Tony Maietta:
Hello. I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to going Hollywood.

Tony Maietta:
Well, Brad, what's this about you going away? You going on a trip? You're going away? What's up?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I gotta go away, Tony.

Tony Maietta:
Well, you don't sound very happy about it. You don't sound very pleased.

Brad Shreve:
Well, Tony, out of frustration, I'm bound for ecstasy. I'm going out to look for my pride. I've never lied to myself. I know what I am, Tony. Face it. I was the slut of all time.

Tony Maietta:
I knew you were going to work it in, in some way and somehow he's going to work that. When Brad said, I want to start this one off, ladies and gentlemen, I knew there was going to be, I'm the slut of all times, going to be in there because that is probably the most famous line from this movie. It's actually AFI. Did you know that? AFI listed it as one of their famous movie quotes. Oh mama, let's face it, I'm the slut of all time.

Brad Shreve:
One of the top 100.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. So I guess that gives it away, but do you want to go ahead and introduce this film, Brad, that we're talking about today?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. This is a film that ranks up there— oh my God, with the list— The Godfather, Blazing Saddles, The Princess Bride, Steel Magnolias, Pulp Fiction, Birdcage, Casablanca. This movie is Butterfield 8. And do you know what it has in common with all those movies?

Tony Maietta:
I can only imagine what your answer's going to be, so I'm going to venture a guess. No, what did it have in common with these, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
All the quotable lines.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, okay.

Brad Shreve:
Unlike those films, these are quotable for all the wrong reasons.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I thought it was going to be movies that Brad couldn't stand, but I can't imagine you don't like The Godfather, and I know you like Steel Magnolias, so here you go.

Brad Shreve:
I love every one of my listed. Not a fan of Princess Bride though.

Tony Maietta:
No, I was gonna say we talked about Princess Bride. Our season opener was Princess Bride.

Brad Shreve:
Right. But it is very quotable.

Tony Maietta:
I have a quiz for you. I wanna, I have a little quiz for you about this.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, oh dear.

Tony Maietta:
So yes, ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about Butterfield 8 from MGM in 1960. It is, uh, one of our guilty pleasure movies. At least it's a guilty pleasure for me. We will find out how Brad feels about it. But I do have certain— I do enjoy watching this movie if I'm in a certain mood. It just gives me all the interesting feelings. But Brad, here's your quiz. So after the first screening of Butterfield 8 at the studio, the movie was over and the screening included our star of today, Miss Elizabeth Taylor.

Tony Maietta:
It also included the director, Daniel Mann, the producer, Pandoras Berman, What did Elizabeth— and this is a multiple choice, so this shouldn't be too difficult, but I'm going to give it to you now. After the screening was over, did Elizabeth Taylor, A, turn to her director, Daniel Mann, with tears in her eyes and say, oh, Dan, you just won me my first Oscar? Or did she, B, reach down, take off her shoes, and throw them at the screen?

Brad Shreve:
I know it is B. She didn't even appreciate this Oscar. She hated this film.

Tony Maietta:
She hated this film. There's also a story that after the screening, she went into the ladies' room at the studio and she pulled a Gloria Wondrous. She looked in the mirror, took out her lipstick, and she didn't write no sale on the mirror. She wrote piece of shit on the mirror of the ladies' room.

Brad Shreve:
I keep hearing how she was open about how much she detested this film, but I even got hints that she was even talking publicly during the filming of— when this movie was going out. That seems unbelievable.

Tony Maietta:
I think we know that Elizabeth Taylor had very few filters, you know?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
This is a girl who told Louis B. Mayer when she was a teenager to go to hell. Okay. Elizabeth Taylor, we know, had very few filters. And I don't know that she was publicly dissing it before it came out because she was in Rome filming another movie when this opus came out. So I think she was kind of preoccupied, or she was actually in London. She wasn't in Rome yet. I take that back because Cleopatra started in London.

Tony Maietta:
She got sick, got pneumonia, almost died, got a tracheotomy to save her life. And that tracheotomy won her this Oscar. Oscar. Because this is also, in addition to being one of our guilty pleasure movies, this could qualify as one of our best actress films because Elizabeth Taylor won the best actress for this performance. And Elizabeth said it, and one of the nominees who probably should have won the Oscar that year, Shirley MacLaine for The Apartment.

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely.

Tony Maietta:
Also said that she lost this Oscar to a tracheotomy. And I think that's pretty much the way most people felt about this Oscar win for—

Brad Shreve:
I didn't know Shirley said that. That's, that's a little crass, so it doesn't surprise me that Shirley would say that.

Tony Maietta:
Elizabeth said it first. That's the thing.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Tony Maietta:
I love Elizabeth Taylor as a film actress. I've said this before. I think if she has the right director and she feels inspired, she is one of the best film actresses of the Golden Age. However, she wasn't inspired by this film. She was, well, she was inspired. She was inspired by anger. She just wanted to get this movie over because— a little bit of the background here— because she had just signed to do Cleopatra, the first actress to get a million-dollar salary, not gross, I'm talking about salary for a film. But this movie was standing in her way.

Tony Maietta:
MGM would not release her because this is the last film on her MGM contract to do Cleopatra until she filmed this movie, and she did not like it, and she was very pissed about it. And we'll get into the background of, of the things she demanded, but I think that anger, it kind of fuels her performance because this movie is glorious trash, but you can't take your eyes off Elizabeth Taylor in this film, in my opinion. I think she is— she's galvanizing when she's on the screen in this movie. What do you think?

Brad Shreve:
Well, you know, I'm not an Elizabeth Taylor fan in general. She definitely did a good job in this film. She was the only character I found remotely interesting. And this still— I'm saying these things and you still haven't heard how I feel about this film.

Tony Maietta:
No, I haven't. I'm delaying it. I'm delaying it.

Brad Shreve:
She made a pittance in this compared to Cleopatra.

Tony Maietta:
Well, this was the last film in her contract. She had to complete this film in order to be able to leave MGM and go film Cleopatra in London at first, So she said, if I'm going to film this piece of shit, she demanded some things. One of the things she demanded was a New York filming location. She also demanded that Helen Rose do her costumes. She demanded that Sydney Gilleroff do her hair. And she demanded a role for her then-husband, Mr. Eddie Fisher. That's why Eddie Fisher is in this movie, because there ain't no other reason why Eddie Fisher would be in this movie other than Elizabeth Taylor demanded it.

Brad Shreve:
I don't think he did as bad as everybody makes it out to be. It is a nothing part. I think Eddie Albert would've made more of it. My understanding is he was up for it or was considered. I think somebody could've made a little bit more, but I didn't think he did terrible. He didn't have much to do anyway.

Tony Maietta:
Considering, yes, considering what he was given, I don't think he was bad. It's a nothing part. He was a nothing actor. Many people think he was a nothing personality, but we'll get into that. But Elizabeth Taylor, she intensely disliked this material. She called this script pornographic and she's said outright, this stinks. But she had to do it in order to make Cleopatra. So now that we're talking about this movie and a little bit of the background and how Taylor came into it, let's talk about this film.

Tony Maietta:
And Brad, do you want to go over the cast and tell the people what Butterfield 8 is actually about?

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely. The movie is about Gloria Wanderess, who's played by Elizabeth Taylor, as we said. And she is a beautiful New York Depends on the synopsis that you read. Some say a model. Others, as I agree, she's a beautiful New York call girl, though that was very odd. She is sexually liberated but very emotionally unhappy. She begins an affair with a wooden, wealthy, married businessman, Weston Liggett. She wants more of their relationship.

Brad Shreve:
She wants genuine love. He doesn't even love himself, much less having the ability to love anyone else. She wants this conventional future. He kind of does. He just kind of feels trapped in his life, and it ends in tragedy.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, of course.

Brad Shreve:
A very uplifting film.

Tony Maietta:
I think the longest car crash scene in movie, the most dramatic. And so spoiler alert, people. Yes, Gloria, of course, has to be punished for her lifestyle at the very end, and we'll get to that. But she does die in a car crash. in one of the longest protracted dramatic car crashes. One of the reasons I love this movie, it's so over the top. But you're right. And so it's based on a book by John O'Hara.

Tony Maietta:
And in the book, as you can imagine, the character of Gloria is a semi-professional call girl. There's no shadings about that. But of course, this is 1960, this is the Production Code. So very much like Breakfast at Tiffany's, they could intimate she was a call girl, but she's a call girl who gets pissed off when Lawrence Harvey leaves her $250 because he tore her dress. So you're getting mixed messages here. Are you a call girl? Aren't you a call girl?

Brad Shreve:
It's very mixed because sometimes it is very obvious the way she is talking. There is no doubt she is talking about that she is a call girl. None whatsoever. The next minute, She's turning around and she's saying, you know what they think I am? Or, you know, I'm, I'm throwing a line out there, but something of that nature where she's saying, I'm not a call girl. And I'm like, wait a minute, you just said you were. Did she ever model in this thing? I don't remember that ever happening.

Tony Maietta:
She meets Liggett in a bar because she has to model a dress and a necklace when they, one of their dates. And so she goes, I have to be here too. So photographers will take my picture.

Brad Shreve:
Okay. I missed her saying that was the reason. I thought that was just something that just happened. Okay.

Tony Maietta:
Well, it's so funny because, yeah, is she a call girl? Isn't she a call girl? Her neighbors certainly think she's a call girl. Her mother's friends certainly think she's a call girl. This movie is basically 2 hours of slut-shaming Gloria Wandrus and, very important, slut-shaming Elizabeth Taylor. Because in 1960, as you can imagine, there is some real meta qualities to this film.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Elizabeth Taylor in 1960 was pretty much as her character says, thought of as the slut of all times because she had just broken up America's sweethearts, Little Debbie Reynolds and Little Eddie Fisher, in their marriage. So this movie is very meta in that reference in that it's slut-shaming Gloria Wanderers, the character, but it's also slut-shaming Elizabeth Taylor. So that's kind of an interesting dual thing happening.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm going to do a plug for Wishful Drinking if you want more details on that. Watch Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking or read the book. It's glorious.

Tony Maietta:
It is. It is. I was going to give a little Eddie, Debbie, Liz 101.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, good.

Tony Maietta:
Because it's important. Because not only because Eddie Fisher's in this movie and you're like, why the hell is Eddie Fisher in this movie? Well, because he's Mr. Elizabeth Taylor now. But if you notice, Eddie's girlfriend in this film, Norma, played by Susan Oliver, who does she look like to you, Brad? Did you, did that occur to you at any chance who, who Susan Oliver was made up to look like in this film?

Brad Shreve:
No. It never occurred to me, but yes, a perky little blonde.

Tony Maietta:
She's a perky little blonde with her hair up. She looks like Debbie Reynolds. So, I mean, folks, there are no accidents here. The director, Daniel Mann, Pandora S. Berman, they made her look this way on purpose because there's this one— the wonderful scenes between Gloria and Steve Carpenter, who's Eddie's character, and Susan Oliver plays Norma. It's like Eddie and Debbie and, um, Liz. It is. It's, it's just a meta comment on it.

Tony Maietta:
That's one of the reasons why this movie was such a big hit, because of what was going on in Elizabeth Taylor's personal life. And everybody wanted to get a little glimpse of it once they found out Eddie Fisher was in this movie.

Brad Shreve:
So everybody wanted to immerse themselves in the trash and gossip, and they got it. And they got it.

Tony Maietta:
So before we go into production and things like that, should we talk about how you feel about this movie? And please Don't pull any punches. Not that you ever do, but I'm totally fine with it because I love this movie. To me, it's glorious trash. So I go, go for it.

Brad Shreve:
Okay, go ahead.

Tony Maietta:
Just tell us what you think.

Brad Shreve:
Well, we're going to start with the cast. I do think Elizabeth Taylor did great. I hated her character. I didn't like a single character in this film. It's like, okay, why do I care? Why do I care about any of these people? When she died, I can't imagine anybody shedding a tear. Lawrence Harvey, it was driving me crazy where I knew him from. And then when I realized, oh, it's from—

Tony Maietta:
Manchurian Candidate.

Brad Shreve:
Manchurian Candidate. I thought, okay, yes, he played a zombified wooden character, Manchurian Candidate. And he did the same thing in this film.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. If you remember when we talked about The Manchurian Candidate, I said that this was what Lawrence Harvey specialized in playing these despicable yet wounded characters. You know, you hate him, but you also have a little sympathy for him. In The Manchurian Candidate, I have no sympathy for Liggett in this movie. He is just one big wuss.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
In this entire movie. And so I have none, but that's what Harvey specialized in. These kind of creepy, sleazy, uh, despicable characters.

Brad Shreve:
One thing I will say about his character that I did like is that he was despicable. But he was self-loathing and knew that he was despicable. And I thought that was a nice change. It was like they were going to try and make him sympathetic, but then they never went anywhere with that. Like, why is he the way he is or anything of that nature to make us care other than he's self-aware that I'm an ass. Eddie Fisher's character was probably my favorite character, only— and he was a really small, nothing character. I just always liked the artsy guy on the side playing the piano or doing artwork. Just, I have an affinity for that.

Brad Shreve:
But no, he, he had nothing to really do. My 2 favorite people in this film were Susan Oliver, for sure, and also Dina Merrill.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, yes.

Brad Shreve:
I liked both of their characters at first, though they ended up being kind of as nothing in the long run as everybody else. But in the beginning, I liked their characters. I felt like they had a little more personality. The movie is trash. It is total trash. I loved it.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, good, good.

Brad Shreve:
But it will not be a guilty pleasure. I really enjoyed it. It was fun. I don't know if I'll ever watch it again. If somebody puts it on, I'll watch it. I had a good time, but it wasn't fun enough to be on my list.

Tony Maietta:
Well, that's fair. I mean, that's fair. I couldn't ask for more than this. This movie, what I love about this movie is it's Just so exemplary of this late 1950s, early 1960s melodramas in which the studios were basically hemorrhaging. Television was killing them. They lost the ability to own their theaters, but they still had the production code restrictions. So they're doing everything they possibly can to intimate sex and illicit relationships, without saying it outright. And what they're also doing is something that Cecil B.

Tony Maietta:
DeMille used to do back in the '20s, in what he would— like in The Ten Commandments and Madame Sin, in which he would show all of this debauchery, all of this sinning, all of this crazy, salacious behavior. Then at the end, everyone would either find salvation or they would be punished for their sins. So that's why Gloria must die at the end of this film, because of her lifestyle, because of the fact that even though she's trying to escape, it's too late. She's already signed her death warrant in the eyes of the Production Code Administration.

Brad Shreve:
There's no redeeming yourself.

Tony Maietta:
No, there's not. But I love that because they're glossy, these glossy widescreen, this Metrocolor, it's so glorious. And they're just, I don't know, to me, they're glorious trash. And I love this movie from the minute that Elizabeth Taylor smashes her stiletto heel into Laurence Harvey's foot and she just grinds it in. I love that.

Brad Shreve:
I love that. Was there something sexual to that?

Tony Maietta:
There's no S&M in this at all. It's just she spikes That spiked heel right into his foot. Oh, it's so— and he just looks at her and she's more— I love it.

Brad Shreve:
Here's the thing that gets me, and I already said it, but I gotta do it again. You were saying that it was veiled that she was a prostitute, and it wasn't veiled. It was inconsistent. She was one minute, she wasn't the other. Yeah, it would have been much easier if they showed her pick up some money on a dresser, get into bed with a man with a t-shirt that said, I'm not a prostitute.

Tony Maietta:
That's a good wardrobe choice. I like that idea. I love that idea. Yeah, I know. It's all part of the strange wonderfulness of this film. It's just like Breakfast at Tiffany's when they can't say how this character makes her money, but unless you've lived under a rock your entire life, you know how she makes her money. But then the fact that she gets pissed off at Liggett because he leaves her money after their night together. And she writes, you know, she takes out that lipstick.

Tony Maietta:
And one of the great scenes in movie history, she writes no sale across that mirror. But, and then she leaves the money under it, but she still manages to take a bottle of scotch and his wife's mink coat. So, hello.

Brad Shreve:
That told me this woman is an idiot because $250 is $2,800 today. If he pissed her off, you still take the money.

Tony Maietta:
Right. Well, of course.

Brad Shreve:
And then you tell him what you think of him.

Tony Maietta:
Well, it's her strange kind of moral code. She won't take the money, but she has no qualms about stealing his scotch and his wife's mink coat.

Brad Shreve:
No.

Tony Maietta:
And that mink coat comes in and creates her downfall in the end. You kind of forget about it. I like that about the film. I like the fact that this thing happens and you kind of forget about it and you watch the entire movie and you see these 2 people getting to the point where they're almost going to be able— he's ready to leave his wife, who's Dinah Merrill, we talked about before, and they're going to have a life together. And then she comes home and wears the mink coat that Gloria forgot all about. How do you forget a mink coat? She left the mink coat with Eddie Fisher and she just forgot about it. And that's the series of events which creates the downfall of Gloria Wanderers and Weston Liggett in this film. So just a little bit of the background of this film.

Tony Maietta:
I think we pretty much covered most of it. Liz's last film before she left to do Cleopatra, demanding that Eddie be in it because— and this is just a little bit of a Liz-Eddie-Debbie 101, and Brad's absolutely right. Go watch Wishful Drinking because Carrie Fisher puts it so beautifully. Basically what happened was Elizabeth Taylor was married to Mike Todd, who was— Most people say, certainly she said it, one of the loves of her life, the other one being Richard Burton. He was tragically killed in a plane crash in 1958. Eddie Fisher had been his closest friend. In fact, when Liz and Mike Todd got married, Debbie and Eddie, who were married at this time and were America's sweethearts, were their best man and their matron of honor. Did you, did you know that, Brad? No.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I did, from Carrie's show.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. So they were a pretty close couple. And when Mike was tragically killed in a plane crash on board his plane called, ironically, the Lucky Liz, uh, Liz— this is one of the times when Elizabeth Taylor's chronic health problems actually saved her life because she was supposed to go on this trip with Mike Todd, but she didn't feel well, so she didn't. And he died in this plane crash. Elizabeth Taylor was basically inconsolable. So Debbie came to the house to get the kids, of course, and take care of them because Elizabeth was screaming and she was inconsolable. And she sent Eddie to be with Elizabeth. So in the words of goddess herself, Carrie Fisher, she said, so my father flew to Elizabeth's side, eventually making his way to her front.

Tony Maietta:
And that's all you need to know about what happened. That was the end of the Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher marriage. Elizabeth Taylor eventually married Eddie Fisher, but everybody knew that it was just— basically what he was doing was he was holding the place between her first great love and her last great love. He was like a placeholder between Mike Todd and Richard Burton.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
Which is exactly what happened eventually when Elizabeth Taylor met Richard Burton on the set of Cleopatra. You know, Eddie Fisher's gone. I mean, he's a nothing in this. He can't— he can't do this. At this time, though, Elizabeth Taylor really was pretty much condemned as the slut of all time for breaking up this air quotes happy marriage. Now, a lot of people say this marriage was not as it was depicted, of course. It was a very troubled marriage. However, you're going to get a scapegoat.

Tony Maietta:
It's going to be Elizabeth Taylor. So to me, that's what makes this movie so fascinating is the fact that you have Eddie Fisher in this film, but he's not playing her love interest. That's being played by Laurence Harvey. He's playing this ineffectual friend that she grew up with from childhood that she strangely flirts with and she strangely seduces, but she really— it's very strange. What did you think about their relationship, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
I understood where it was going. He had a crush on her and she liked to toy with him. She was— she's manipulative. So it wasn't that strange. I thought it was realistic. I just didn't see what it had anything to do with this film. It went— it was a storyline. Eddie, uh, and now I've already referred to Susan Oliver.

Brad Shreve:
Their relationship really went nowhere. It was just like, oh, you, you better leave her or you better not hang out with her or our relationship's over. And then she comes back and says, I'm going to fight with you. And that never went anywhere. He wasn't really a good sounding board for her, which I kind of feel like would be the main point of his character.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
It could have been interesting, but nothing became of it. They were just like, let's— they were almost like filler. And I don't think that was the intent, but that's really what it came across.

Tony Maietta:
You kind of wonder what the point of his character is other than the fact that he's highlighting how disapproving he is of her lifestyle. And in the end, of course, he goes with the good girl. Not what happened in real life. He doesn't go with the Debbie Reynolds. He goes with the Debbie Reynolds character in this film. He doesn't go with her. He obviously didn't go with her in real life. But I think it's kind of fascinating that this is, to me, this is one of the things that makes this movie delicious to watch is knowing what was happening in real life.

Tony Maietta:
And then you watch it kind of sort of being played out. on screen because the character of Gloria kind of is as dismissive of Eddie Fisher in this film as the real Elizabeth Taylor ended up being of Eddie Fisher in real life. So it's kind of— you're kind of getting a glimpse of this is— this guy can't satisfy this woman. This woman is, you know, she's Helen of Troy. There's no way this guy is ever going to be able to satisfy this woman. And that's what happened in real life.

Brad Shreve:
I do want to get on my high horse for one minute. It's a societal thing that drives me crazy, and it definitely happened back then and it still happens today. This is kind of a little tangent I'm going to go on. Elizabeth Taylor is a slut for breaking up Eddie and Debbie. Okay, wait a minute. Elizabeth Taylor is not the one that got in front of either a minister or a judge and said, this person is my love the rest of my life. She didn't break them up. Eddie broke them up.

Brad Shreve:
That is—

Tony Maietta:
Eddie broke them up.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, that's always the case. It's always the woman's fault and it makes no sense. There we go. I'm off my high horse. I'll never understand it as long as I live.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I mean, you have to blame the woman, right?

Brad Shreve:
Of course.

Tony Maietta:
You have to blame the woman. I mean, that's just the way it is.

Brad Shreve:
As we've seen in these movies time and time and time again, it's never the man's fault. They're just being men.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. I think we need to just discuss the actual title of this film and what it means. Because this is, this is a lesson for the kids out there. And believe it or not, this was before my time too.

Brad Shreve:
Yep. Mine too. I only know about from I Love Lucy.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, exactly. Me too. Because Lucy's, Lucy's exchange was Murray Hill. So back in the day, kids, a phone ex— so what Butterfield 8 is, is Elizabeth Taylor's answering service. So, okay, here's another one. So kids, before voicemail and before answering machines, you actually had to hire someone, an answering service, to answer your phone calls, and then you would call them and get your messages. So Butterfield 8 is actually the exchange, the phone number of Elizabeth Taylor's answering service. And Butterfield 8 is the exchange.

Tony Maietta:
So for instance, what Butterfield 8 would be is— Equivalent to 288. So you would dial the first letters, BU would be a 2 and an 8, and then an 8, and then whatever the rest of the number was. Does that make sense to you kids? So that's what Butterfield 8 is. And Butterfield 8 was an exchange that provided service to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And I want to point this out, just like Gloria does. Gloria provides her service as an air quotes call girl to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. So Gloria Wanderess is also Butterfield 8. Do you see how that the title of the film is also emblematic of this character, which I think is pretty— it's a great— I mean, it's from the novel by John O'Hara, so MGM didn't create this, but it's an interesting little point to make out that the name Butterfield 8 also represents—

Brad Shreve:
The character.

Tony Maietta:
Gloria Wanderess, the character of Gloria Wanderess.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I think it's an interesting title. And from the movie, when you're watching it, you can tell why it's Butterfield 8. But maybe it wasn't as big of a deal at the time for myself before the movie ever began, because I'm like, what is it about this title that's going to draw anybody if they don't know what Butterfield 8 means? It's not enticing. It's just like, oh, that's curious. So I found it odd in that sense, but maybe back then it People knew right away what it means. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I mean, they still had exchanges, and all the ads had the BU capitalized, so you knew it was a phone exchange. But Elizabeth Taylor called this movie Butterball 4. She hated this movie to their dying day. She hated this movie. She was very gracious when she won the Oscar, which we'll get to. But I mean, she just hated this movie. And it's so funny because I really do believe that anger that she was feeling fuels her performance as Gloria. There's an energy when Elizabeth Taylor is on screen.

Tony Maietta:
First of all, she's a movie star, so there's always going to be a certain quality that she has that grabs your eye, but especially up against these kind of nothing characters like Eddie Fisher. I love the actress who plays her mother, Mildred Dunneck.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
I do. But she's a doormat to Gloria. Gloria comes and goes and her neighbor's in there making the cracks about her. Her neighbor is played by Betty Field, who's a wonderful comic actress. Her neighbor, Mrs. Fanny Thurber, just making little snide remarks about Gloria. And the mother is just oblivious to it all. But what did you think about The 11th-hour reveal, Brad, when Gloria tells Eddie Fisher's character about the man who almost married her mother.

Tony Maietta:
Do you remember that little— did you see that coming a mile away when she talked about—

Brad Shreve:
No, I did not. No, I did not.

Tony Maietta:
Do you want to tell the people what the 11th-hour reveal is that Gloria confesses to Eddie Fisher's character about why she is the way she is?

Brad Shreve:
Gloria was molested by the man that her mother was going to marry. And she liked it. In their own little— yes, I was trying to think of a nice way to say it, but I guess there's no other way to say it about Gloria. Gloria liked it.

Tony Maietta:
She liked it. She has this confession with Eddie Fisher that— well, see, I did see it coming a mile away, even though I've seen this movie a million times. The first time I saw it, because her mother says, At one point to her neighbor, to Fanny Thurber, Fanny, she says, maybe if I'd married whatever the character's name, he's not in the movie, whatever this guy's name was, maybe if I'd married him, she would've turned out differently because her father died when she was a small child and her mother always said that she just ran wild, Gloria did. And maybe if she'd married this man, it would've turned out differently. I'm like, okay, she's just not saying that for no reason. This is going to come back. At some point.

Brad Shreve:
But I just thought she was saying that because she had such a sad childhood. I didn't know.

Tony Maietta:
And then once Gloria's going through all this drama with Liggett over the fur coat and did she steal it, did she not steal it, and she ends up at Eddie Fisher's house, she confesses that this man, when she was a teenager, he picked her up from school or something, her mother was away, and he basically molested her for a week. And she liked it. And that's the real shame, is that she enjoyed this sexual experience with this man. And that's why she's become the slut of all times, because she liked sex.

Brad Shreve:
See, she didn't have to die. She was the victim. She didn't have to die.

Tony Maietta:
No, she did, because she liked it.

Brad Shreve:
No, that's true.

Tony Maietta:
If she hadn't liked it, she probably wouldn't have crashed that car. But she liked it. She had— she had the unfortunate— the unfortunate thing happened to her was that she enjoyed sex. And that may— That pretty much signs her death warrant at MGM in the 1960s. So that's that 11th-hour reveal. I'm like, I saw this one coming, just like her crashing her car. Here's a little tip for you, ladies and gentlemen. Whenever a character gets pulled over for speeding and gets a ticket or a warning, you got to believe that somewhere down the line, they're going to have a car crash.

Tony Maietta:
for speeding. That's just what filmmakers did to let you know, hey, pay attention, pay attention. And that happens to Gloria. She gets pulled over for speeding her little MG, which is a great car, earlier in the movie. And you're like, well, of course then her death is going to be by going too fast and crashing her car in the longest death scene in the history of movies.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. I want to say this about Elizabeth Taylor. This movie is trash. Her lines were trash, Her character was trash, yet Elizabeth played it like any other character. She played it well, as good as she possibly could for a character that is so dislikable. So I gotta give her kudos for that.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, you know, and that's the thing. I don't think— I think Elizabeth Taylor gives Gloria some pathos. I think she gives her some— you feel for Gloria, especially at the end, because she is trying to change her life. That's what makes the ending so sad is because she actually makes the decision after she returns or tries to return the fur coat to Lawrence Harvey, to Weston Liggett, and he pretty much humiliates her on the street of New York. She's going to go away. She's going to Boston. Why Boston? She says. And she says, well, I work for the Pilgrims, so why not me? Which I love that line.

Tony Maietta:
I work for the Pilgrims. So she's trying to get away, but Lawrence Harvey is going after her. He's had a change of heart. He realizes he does love her. So she actually has the opportunity to escape. She ends up stopping at a diner, and that's her big mistake because she stops at a diner on her way to Boston. Lawrence Harvey's able to catch up with her and convince her to give them another try. And then they go off to go to their motel, to Happy's Motel, which is a friend of Liggett's who's played by the marvelous Kay Medford.

Tony Maietta:
who went on to play Fanny Brice's mother in Funny Girl later, by the way, P.S., that she realizes, I got to get away from this guy. So she takes off in her MG, he follows her, and that's what causes the accident. It's not just because she's emotionally distraught and driving recklessly. It's more specific than that. What really happens to her is she's trying to form her new life, but she just doesn't have the strength. So that's what makes the ending so tragic, is she was trying to get away from this man and start again. She just wasn't strong enough. She's the closest she is to a new life right before she dies, and then she just dies.

Brad Shreve:
She wasn't able to leave her life behind as much as she wanted to. It was following her. Yeah, I said I was sad at the end because she was redeeming herself, but again, my problem is there was nothing in the film that made me think, oh, she's gonna turn her life around and change. It wasn't like she struggled through the film to say, I want something different. All she wanted was Mr. Cardboard Character. So even that was just kind of a whirlwind ending, like, oh, I'm going to change my life. Nope, I'm dead.

Tony Maietta:
She has to die, unfortunately. It seems like she is capable of reinventing herself, but she can't completely escape the emotional damage that this relationship has caused her. And so when he pursues her, she's pulled right back into this self-destructive emotional cycle. And in the end, that's what makes it so cruel is you think for a moment, but this is how they get you. This is how these filmmakers get you. You think for a moment maybe she will be able to have a new life, but no, she goes right through that barricade. Where's that barricade? Suddenly there's a barricade in the middle of the highway. So every— where'd everybody else go?

Brad Shreve:
It's like the barricade on the Blues Brothers at the end of the road with the, the Nazis go flying into the sky. Right.

Tony Maietta:
Where's, where's the other traffic? Didn't, did everybody, I mean, why is no one else flying off this, flying off this, busting through this barricade?

Brad Shreve:
Well, there was a road crew. She drove right past the road crew. Remember, she was doing something.

Tony Maietta:
She did. They tried to stop. She just kept going. She kept going. And so she's dead. Gloria's dead. And Weston's going out. And what is Weston's great lesson in this? He's going out to find his pride.

Tony Maietta:
You said at the beginning of the, of this episode, Gloria dies and Weston Liggett, the adulterer who, you know, who's basically using his wife for her money. So he's also kind of a sex worker here. It's the only reason he's married to this woman is because she's of society and she's got money. His big punishment is Going out alone for a few weeks to find his pride. And then hopefully, Dinah Merrill will be waiting for him at the end, and they can live happily ever after. It's so double standard 1960s. It's hysterical.

Brad Shreve:
One thing that really made me laugh is there's a scene where Dinah Merrill and Lawrence Harvey— I think it was their first scene together while they're golfing. And she says, I need you to be charming at some event. And then she says, you're always charming. I'm like, well, where, where the hell is this charming? Because we sure as hell ain't seeing him. And I laughed out loud.

Tony Maietta:
When is he charming?

Brad Shreve:
I laughed out loud.

Tony Maietta:
When is he charming? You know, it's funny. Yeah. Laurence Harvey, he played these types of characters so well. Well, he did the ultimate version of this character in, in Manchurian Candidate. So ladies and gentlemen, we talked about Manchurian Candidate last year, so look it up. It's a, staggering performance. But as I said in an episode, what's funny about this is that they were very close, Elizabeth Taylor and Lawrence Harvey. There were questions about Lawrence Harvey's sexuality.

Tony Maietta:
Most people believe he was gay. Obviously he wasn't out, but you know Liz and her gay boyfriends.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, Rock Hudson, Roddy McDowall, Montgomery Clift, Lawrence Harvey. We love Elizabeth Taylor for this because she loves the gays, And she was very close to Lawrence Harvey. In fact, I think we talked about this before, when he was dying, she crawled into his bed with him. She also did that with Rock Hudson, crawled into his bed with him to be with him because she loved him so much. So that's wonderful.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, if we get anything out of this movie, we get a lovely idea of the friendship and the depth of Elizabeth Taylor's love for Lawrence Harvey. Even though in this film, it's batshit crazy what happens, but that's what makes it so much fun. It makes it delicious for me, delicious trash. So I want to talk a little bit about the Oscars, but before I go into that, is there anything you want to say to the people about the podcast or the movie or anything else?

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely. Thank you for listening. If you're listening and you're enjoying and especially if you've been enjoying for a while. Please rate and review us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I love to say wherever you get your podcasts. It's so overdone. I like to be a part of it. We also would love to hear from you.

Brad Shreve:
You can email us at goinghollywoodpod@gmail.com, or you can text us or leave a voicemail. We love the voicemails. And you can do that right there in the show notes. There is a button, just click that, or a link Click it, and then it says leave a, leave a text or leave a voicemail. If you leave a voicemail, we may play it on an episode.

Tony Maietta:
So Brad, yes, that's so true. Thank you everybody for, as always, for, for your support. We truly, truly appreciate it. I love the voicemails. Um, we get another one, we'll play it if you want us to. We absolutely will. Um, so can you tell me how this movie Butterball 4 did, uh, when it was released, Brad? Do you have the stats on this movie?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I do. Uh, first of all, as far as the critics go, They had some nice things to say about this film. Primarily, the biggest one probably was the— other than Elizabeth— was the film's color, its photography, the design. It looked glamorous, and it did look great, definitely from that era. Elizabeth Taylor was highly regarded. She was praised for her job. Beyond that, they weren't real wild about the film. It was pretty much negative stuff.

Brad Shreve:
The script, melodrama, shallow, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of the things that I thought about it, and actually you do, but you You liked it anyway.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
The audience liked it better, at least as far as flocking in to see it. So it did really well. It made $2.8 million and brought in, including worldwide, $10 million. Now, as far as how it's looking on Rotten Tomatoes, that's a whole different story. The critic score matches what it was saying at the time. It's only 19 critics that they drew from. I don't know why there weren't more. That was only 47%.

Brad Shreve:
Audience liked it a little bit more, and there were a lot more of them. 2,500 people, over 2,500 reviewed, and that was 56%. So nobody thought this was a fantastic film.

Tony Maietta:
No, no, it's not a milestone in cinematic history. It truly isn't. It isn't. But it is interesting. It's fun. I love, I love the trash element of it. It's glorious to watch people. The color is spectacular.

Tony Maietta:
The costumes are wonderful. She is belted into those dresses like you would not believe, but they're fantastic. So just to give this some context, because this is kind of like a bonus Best Actress episode in addition to being one of our guilty pleasure episodes, the other nominees besides Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment that year were Greer Garson in Sunrise at Campobello, Deborah Kerr in The Sundowners, and Melina McCurry in Never on a Sunday. Now, all of those performances could have won an Oscar, really. And unfortunately, Greer Garson had won an Oscar, but Deborah Kerr famously never won an Oscar, and neither did Melina McCurry ever win an Oscar. This was Elizabeth Taylor's first Oscar. So you have to put it in the context of what happened. What happened was Elizabeth Taylor Finished this movie, you know, threw her shoes at the screen, said goodbye, went to London to begin filming Cleopatra, caught a chill which developed into a cold, which developed into pneumonia, and she almost died.

Tony Maietta:
In fact, there were many papers which said that she died. Miraculously, though, there was a miraculous tracheotomy which saved her life. And it was just as if all the sins of the past 3 years were washed away from Elizabeth Taylor because people thought, oh my God, we almost lost Elizabeth Taylor. So when it came time for the Oscars, Elizabeth had returned to Hollywood weaker, but she was alive. She came to the Oscar ceremony with Eddie Fisher, and it was— they were suddenly America's sweethearts. Debbie who? Everyone's like, Debbie Rowe, what happened to her? Elizabeth's name was indeed announced as the winner, and she gave a very breathless thank you. And there's photos of her and the tracheotomy scar. She wore a dress where the tracheotomy scar is very visible, and you can see photos of that day with Elizabeth Taylor with a cigarette in one hand and her Oscar in the other, and the tracheotomy scar in the middle.

Brad Shreve:
Hello, 1960s.

Tony Maietta:
Hello, 1960s. So Elizabeth was forgiven. But wait a minute, that's not the end, of course, because then Cleopatra starts production again, now in Rome. And guess who she meets on the set of Cleopatra? A guy named Burton. And suddenly she's the slut of all times again, condemned by the Vatican. You know, it's just— this is what you love about Elizabeth Taylor. You can never second-guess Elizabeth Taylor. So, you know, it happened all again.

Tony Maietta:
Eddie Fisher was out and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton became, you know, the most famous couple in the world for many, many years. So the thing about Elizabeth Taylor and this Oscar is, is that Elizabeth Taylor, this was her 4th Oscar nomination. She had been nominated 3 years in a row before this. She'd been nominated for Raintree County. She'd been nominated for Cat on the Hot Tin Roof. And she was nominated for Suddenly Last Summer. So many people really think that she should have won the Oscar for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but the Eddie Fisher problems prevented that from happening.

Tony Maietta:
So this was kind of like a makeup mea culpa. We're sorry we almost lost you, Elizabeth Taylor. Here's Here's an Oscar for you. That's pretty much the way Elizabeth Taylor looked at it, and that's pretty much the way most people look at it. I still think she gives a wonderful performance in this movie, but I don't think it was necessarily Oscar-worthy, especially when you think about Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment. Yeah. Which really was, everybody pretty much agrees, the consensus is that was the performance that probably should have won.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And I would agree with that 100%.

Tony Maietta:
I love Never on Sunday. It's a wonderful, wonderful, it's a wonderful film. These are all good movies and Butterfield 8 is right up there with them. So, well, that was Butterfield 8, ladies and gentlemen. I know I don't have much else to say about this movie except if you want to— if you have a good Sunday afternoon with nothing to do and you want to see some really beautiful trash, I put it on. It's a lot of fun for me personally. Just for the stiletto in the foot scene alone is worth watching this movie.

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with Tony. Uh, if you're sitting around and can't figure out what to watch, watch this film. It's fun. It's trashy. You may like it as much as he does and watch it over and over again. You may like it as much as I did and say, God, that was fun. Done.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Brad's like, one and done. One and done. All right. Well, Brad, then if you have nothing left to say, I mean, I don't want to be the slut of all time and just keep going on and on and on. I only have one more thing left to say, but I've enjoyed this so much I don't want to say it. So let's not say goodbye. Let's just say au revoir.

Brad Shreve:
No, let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Goodbye, everybody.