I am not responsible for anyone that comes here without invitation.
I wasn't terribly surprised to learn of Elizabeth Taylor's passing a couple weeks back (not after she had been ill for so long), but I did kick myself for not watching one of her films the weekend before as I had originally planned. That film was 1968's Boom! -- one I had recently found at IU library, which was a godsend since I've been wanting to see it ever since I read that it's one of John Waters's favorite films of all time. (It's not for nothing that its poster is displayed prominently in both Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos.) A true camp classic in every sense of the term, Boom! was written by Tennessee Williams, based on his unsuccessful play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, and directed by Joseph Losey, who was to direct Taylor in Secret Ceremony later that same year. This time out, though, she also had her then-husband Richard Burton by her side -- just one of many miscalculations since his part was originally written for a much younger man. Then again, Taylor's was written for a much older woman -- one who's been married six times before and outlived all of her husbands. No wonder she could relate.
I wonder if, in her last days, Taylor thought about this film at all since it opens with her character convulsing in bed while receiving a back massage and ends with her flat on her back in the same bed with Burton hovering over her, divesting her of all of her jewelry while her mortal coil shuffles off. In between, we see how her servants -- virtual prisoners on her private island -- cater to her every wish and listen to her dictate her memoirs to her personal secretary (Joanna Shimkus), frequently over the intercom system and at all hours of the day and night. Taylor also has a personal physician, a midget bodyguard (Michael Dunn) who commands a pack of cute but vicious guard dogs, a pair of sitar players, and -- with Burton's arrival -- a professional house guest. The other major character is the so-called Witch of Capri (Noel Coward in fine form) who is invited to dinner and warns Taylor that her house guest, in addition to being a failed poet and mobile-maker, has earned the nickname "the Angel of Death" for his habit of turning up on the doorsteps of terminally ill women. Well, everybody's got to have a hobby.
I freely admit I haven't watched too many of Taylor's films (as a matter of fact, I can still count them on one hand), but in this one she gives one of the most hysterical performances I've ever seen. As for Burton, he's admirably low-key, even when he's prowling around Taylor's house in a samurai's kimono (complete with sword, both provided by his host) and Williams's dialogue is at its ripest. (For example, when he speaks the title aloud, he goes on to explain that it is "the shock of each moment of still being alive.") In retrospect, it's not hard to see why audiences didn't flock to it at the time, but perhaps now a DVD release would inspire more people to check it out. Somebody get on that.