UNSINKABLE

UNSINKABLE: A MEMOIR. Debbie Reynolds and Dorian Hannaway. William Morrow; 2013.

In Debbie Reynolds' first autobiography, she went into her divorce from Eddie Fisher -- who ran off with Liz Taylor -- and how her second husband completely drained her bank account and left her broke. In this sequel, Reynolds writes affectingly of two major incidents since that period. The first is her marriage and divorce to her third husband who, at least as portrayed in the book, was a monstrous hustler who took his wife for everything she was worth, all the while using her money to support his long- time mistress. During one confrontation, he kept asking Debbie to step out on the 12th story balcony, which might well have been her finish. Coinciding with this is her narrative of the Debbie Reynolds Hotel and Casino, which her husband apparently managed to run into the ground.

Once she was extricated from that mess, Reynolds now had to find a home for all the items of Hollywood memorabilia that she had amassed over the decades. This section of the book also has real suspense as the lady discovers that people in Hollywood don't especially care that much about its history. With one plan after another for the museum crumbling despite her and others' best efforts, all of the items (including the dress Marilyn Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch) finally were sold in a huge auction that netted Reynolds millions.

This is about enough for two thirds of a book, so Reynolds has a final section in which she recounts some familiar stories about her coming to Hollywood, losing Eddie Fisher to La Liz, and so on, then has an annotated list of all of her movies, what she thought of them, and interesting behind-the-scenes details. Reynolds tells of the time she had to get a drunken Donald O'Connor off the stage when he tried to join in when Fred and Adele Astaire started dancing, and reveals that David Janssen [Man-Trap] was convinced he was the son of Clark Gable and drank himself to death over it! Who knows?

For much of its length, Unsinkable is a real page-turner, and for that we can thank Reynolds' co-auhor, (Ms.) Dorian Hannaway, who does a splendid job of telling the movie star's story.

Verdict: Very readable, well-done, and entertaining memoir. ***1/2. 

BUTTERFIELD 8

Liz Taylor and Laurence Harvey

BUTTERFIELD 8 (1960). Director: Daniel Mann.

"Every awful moment of it, I Loved!" -- Gloria.

Gloria Wandrous (Elizabeth Taylor) is a model and good-time girl who has a male best friend, Steve (Eddie Fisher), who may be in love with her, to the consternation of his girlfriend, Norma (Susan Oliver). Gloria begins an affair with an unhappily married man named Weston Liggett (Laurence Harvey of Summer and Smoke) and is convinced that her sordid liquor-and-sex past is over, that she has found true love at last. But there is still the wife, Emily (Dina Merrill) to deal with, and more than one ugly misunderstanding ...

Eddie Fisher and La Liz

Butterfield 8 is undoubtedly a sanitized, cliff notes version of John O'Hara's 1935 novel, and has apparently been updated to the late 1950's. Gloria is not an especially sympathetic character (nor Weston) until she reveals to Steve what happened to her in her childhood in a powerful sequence. Like something out of Harvey's film Room at the Top, Weston has apparently married for a good job and social position, although his wife seems to blame her own family for making things too easy for him. Taylor gives a very good performance, and won an Oscar for her portrayal. Harvey is also excellent, and there's good work from Merrill, Oliver, Kay Medford as a motel proprietor, Carmen Mathews as Emily's mother, and especially Mildred Dunnock as Gloria's mother and Betty Field as her very blunt best friend, Frances. Eddie Fisher, who was married to Taylor at the time (after leaving Debbie Reynolds for her), gives a respectable performance.

Verdict: Good performances and some good dialogue lift this a notch above the soap opera level. ***. 

BUTTERFIELD 8

BUTTERFIELD 8 (1960). Director: Daniel Mann.

"Let's face it -- I was the slut of all time!"

Gloria (Elizabeth Taylor) is a beautiful "model" who is chased by men and considered a complete slut by the prudish. Her best friend is Steve (Eddie Fisher), whose girlfriend Norma (Susan Oliver), is jealous of Gloria. Gloria's latest conquest -- or is it the other way around? -- is Weston Liggett (Laurence Harvey), who is married to the very wise Emily (Dina Merrill). Things threaten to come to a boil when Emily finds her mink coat missing, unaware that hubby loaned it to Gloria ... Mildred Dunnock is Gloria's concerned mother and Betty Field the mother's friend, Fanny. Kay Medford is an ex-vaudevillian motel owner who sadly remembers the glory days and Carmen Mathews has a good turn as Emily's mother. Harvey is excellent, Taylor is quite good [although perhaps not quite deserving of the Oscar she won], and Fisher -- who was then married to Taylor -- does a nice job as well, although he always tends to get knocked by critics and biographers. Taylor has an especially good scene telling Fisher about her childhood sexual abuse. The movie has the odd distinction of being somewhat "modern" and yet dated at one and the same time. The impression one gets is that the film is trying to paint Gloria as an emotionally wounded "sexaholic" yet there's also that old double-standard that men who sleep around are studs but women who do the same are whores -- and that ending!

Verdict: At least you've got Liz sauntering sexily. ***.