Butterfield 8 Reviews

A delicious soapy and trashy melodrama about a bad-girl model who’ll sleep with any man that strikes her fancy, Butterfield 8 has ‘guilty pleasure’ scrawled across it in bright pink lipstick. It tells the story of a model/good-time girl Gloria, the married man she has an affair with, and her journey from damaged goods to trying to be a morally responsible person. True love as redemption, story old as time. But Gloria is a bit more interesting when she’s a bad girl; the actress’ personal life reflects itself better in that part of the role.

While she claims to loathe and detest the film, and only made it to complete her MGM contract so she could accept a million dollar payday for Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor delivers a perfectly fine performance. Not quite as subdued and minimalist as her knockout turns in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or A Place in the Sun, BUtterfield 8 still sees her using every gift she possessed as an actress. In fact, her hungover and disturbingly mundane walk-of-shame throughout the latest (married) conquest's apartment is a fantastic piece of acting. She goes into auto-pilot and pours herself another drink, lingers around in every room investigating for signs of…who knows what exactly, and finds $250 on the mantelpiece with a note asking if that was enough for her services. Her freakout, she isn’t really a hooker but more of an easy lay and disturbed little-girl-lost, is wonderfully played. That is when she writes “No Sale” on the mirror in lipstick. It isn’t just her mannerism and vocals, but the way that she can hold her body. She knew how to tell a story with her body. The only thing that underscores her performance is the invasive and ponderous score. She is given decent support from everyone but Eddie Fisher, who was a singer and not an actor. Fisher isn’t just swallowed up by her talents and screen power, he’s a cardboard cutout next to her fleshy pagan sex goddess.

Butterfield 8 might not be a classic in Taylor’s filmography, but there’s something incredibly fun and enjoyable about it, trashy faults and all. It’s often predictable, sometimes a little silly, but Taylor gives a committed and wonderful performance. She still won this particular Oscar for surviving a near-death experience and being nominated the four previous years in a row. A nomination for this role, sure, why not? I would have given her one. But she went on to win for artistic merit for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a few years later. BUtterfield 8 is pure, unadulterated guilty pleasure and I have no problem admitting to this fact. I enjoy it greatly.