On T List of Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
9/26
9/26:
The Taming of the Shrew isn't funny and is rather exploitative and misogynistic.
I admit the lines are well-written but find it impossible to understand many characters' motivation. Take
Petruchio...why does he have to make it so hard for himself if it's about inheriting gold, among other assets?
That's because the entire play was changed from the original source, thanks to hack writers. Forget Katharina;
she's hopeless as the ending makes no sense.
Elizabeth Taylor had never done Shakespeare in her life hitherto, and I think she did all right. But it's
Richard Burton whom I find annoying although he can recite the lines so well; all his character can do is laugh
and be boorish. In fact, that's how Richard Burton was in real life, preferring money, besides alcohol, over
anything else, which caused him to squander his acting talent. Even their marriage was already in trouble
before it disintegrated seven years later.
I agree with the Academy for bestowing two nominations for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction-Set
Decoration. It's a very good-looking movie, sustaining my interest from start to finish. Yet the play is
bombastic with kids running around in adult bodies. Make no mistake: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
had to be cast because of their legendary status as a power Hollywood couple.
All in all, The Taming of the Shrew has a lot of unrealized potential and can thus be much better, but
I prefer Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hundred times over.