mark.waltz
If death comes to those that bray, then Elizabeth Taylor's Flora Goforth will be going forth sooner than she thinks. When Richard Burton's stranger approaches her secluded island compound yelling out her name, it appears that destiny has come a-knockin'. The nasty Flora has a vile temper, screaming at servants and trespassers with great glee, but underneath her delight in her vile personality is a truly unhappy, lonely woman. Burton is attacked by her guard dogs, put into a guest house, and worms his way into Mrs. Goforth's life. Noel Coward, making his entrance on the shoulders of a young man, is a nasty gay character known as "The Witch of Capri", and boy, is he quite a piece of work. Warning Taylor of Burton's reputation, Coward obviously has his own lusts for the younger man who isn't really all that desirable, Burton having greatly aged since his first appearance with Taylor five years before in "Cleopatra".Not so much pretentious as it is audacious, it is easy to see why that this has inspired years of both criticism and praise for its obviously deliberate camp elements. The play ("The Milk Train Doesn't Live Here Anymore") was much more subtle in its storytelling with Flora an aging eccentric writing her memoirs and dealing with uncompleted lusts. The character is greatly youthened, while the character of the "Angel of Death" is oddly aged. A strange tale like this could only come from the mind of someone like Tennessee Williams who seemed to have a fascination with old ladies on the verge of death facing their disappointments and their destiny with delusional lust which takes that deadly sin into a level of degradation that results in destruction."We're eating their eggs. It cuts down on the population", Taylor says, urging Coward to have a seagull's egg as an appetizer while she sits across from him wearing a spiked hat that Cleopatra would have tossed into the Nile. Taylor, still gorgeous, is far too young for this part. It was originally played in an Off Broadway production by eccentric character actress Hermione Baddeley, flopped, and returned briefly with none other than Tallulah Bankhead in the part. I saw the recent Off-Broadway production with Olympia Dukakis in the role, and while the play was far from perfect, the performance of Ms. Dukakis made it seem so much better.It's obvious to me that unless the leading lady is perfect in the role, it will bomb, and Taylor screeches every line as if she were a combination of every braying character she had ever played. At least, even as Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", she added subtlety in spots, but her Flora shows absolutely no softness, making her twice the shrew than Shakespeare's Kate, a role la Liz had just played to great success the year before. Burton seems around to just carry on the teaming and is totally miscast. Perhaps Daniel Massey, who received an Oscar Nomination the very same year for playing Noel Coward in the musical "Star!" would have been a better choice, and it would have been ironic to see him and Coward rolling around on the bed together.This is an extremely hard film to get through even if you are curious about the outlandish costumes, terribly gauche sets and eye-rolling performances. Had it been a foreign film (perhaps directed by Fellini or Bergman), it might have been a lot easier to take and even done more subtly, but the attempts to turn this into an artistic metaphor of the sordid lives of the rich and ridiculous just becomes very heavy-handed and absurd. Williams plays tend to be mostly unfilmable, and other than his more accessible plays ("The Glass Menagerie", "A Streetcar Named Desire"), don't hold up well for the most part on screen.
wc1996-428-366101
Anything that Taylor & Burton do together is interesting and Boom stands right up there in that it definitely keeps your interest. The story is not one of Tennessee William's strongest or most dramatic but it is certainly above the average in terms of what it says although that is a bit murky to say the least. The Taylor character alas is not sympathetic and for a lead female that is a great disadvantage even if it is Elizabeth Taylor. Burton is a perfect foil for Taylor's hysterics and in fact looks better than one would expect considering the amount of drinking Burton was doing during this period and which eventually killed him - after all he was Welsh and booze is their poison.
Michael_Elliott
Boom (1968) * (out of 4) Tennessee Williams wrote the screenplay for this incredibly embarrassing disaster about a dying rich woman (Elizabeth Taylor) who has everything except a man and the man (Richard Burton) who has nothing except the ability to entertain women. This film has a notorious reputation but I was shocked at how bad it really was. The only good thing is the camp factor that comes from all the badness and stink that surrounds the film. I've never seen Taylor give a worse performance but she's certainly very bad here. The horrible screenplay doesn't give her too much to do except scream at people and say goddamn countless times but Taylor doesn't do anything but overact. Her constant screaming is worse that fingernails across an old chalk board. I'm not sure what drinks Burton had before filming but his performance comes across as him doing a bad version of Shakespeare. The supporting cast isn't any better but the major blame has to go to Williams and his incredibly bad screenplay. Some of the dialogue in this film gets major laughs, although that certainly wasn't the intent. I'd even say that some of the dialogue appears to have been written by Ed Wood because it tries so damn hard to be serious or touching but come off incredibly dumb. Even with all the badness there is one good moment and that's when Taylor, peaking out at Burton, decides she needs a lover and gives a little talk about it. This scene closes with a zoom up to Taylor's eyes.
MGMboy
`Boom' is a blast! This is one of the most fun of the Burton - Taylor films. "Boom" is also a gassy misfire that draws one into the veiled world of aging homosexual desire disguised as a heterosexual struggle between an aging, dying woman and the unattainable youth in the angel of Death.This is story wearing a beard. Taylor's role is really that of an aging rich gay man who is trying to hang on to youth and the beauties that great beauty attract. After all, her name is `Sissy'. Burton's role is that of the hustler who is all that is left for the old queen to attract. But as with so many Williams works it all must be encrypted and coded so that the America of the late 50's and early 60's could handle his true intentions, the soft underbelly of his plays. Burton is too old for the role that was written for a man in his twenties and Taylor is too young and too healthy looking to be the dying Sissy. But despite that, the story of a struggle of great wealth against the inevitable grows from loopy strangeness to a compelling and moving ending. Here Taylor gives one of her oddly finest post Virginia Woolf studies in a dramatic/comic performance. There is in fact so much subversive humor in her performance that she is at times hilarious. Her vocal range dances from the shrill to the silly to the grand dame and all to serve her imperious and ultimately terrified Sissy Goforth. In the last desperate half hour of the film she does some of her finest work. Burton is rather cool and distant at first but builds his Angelo De Morte into a truly fine character study. In particular, listen to his fine delivery of the speech about the old man in the sea.Particular note should be made of the cinematography, which is gorgeous, and the stunning sun washed bone toned opulent glamour of the sets. I understand that the Burtons owned the house in Sardinia for a while after the film was completed. The spare and haunting score by John Barry is an added delight to his impressive repertoire. And for you jewelry fans there is plenty of Miss Taylor's own jewelry on hand. So get out your copy of `My Love Affair With Jewelry' my Elizabeth and thumb along as she parades her diamonds in the Mediterranean sun.Campy? Yes! Great? Maybe we will know about that in another 40 years. Is it worth your time? Only if you like a challenge and are willing to let the Burtons take you into the world of Tennessee Williams camp classic.
