Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

JohnHowardReid Producer: Armand Deutsch. Copyright 27 February 1953 (in notice: 1952) by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. No New York opening. U.S. release: 27 March 1953. U.K. release: 13 July 1953. Australian release: 25 May 1953. 6,242 feet. 69 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Jean Latimer, daughter of a wealthy criminal lawyer, falls in love with one of her father's clients, Victor Ramondi, the crooked head of a gambling syndicate. Latimer warns his daughter against Ramondi, but she is determined to marry him. On the day before the wedding, Ramondi learns that Latimer intends to bring him before a Senate crime investigation committee. NOTES: A re-make of A Free Soul (1931).COMMENT: Mediocre romantic drama. Were it not for the beautiful presence of Elizabeth Taylor, beautifully photographed and attractively costumes, the rating would be even less. William Powell looks old and tired and just goes through the motions on this last film of his M-G-M contract, while Fernando Lamas and James Whitmore are totally unable to convince us they are ruthless gangsters.Thorpe's direction is at its best in the gangsters' action sequences (the senatorial hearing with flash-bulbs popping), but shows evidences of hasty shooting in the dialogue scenes (Miss Taylor is inadequate in the long take in which she tells Powell she is going back, though the camera is skilfully placed). Production values are not lavish. The film was obviously designed for the lower half of a double bill.OTHER VIEWS: This Hollywood-lush tale has been handled by Richard Thorpe with routine competence but no imagination; dialogue and incident are of the same monotonous order. Of the cast, William Powell turns in a familiarly wise-slick portrayal and Elizabeth Taylor, decoratively satisfying, plays a limited character with limited skill. The whole adds up to a graceless pattern of screen melodrama. - Monthly Film Bulletin.

jhkp Back then, the studios made a lot of films, they were film factories; some films were given special treatment, those are most often the ones we see today. There was also a great deal of product that was ground out like sausage. The Girl Who Had Everything falls somewhere in the middle, as it has big stars and one of MGM's reliable (though not very artistic) stalwarts at the helm, Richard Thorpe. But it plays more like a B picture nobody cared about too much. It couldn't have taken very long to film it. It's mostly comprised of dialogue scenes and shot at MGM.Basically it's a remake of A Free Soul, a brilliant melodrama from the studio's early days. If they had just done a fairly close remake of that one, in an updated form, they probably would have had a compelling film, what with William Powell in the Lionel Barrymore part and Elizabeth Taylor, Fernando Lamas, and Gig Young in the roles first taken by Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, and Leslie Howard.Instead, it's a very watered down version of that picture. For example, a central plot point of A Free Soul is that daughter Norma will give up gangster Gable if alcoholic dad Barrymore will go on the wagon. There's nothing like this in the remake. Powell drinks, but he can handle it. Every interesting dramatic point is thrown away while keeping the bare bones of the original story, so there is no real dramatic tension. See the two films back to back for yourself.A Free Soul takes place during Prohibition and Gable's character is a gangster who owns a speakeasy and gambling den, and Barrymore's character is a lawyer who frees him from a murder rap. It's topical, exciting, and fits together neatly. In the loose remake, Lamas is a racketeer and Powell is his lawyer, and that's about it. Well, see for yourself. It never gets a dramatic head of steam going. The acting is good, but that's about it.

nomoons11 I know this is suppose to be a remake of "Free Soul" but the old version just felt different. This one makes you feel like most women are either heartless and would leave the man who's courted them for a long time just to be with a guy who's obviously a thug and screw the other guys feelings...or...that women are too stupid to think for themselves because they fall in love with the first guy that's just too handsome so they can't think of anything other than...it's love.This one really irritated me cause of the above mentioned aspect of the film. The title is not really part of the film. Elizabeth Taylor doesn't have everything. I think it was suppose to be a reference to a girl who just does whatever she wants at any cost...regardless of what it does to anyone else.If your thinking about screwin your boyfriend or future husband over, then watch this film. If your not, then skip this one...it's not worth the watch.

Evangeline Kelly Though this movie lacks the menace and seediness of "A Free Soul," it nonetheless shares the blazing sensuality that we saw between Clark Gable and Norma Shearer in 1931 in Fernando Lamas and the impossibly gorgeous 22 yr old Taylor.When contrasted with "A Free Soul" (which is hard not to, since the film was so sexy and frank, and Lionel Barrymore's performance won him an Oscar), the story in "The Girl Who Had Everything" is pretty slim. A few reviews mentioned this was MGM's kiss good-bye to 61 yr old William Powell, who'd been with the studio since 1934, and it looks it. The sets are pretty stripped down and simple, with minimal outdoor shots--but that's not to say the movie looks cheap, because even at programmer status, the MGM gloss remained.Taylor is perfect as a willful, headstrong Jean Latimer, and her growth from spoiled, immature flirt to a sobered woman, is powerful. Though mores of the 1950s are ever present, the double standards when it comes to female sexuality remain--a man can be a "free soul" without suffering the consequences a woman will, and Jean and her father Steve are forced to realize that she cannot live life the way he has, despite his raising her to be independent and free.Where this film falls short in comparison to its source material is the 1950s Code Era ending, where Lamas gets his comeuppance through his gangster associations, rather than the result of Jean's honor being defended by her fiancé.Gig Young is woefully underused here (was the movie cut down?), and Fernando Lamas, for all his intensity, is a standard Latin lover.However, this is an entertaining film, and if anyone manages to get a hold of this and "A Free Soul," watching both is an interesting study in changing mores as well as what was permissible in the Pre-Code era.