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The Sandpiper
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were teamed onscreen for the third time in The Sandpiper, a tedious and overheated soap opera that produces more unintentional giggles than genuine melodrama, but the chemistry between the stars might make it worth a look.
The 1965 film follows the star-crossed romance between two people who were, of course, never meant to be together: Laura Reynolds is an artist and aging hippie with a young son who doesn't believe in conformity, rules, religion, or convention. Edward Hewitt is the headmaster at an Episcopalian boarding school for boys who meets Laura when it's determined that Laura's laxed home schooling of her son has made him a discipline problem and, of course, it's recommended that Laura's son be sent to Edward's school.
Other pertinent players in the drama include Edward's devoted wife, Claire (Eva Marie Saint), who is working tirelessly to help her husband raise funds for a new chapel. Ward Hendricks (Robert Webber) is on the church board and is an ex-lover of Laura's. Cos Erickson (Charles Bronson) is a wisecracking sculptor who has initiated a relationship with Laura by paying her to pose for him in the nude.
This film came about during the early years of the Taylor/Burton relationship where they really weren't paying much attention to the quality of the material offered them, they just wanted to work together. If they had looked at Martin Ransohoff's screenplay a little more carefully, the might have noticed that Taylor was way too old to be convincing as the hippie artist who hangs out at the beach with friends half her age...the character of Laura often looks like she's been dropped into the middle of a Beach Party movie and Burton seems to have a hard time forgetting that he's not playing Macbeth here.
Despite the chemistry between the stars, a lot of what goes on here is just laughable. One scene Laura is whining about how she's jealous of Edward's wife and wishes she could be her and, five minutes later, when she learns that Claire knows about their affair, she bursts into tears and screams at Edward for telling Claire about them. And the scene where Ward actually tries to rape Laura is just as funny.
The film does feature some gorgeous location filming in California's Big Sur, a lot of which seems to just pad running time. I wish the attention paid to the Big Sur could have been spent on Taylor's look, who looked frumpy and overweight in some really unattractive costume choices.
Vincente Minnelli, who has succeeded in the past with the melodrama genre (Some Came Running, The Cobweb) really misses the boat here with some seriously overheated direction and I think depends a little too much on the chemistry between the stars which only carries this silliness so far. Eva Marie Saint does make the most of her thankless role as Claire and Bronson is a lot of fun as Cos, but this is really for hardcore fans of Taylor and Burton only. The film's love theme, "The Shadow of Your Smile" won the Oscar for Best Song.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were teamed onscreen for the third time in The Sandpiper, a tedious and overheated soap opera that produces more unintentional giggles than genuine melodrama, but the chemistry between the stars might make it worth a look.
The 1965 film follows the star-crossed romance between two people who were, of course, never meant to be together: Laura Reynolds is an artist and aging hippie with a young son who doesn't believe in conformity, rules, religion, or convention. Edward Hewitt is the headmaster at an Episcopalian boarding school for boys who meets Laura when it's determined that Laura's laxed home schooling of her son has made him a discipline problem and, of course, it's recommended that Laura's son be sent to Edward's school.
Other pertinent players in the drama include Edward's devoted wife, Claire (Eva Marie Saint), who is working tirelessly to help her husband raise funds for a new chapel. Ward Hendricks (Robert Webber) is on the church board and is an ex-lover of Laura's. Cos Erickson (Charles Bronson) is a wisecracking sculptor who has initiated a relationship with Laura by paying her to pose for him in the nude.
This film came about during the early years of the Taylor/Burton relationship where they really weren't paying much attention to the quality of the material offered them, they just wanted to work together. If they had looked at Martin Ransohoff's screenplay a little more carefully, the might have noticed that Taylor was way too old to be convincing as the hippie artist who hangs out at the beach with friends half her age...the character of Laura often looks like she's been dropped into the middle of a Beach Party movie and Burton seems to have a hard time forgetting that he's not playing Macbeth here.
Despite the chemistry between the stars, a lot of what goes on here is just laughable. One scene Laura is whining about how she's jealous of Edward's wife and wishes she could be her and, five minutes later, when she learns that Claire knows about their affair, she bursts into tears and screams at Edward for telling Claire about them. And the scene where Ward actually tries to rape Laura is just as funny.
The film does feature some gorgeous location filming in California's Big Sur, a lot of which seems to just pad running time. I wish the attention paid to the Big Sur could have been spent on Taylor's look, who looked frumpy and overweight in some really unattractive costume choices.
Vincente Minnelli, who has succeeded in the past with the melodrama genre (Some Came Running, The Cobweb) really misses the boat here with some seriously overheated direction and I think depends a little too much on the chemistry between the stars which only carries this silliness so far. Eva Marie Saint does make the most of her thankless role as Claire and Bronson is a lot of fun as Cos, but this is really for hardcore fans of Taylor and Burton only. The film's love theme, "The Shadow of Your Smile" won the Oscar for Best Song.