El ángel de la muerte

Adaptated by Tennessee Williams from "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore", he obviously pulled in a few of his old friends to get this done. It's a gender-bending allegory with Liz Taylor as rich, dying Sissy Goforth, a bad-tempered recluse in her remarkable clifftop Mediterranean villa. Along comes Dick Burton, a freeloader-cum-Grim Reaper figure who sees it as his mission to help ladies in extremis.

Neither of them are right for their roles, but that only adds a certain fascination - a totally earnest rendition would be dull and pretentious. Taylor lets rip here and it's a riot. The highlight is her dinner with Noel Coward playing a role originally meant for a woman. She is wearing an utterly outrageous kabuki outfit while Coward camps it up like there's no tomorrow, which is no doubt the film's theme.

The script is full of naff psychology, Taylor is shrill and unpleasant, Burton looks like he's on vacation. With this set-up, Losey hasn't the slightest chance of delivering his usual sophisticated, simmering subtlety, and maybe that was fortuitous - this is so godawful it's brilliant.

"Boom!" is a film that requires a lot of patience, and if you wait it out and can accept the meandering direction, it will give you an idea of where Tennesee Williams head was at during this time! Williams was quoted to have been pleased with this adaptation of his "The Milkman Doesn't Stop here Anymore" play. Does this film work?...Well yes and no! Meandering direction tries your patience but you do get a glimpse into the mind of a self-obsessed woman by Ms. Taylor who's seen it all and done it all and isn't used to hearing the word "NO". A tighter script would of helped. It's KINDA campy but I tend to think the term "Camp" is overused a lot by too many people. I think John Waters described this film best by declaring it "failed art". I feel the acting is ok by the actors involved. You have to pump up the volume in a film like this to draw you in! Remember Ms Taylor's character is supposed to be essentially unlikeable and shrill and there is no such thing as a happy ending in such a picture. A odd and strangely compelling film if you have the patience!

As a 24-year-old back in '68, I thought Liz and Dick were gauche, but time has mellowed my judgments (particularly after seeing "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" for a 2nd time and really appreciating it this time around.) So, given the chance to see "Boom" for the 1st time, I said "Sure!" Well, Boom got ole Granny all shook up! I LOVED it! If someone disparagingly says "Camp!" to describe this movie, it isn't me. I watched the movie with complete seriousness, took the story and characters literally, and came away from the experience very moved! Liz Taylor is at her luminous, beautiful best. So she's a little chunky. I was mesmerized by her famous deep purple eyes and thick black eyelashes. But it was her acting in this film that really knocked me out. Yes, her accents vary - but that is Liz being true to the character. Sissy Goforth is a grand lady now, but her lapses into vulgarity suggest humbler beginnings.

I think Liz' acting is superb throughout. After all, this character IS over-the-top. Liz goes from grandiose viciousness to moving pathos and I found her believable at all times.

As for Burton, that sexy devil/angel - who cares if he was a little old for the part. To this 62-year-old, he looked delicious, and that mellifluous voice really m-o-v-e-d me.

The spectacularly beautiful scenery of Sardinia and the magnificent mansion provided an awesome setting - and Liz' costumes and jewelry were to drool over.

What a treat to see Noel Coward. Who cares if this movie was beneath him. He looked like he was having fun! Of course there's a "message" to the movie, but to me it was secondary to all the glorious glamour and glitz (Oh. Did I just describe "camp?")

How can a film be a 10 and a 1 at the same time? As serious art, Boom is a bomb. Yet, as a testimony, a very camp testimony, to the lives of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noel Coward, and Tennessee Williams, it is literally hysterical. As the Age of Aquarius was dawning on America, what were these pioneers of love, lust, decadence, and existential meaning to do? What is there to say, to do, to perform, two years after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1968. the play Hair is delighting Broadway. The hippies have overtaken the Beats. Where can the stars go? To the Old World, Europe, Italy, Capris... The movie reveals their state of mind: preoccupation with death, the emptiness of wealth, sex, and luxury. As we watch this undeniably amusing costume melodrama, we can't help wondering just what Taylor and Burton's "real" life there in Sardinia must have been like. Did they throw tantrums when their whims went unsatisfied, or was it the opposite? I'll have to leave the answer to the biographers. But this film makes it impossible not to imagine them all there in Italy, trying with desperation NOT to be what they were portraying. That is what makes the film intriguing.

Well, this is certainly SOME kind of classic!

I recently saw this film as it was meant to be seen, in a theater with a packed audience of Gay men and Lesbians (and don't panic, some token Heteros too)! This was at the 2nd Annual Provincetown Film Festival, and this evening was hosted by John Waters. (If I need to explain who he is, then forget EVER seeing this movie)

John Waters informed us that this was the movie that he shows to friends of his as his "litmus" test, if they don't enjoy it, he claims to never speak to them again! I'm inclined to agree.

If you're a fan of camp, SEE THIS FILM! If you're a fan of Elizabeth Taylor, SEE THIS FILM! If you're a fan of Joanna Shimkus, well I don't know what to say then, except congratulations! You're the first one! (although, she is great in this movie)

What more can you say about a film that has Elizabeth Taylor decked out in Kabuki-Vegas drag holding an intimate bitchy dinner party with an aged and drunken Noel Coward (in a role written for a woman, and first offered to Katharine Hepburn!) To watch Miss Taylor in action, is to behold a true screen legend fully embrace her diva acting self. She lets rip with such abandon and power, she manages to wipe everybody else off the screen, including HERSELF!

While Richard Burton, Noel Coward, Joanna Shimkus, and Michael Dunn (of Ship of Fools and Wild Wild West[tv version, please!] fame) manage to deliver the goods in this Tennessee Williams free for all, it is the incredible Miss Taylor who grounds this late 60's arthouse flop, and manages to transcend it's failing qualities, to make it a screen orgy of bad taste and over the top drama!

Try and keep a straight face during Miss Taylor's prolonged coughing fit on the balcony! I thought I was going to be sick just watching her hack up her lungs. Watch Richard Burton somnambulistically maneuver his way through a role played on stage by Tab Hunter! (I can't help but think, that this film might have actually been pulled off as a straight drama with the original casting of Simone Signoret and Sean Connery!)

We lovers of camp and all things over the top should revel in this failed artistic masterpiece!

This film gets a 10 Star rating as Camp, and a 4 Star rating as anything else!

endnote: Where is the DVD/Video release of this film????!!!!!!