"Boom!" Review

 

by Daniel White

"Help... Injection!"

Elizabeth Taylor's first line in Boom! (1968), those were my exact words when this cinematic turd came to its merciful conclusion. It's a horrible film that has achieved camp status in certain circles.

I admire Ms. Taylor the woman. All the work she did almost singlehandedly to raise money for AIDS research was more than admirable - it saved lives. As for her acting prowess - let's just say she makes Pamela Anderson look like Sarah Bernhardt. And yes, I know she nabbed two Oscars, but that tells you more about the foolishness of the Academy Awards than it does about La Liz's meager gifts as a thespian.

It may be an apocryphal tale but Richard Brooks, her director on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof once remarked you can only keep the camera fixed on Taylor's face for about 15 seconds. That's about as long as the glamour puss could sustain an emotion. True or not, I believe it. She is positively wretched in Boom!, a Joseph Losey film, co-starring her then-husband, Richard Burton (he's just as bad, just not GLARINGLY so).

Based on the play, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, by Tennessee Williams (he wrote the screenplay and it stinks), Liz plays Flora Goforth, a squawking harridan who is visited by a mysterious poet (Burton) on her Mediterranean isle. Christened the "Angel of Death," Burton has arrived at the dying Taylor's sumptuous villa to escort her to the other side. Her demise can't come soon enough.

Taylor looks fabulous in outfits designed by the uncredited Karl Lagerfeld and her hilltop lair is absolutely stunning (Richard Macdonald is listed as production designer). But our two leads are miserably miscast. She's too young, he's too old and they're worse than bad - they're banal.

Despite the weakness of the screenplay, I'd love to see this role performed on the stage by a talented actress. Hermione Baddeley and Tallulah Bankhead both played Flora Goforth in doomed productions. Several years ago, the late, great Olympia Dukakis tackled the role. That would have been memorable, she could actually emote truthfully. Elizabeth Taylor possessed many gifts, unfortunately truth telling as a performer was not one of them. The catastrophic Boom! is available on YouTube.