Old fashioned melodrama with a tinge of 1965 rebellion against society, THE SANDPIPER is a soap opera languishing in forbidden love and headlined by Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton at the height of their popularity.
This may be paper-thin trash, but its HIGH-GLOSS trash and I'm convinced Burton could read the back of a cereal box and make it feel vital. Taylor has rarely looked more beautiful than she does here as the free-spirited, nonconformist artist Laura Reynolds.
Holed up in a beach side bungalow with her young son Danny, she sells enough paintings to keep things going, reveling in the parties of her artist community friends. She home schools Danny, decades before that became a thing.
After a couple of run ins with the law, which, like most conventional rules, Laura feels are just a pain in the ass, Danny is court ordered to San Simeon, a structured Christian school in Monterrey.
Dr. Edward Hewitt (Burton) runs the school with an even hand, surprising Laura with his lack of pressure on the religious aspects of the school. He's equally impressed with Danny's education. The young boy quotes poets and artists far beyond his years.
As a mutual respect begins to build between Laura and Edward....oh oh, are those sparks? Taylor and Burton's on screen chemistry is legendary and it's on display in Widescreen Metrocolor here for all to see. They always seem like they're about to devour each other.
Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, North By Northwest) is very good as Edward's wife Claire. Their relationship is strong, with Claire providing reliable and intelligent support for Edward's leadership of the school.
Robert Webber (The Dirty Dozen, 10, SOB) is excellent as Ward Hendricks, a country club chum of Edward's who seems to have a past with Laura. Webber nails the smarmy man's-man routine, lurking in the background, always knowing a bit too much about what's happening.
Charles Bronson is also good in an offbeat role for him as Cos, Laura's close friend, a sculptor who lives for the beach side parties and his work. It's been awhile since I've seen Bronson this loose and funny.
An unknown named Raquel Welch doubled for Taylor in some of the long shots on the beach. Works for me, they're both jaw dropping.
The behind the scenes team is first class, with Director Vincente Minnelli (An American in Paris, Gigi, Meet Me in St. Louis) directing his last film for MGM. While it was a box office success, he regarded it as his worst MGM movie.
Dalton Trumbo (Papillon, Spartacus, Roman Holiday) and Michael Wilson (The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Place in the Sun) wrote the screenplay and Milton Krasner (An Affair to Remember, Beneath the Planet of the Apes) uses every every helicopter in California to shoot incredible scenes of the Big Sur coast. By the time Burton & Taylor are done running up and down the beach and rolling around in the surf for two hours, you're going to want to visit these locales. Great photography.
A lot of those scenes are set to Johnny Mandel's Oscar winning Best Song, "The Shadow of Your Smile".
The third of eleven films that Burton and Taylor would team up for, they're a powerhouse on-screen couple. Burton noted in his diaries that the reason he and then-wife Taylor made this film: "Of all the films we've done since we were free of contracts, only two can I remember that we knew before starting were not serious. "Sandpiper" for both of us... We did [it] because we were afraid we were going to be out of work, and we wanted to work together."
Producer Martin Ransohoff came up with the story to capitalize on what was at that time a scandalous affair between the couple, and the movie going public ate it up at the box office, driving $13 million in ticket sales against the $5m budget.
OLLLDDDD fashioned, overly dramatic and polished within an inch of its life, THE SANDPIPER is an enjoyable vehicle for THE movie star couple of the 1960's, flying its way to a C+.
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