La fille qui avait tout

this is a very short movie and one of the most obscure in Elizabeth Taylor's filmography.Obviously it's not one of her best but she is really gorgeous .

She portrays a rich kid "who has everything" (the title tells no lies),with a rather over possessive father -who has excuses ,for he is a widower and she is his only child- and a good-looking but bland and boring fiancé .Enter a shady handsome Latin lover type man (Lamas)and the girl falls heads over heels in love.The most interesting side of this Harlequin Romance is its reactionary side:for the distinguished father ,the hunk will always be worse than a nouveau riche ;he will never be part of the respectable circle of gentlemen and the more he tries to start all over again,to redeem his soul -"even God would give me a second chance"-,the more he fails ,for he's got two kind of enemies now: the fine upstanding people and his former partners from his racy past.

Although The Girl Who Had Everything is taken somewhat from MGM's earlier classic, A Free Soul, it has a few important differences in keeping with the decade it was done in.

William Powell is in the Lionel Barrymore part of the high priced criminal lawyer, but he's not representing his client in a murder trial. In keeping with the times Powell is at a Senate Rackets Committee hearing with Fernando Lamas who tells them nothing and a few Senators get some headlines and photo ops from the hearing.

As the hearing concludes daughter Elizabeth Taylor meets up with her dad and his client and they're both taken with each other. This does not sit well with Powell, who's perfectly willing to take their money, but not to let them in his life and family.

Fernando Lamas is in the gangster role, the same part that Clark Gable got his first real notice. Whereas Gable exuded some real menace and had no intention of leaving the rackets, Lamas actually wants to quit and settle down.

Of course the racism in The Girl Who Had Everything just bubbles over. Lamas apparently really does want to leave, but Powell is a snob and he's ready to violate lawyer/client privilege and testify himself before the Senate hearing as to Lamas's criminal enterprises. This would in fact get him disbarred in any state in the Union and the District of Columbia, a fact the film doesn't mention.

As for Lamas's associates, they take the attitude of once in, never out and deal with it accordingly. Wrongly in my opinion, but that's the fault of a very confused script.

This rehash of A Free Soul is only 69 minutes long, my guess the shortest feature film Elizabeth Taylor was ever in. She tries, but does not come close to what Norma Shearer did in the original version.

And Gig Young as her society boyfriend repeating the role that Leslie Howard had, has very little to do but look concerned and issue grave warnings about getting mixed up with those kind of people.

Dore Schary was unloading all of MGM's big stars from its golden era and The Girl Who Had Everything was the kiss off to William Powell. He looks plain bored with the whole thing and who could blame him. He had two more films in him as a free lance star, How to Marry a Millionaire and Mr. Roberts both infinitely better than this.

Botched on all levels, this remake of A FREE SOUL from 1931 takes the basic plot of that searing classic and turns it into a bland love story.

Elizabeth Taylor has the Norma Shearer part. Here she's a snotty young woman who tosses daddy and beau aside to run after a gangster. There's no chemistry between Taylor and Fernando Lamas (the Clark Gable role) so it's impossible to buy her reckless actions.

William Powell has the Lionel Barrymore role that won him an Oscar. Here, Powell is sidelined into an empty role that gives him nothing to do. In the original film, Shearer fights to save Barrymore (who in turn comes to the rescue in the finale). Here, Powell just disappears into the woodwork. Gig Young plays the Leslie Howard role. As with Powell, Young disappears as well.

So 20 years after A FREE SOUL was a critical and popular hit, the story has been gutted and remade for no reason at all but to present the young Taylor in an adult role. At 69 minutes, they also turned it into a B movie.

And it isn't.

William Powell is a tough criminal lawyer. He may not have a lot of scruples but he has money. And he wants the best for his daughter, played by the ravishing young Elizabeth Taylor. Truly, she has hardly ever looked more beautiful than she does here.

She is, as the title suggests, spoiled. And she decides she wants Daddy's recent client, gangster Fernando Lamas. She already has Gig Young but Lamas is more dashing, if a real cad.

Everyone is good. It has a solid plot. The direction moves things along briskly. The score by Andre' Previn is exceptional.

If you don't have access to "A Place In the Sun," probably Taylor's most famous movie from this period,, catch this one. You will be knocked out by her beauty. And her acting is good, too.

This is tripe dressed up in fancy clothes. A loose remake of "A Free Soul" this silly melodrama is a painless time waster and not much else. What was once a racy provocative drama has become an empty potboiler.

True it does have Elizabeth Taylor at the peak of her beauty and that's always worth seeing. Additionally she is a much more relaxed and natural actress than Norma Shearer ever was. But she is handed a part that has been diluted from the original which is true of the entire picture.

William Powell, a welcome presence as always, isn't given the flashy part that Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar for in the original just a disapproving father without any real bite. No wonder he left MGM after this if this is the best they had to offer.

The real problem is the casting of Fernando Lamas in the old Clark Gable role, with Gable and his animal magnetism you could understand Norma's desire and willingness to stray with him. With Lamas, attractive though he may be, there is none of that and he comes across as a cheap hood made good and an oily one at that and Liz's headstrong determination to be with him makes her seem a foolish, spoiled nitwit.

For fans of the stars, and of course this being an MGM film they are beautiful dressed and the surrounding sumptuous, it's worth one watch but that will be more than enough.