Secret Ceremony (1968)

The mansion is The House of the Peacocks and is London's most opulent Arts & Crafts villa. It was designed by Halsey Ricardo in 1905.

There's a scene where Mia serves Liz breakfast and she scarfs it down like she hasn't eaten in days and lets out a burp at the end.

Liz.

Mia plays a disturbed girl who seems to enjoy being molested by her pretentious step-father...

This movie is such highly watchable trash.

One of my favourite all time best guilty pleasures. Love, love, love Secret ceremony. critics said "Wo's afraid of Rosemary's baby" " Mitchum barely opens hie eyes thoughout the whole film".... Taylor in her best performance ever. Mia extraordinary. Can watch 4 or 5 times a year. Only in the 60"s.

[quote] Taylor glides drunkenly throughout the house as Farrow becomes increasingly more and more unhinged

So, no acting at all was involved in that movie.

I do not understand why garbage film like this were even made in the first place.

films

R8, it's ART, Rose

It's true, Liz started to look like Divine as she aged.

This was quite, quite elegant in the late 60s, early 70s

HIGH art.

The Mia Farrow character reminds me a bit of Pinky, Sissy Spacek's character in Altman's "Three Women." Farrow and Spacek always look younger than their ages.

Taylor was in a sleeping pills induced coma until noon, at which point Burton was too drunk to shoot, so they replaced him with Mitchum...I don't want to question the casting director and producer's intelligence...but I do...

Back when Mia was considered a genius, a youthquaker, and the IT girl of all time

Liz loved those offbeat films. After Virginia Woolf she never really played conventional again.

those were the days. Identikit, night watch, reflection in a golden eye, the only game in time, ash wednesday, boom, Z and co...

I've always had an odd liking for this film because it's so bizarre. The first time I saw it was on TV in that butchered version with the scenes added by the studio using some house director depicting two psychiatrists "explaining" the plot and characters at certain intervals.

But there was enough of the original film there to pique my gayling interest and I managed to see the original film in college and enjoyed it, for all its flaws.

Taylor is very good in the film, probably the best of her post Virginia Woolf career. Farrow does her ususal thing, but it works well. Mitchum is miscast (would love to see what Dirk Bogarde could have made of the part), but he has his moments.

Of Taylor's two films with Joseph Losey, this is certainly better than the turgid Boom!, which is only fun when Taylor and Noel Coward have their scene.

I beg to differ, this entire sequence is gold

Boom would be a very enjoyable movie, if "the poet" had been played by, say, Tab hunter (as in the stage version). Burton is too old to start with, insufferable as usual, a pompous bore, and a strong repellent. He kills the movie. Taylor understood that you can't take yourself too seriously in that kind of material, you have to let the auduence know that you're in on the joke. Burton was dreadful, and took himself so very seriously at all times, even in the campiest, most OTT situations, he thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. I never understood what Taylor saw in him. After a couple years to benefit from the publicity, she should've kicked him to the curb. Very tacky man.

Mia Farrow says she had a great time making this film. Taylor became a surrogate mother to her.

Liz Taylor was totally zonked on pills and booze during the filming of this movie, she's a camp riot.

Saw it with my mother. Delish! Loved it. I re-enacted Liz for months after. Was so much fun being a swishy gai boi back then.

[quote] Mia Farrow says she had a great time making this film. Taylor became a surrogate mother to her.

it's always about incestuous "surrogate mother/father" with her. was Daddy Frank a "surrogate father" too ? she said that Ava told her "you're the child Frank and I never had". It's so bizarre and insalubrious. it's always movies about weird/demonic child-parents relationships. worse IRL. the brother who commits suicide, the pedo brother in jail, the sister who dates a serial killer, the two other sisters who fuck Woody, the children drama...She's so fucking weird

Mia's blue dress is divine! Dior?

R26 Oh, no not Dior. I think it's Pierre Cardin

yep, it's Cardin

Why when Taylor slaps Farrow does her head ring like a gong?

You know why R29

streisand awards room

Farrow award room

If it's one thing we don't cotton to here it's FILTY INCESTOUS LEEZBIANS!

^ I always knew Liz would wind up in bed with a 12yo boy.

This movie is such highly unwatchable trash.

R31 What are those books doing in that room?

Joseph Losey was an American con-artist.

He fooled lots of important people for 3 years and after that he got money to churn out trash for another twenty.

I would love to see John Waters expound on the late 1960s-early 1970s output of Taylor's the way he has "Boom!"

Imagine John on "Secret Ceremony," "Ash Wednesday," "X Y and Zee" (one of my favorite titles of all time), and a title that hasn't been mentioned here yet: "Hammersmith is Out." Taylor plays a blowsy diner waitress named Jimmie Jean Jackson.

R35 I record it each time it is shown on TCM, and each time I try to watch the entire film my interest fizzles out. Farrow’s drifting in and out of accents is irritating. Robert Mitchum looks pretty bad, too. some of Taylor’s scenes feel like acting exercises, with random spurts of emotion. The plot is overall so cheesy and implausible. The only interesting characters are the shifty, thieving aunts.

[quote] my interest fizzles out

I agree, the whole film is a mess.

Farrow looks like Tinker Belle. Taylor like whale.

And the ghastly Mitchum lurches through a few scenes looking as though he needs to find a couch before he falls asleep.

I love late-stage Taylor. I have been unable to find copies of BOOM! and Ash Wednesday. I do have X,Y&Z and Night Watch. When they asked Liz what sort of character she was playing in Secret Ceremony, she replied, "A dykey prostitute." In which movie did she say in response to a man who asked her to talk dirty, "Pee-pee"? Was that Hammersmith Is Out?

Your help is appreciated.

BOOM is on YouTube.

^ Another turgid mess from con-artist Joe Losey.

R25, some of us were born to fucked up families and have to create families and a support system of our own. Not all us grew up in Mayberry like you.

R25: "the sister who dates a serial killer"

What? Which sister? And which serial killer?

[quote].When they asked Liz what sort of character she was playing in Secret Ceremony, she replied, "A dykey prostitute."

I fucking loved Liz. It's a pity we don't have stars like her anymore.

R46 says "I fucking loved Liz".

Burton said "I loved fucking Liz".

R45, Prudence "Dear Prudence " Farrow dated Robert Durst for a while

^ see the Personal Life section

[quote] So, no acting at all was involved in that movie.

Fuck off Woody, you disgusting perv.

I re watched "the mirror crack'ed" and was horrified by Taylor's bloated, alcoholic face and her double chin. It took a lot of imagination to think she was once called the most beautiful in the world. Publicity is a mighty tool

[quote] It took a lot of imagination to think she was once called the most beautiful in the world. Publicity is a mighty tool

She was one of the all time great Hollywood beauties. But time, drug addiction, alcoholism and overeating take their toll on anyone.

[quote] time, drug addiction, alcoholism and overeating take their toll

She also had haemorrhoids.

That can't have been pleasant.

She also had leprosy.

Did Liz get the Koh-I-Noor?

Is this movie that was made while Liz-and-Dick's yacht was moored in the River Thames?

Liz was also a heavy smoker (Salems!) and that definitely took a toll on her looks. Ava Gardner was the same. A great beauty, but cigs and booze really did a number on her face.

This is called taking care of yourself...

Boom and Secret Ceremony released in 1968 were directed by Joseph Losey, saddled with a ridiculous Taylor and are murky, baroque and boring.

I love secret ceremony because of the antiques too. The house is filled with treasures

'Boom!' is a masterpiece cinematically, but it's hard to watch the attempts at acting. Burton is notoriously miscast, and I'm not sure Dame Liz was acting so much as playing herself. I believe Tennessee Williams said it was his favourite movie version of one of his plays. Though he was--no doubt--drunk when he proclaimed that as well.

[quote] . I believe Tennessee Williams said it was his favourite movie version of one of his plays.

Never heard of that extraordinary statement. He wrote that "the roman spring of Mrs Stone" was the best movie version of his work, he notoriously hated Taylor as Maggie the cat, and also as Flora Goforth. He said she was miscast and too young; Taylor wasn't playing herself she based her performance on Vivien Leigh, her favorite Actress, who had just died from tuberculosis.

[quote] "This movie is such highly watchable trash."

Yes, R5! I love all those weird movies Elizabeth Taylor made in the late 1960s and early 1970s! Some are better than others, but I love 'em all.

I've never seen this movie, but is it campier than "Burnt Offerings?"

R64I haven't seen that, but to give you an idea, Noel Coward pays 'the witch of Capri", and la Liz wears that

I saw this last night…twisted but entertaining!