The Girl Who Had Everything ** (1953, Elizabeth Taylor, Fernando Lamas, William Powell) – Classic Movie Review 6419

Fiery Elizabeth Taylor stars as Jean Latimer, who upsets her attorney father Steve Latimer (William Powell) when she romances his gangster client Victor Y Raimondi (Fernando Lamas), in director Richard Thorpe’s routinely competent 1953 crime soap.

One of Taylor’s least known films, it comes with a health warning. This romantic drama is a candy-coated confection that provides no true nourishment but feels full of sick-making E-numbers.

The actors go through the motions of passion, but there is no real oomph or conviction in Art Cohn’s screenplay, the acting or Thorpe’s direction. The young Taylor, looking at her most beautiful, is largely wasted.

Also in the cast are Gig Young, James Whitmore, Bill Walker and Robert Burton.

Running a mere 69 minutes, this MGM movie is shot in black and white by Paul Vogel, produced by Armand Deutsch and scored by André Previn.

Cohn’s screenplay is adapted from Adela Rogers St Johns’s novel, previously filmed as A Free Soul (1931) with Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Clark Gable and Oscar-winning Lionel Barrymore. This time the names of the main characters are altered, it moves much of the action to Lexington, Kentucky, and changes the murder trial background to a Senate investigation of gambling and corruption.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6419

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