-girl (the film's title being her professional number) who principally juggles relations with businessman Laurence Harvey and musician Fisher (a singer in real life, this was the last of only two movie roles of any consequence) among many others. However, the former is unhappily married (into an eminent family) and the latter intends marrying his girlfriend (treating Taylor only for the childhood friend she is…but, needless to say, her constant presence in his life and home is not easily explained to the 'other woman'!). For the record, among that year's Best Actress nominees were also Melina Mercouri's star-making turn as a Greek 'whore with a heart of gold'-type in her husband Jules Dassin's NEVER ON Sunday and Taylor was the third actress director Mann guided towards Oscar glory (both flanked by 1960's own Best Actor Oscar winner Burt Lancaster, no less!) following Shirley Booth in COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA (1952) and Anna Magnani in THE ROSE TATTOO (1955). As I said, this looks good (receiving its sole other Oscar nod for Best Color Cinematography) – given the expected MGM polish – and, while the subject matter (adapted from a John O'Hara novel inspired by true events) is understandably toned-down in view of the Production Code being still in force, the script proves so hilariously overwritten (especially the quips Betty Field – best friend to the star's mother, played by Mildred Dunnock – makes with respect to Taylor…who, incidentally, describes herself to the latter as "the slut of all time") that one cannot help but have a field (no pun intended) day with it! Typically, watching expensive production values and a familiar cast at work can be enough for a film – especially when, as here, there is little substance otherwise; perhaps more surprisingly, there were several instances of sloppy editing and continuity errors throughout which, frankly, only added to the fun! Unlike the actress herself, there is no happy ending for the film's heroine; curiously enough, the same year also saw the release of another O'Hara soaper i.e. FROM THE TERRACE (itself yet another teaming of another famous Hollywood couple: Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward)…while Taylor and Harvey would themselves be reunited much later for his penultimate effort, the psychological thriller NIGHT WATCH (1973).

PrometheusTree64 I love BUTTERFIELD 8 but agree it's more good than great -- or, as the phrase goes, "great trash".I don't mind Eddie Fisher, but Harvey is too sleazy (and not in a good way) for my tastes in the role. I always recast him in my head with James Mason. I also believe Taylor very much deserved her Oscar for this, even if she didn't think so (and her bitterness stems from the fact MGM forced her to do the movie after telling Mike Todd she wouldn't have to make anymore pictures she didn't like before her contract expired in 1960). She's fabulous in this. Her "I loved it!" confessional scene is kind of jaw-dropping... And I can watch her to-period "tragic" car accident till I'm blue in the face from howling like a hyena. It's laugh-out-loud funny.Part of why the picture almost works is of course the era, that fresh, haunted, end-of-the-world, early-early-'60s thing going for it, albeit in Ektachrome or whatever the hell they were using... Funny how the pastels of the late-'50s/early-'60s were so much more vibrant: I loved the soft blue phone and the soft pink phone set against the pink bathroom tile -- those sooooo bring back childhood memories... It's hard to describe the look that these had from that period; they were almost child's playhouse floating-on-a-cloud colors. And the cars which were easter egg colors and even primary colors. Every car color has been so muted for decades now -- you never see a primary color for a car anymore.Semi-great sudser, lifted to a level of art by a defiant Taylor.