Great Romances of the 20th Century: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (1997 TV Movie) User Reviews

Interesting, Workmanlike British Take On Great Romances

[criticman2000 · 7/10 · 2 March 2006]

Actor Robert Powell narrates this series of 30 minute programs dealing with great romances of the 20th century, which must have originally been done for a British audience, but have recently been turning up as late night PBS filler. It's a bit lurid, kind of dry, but ultimately entertaining, due to to Powell's excellent voice work and wonderful, glitzy, leftover background music by De Wolfe Music Limited. This stuff has been used umpteen times in countless films and television series. If you grew up in the sixties, you'll recognize it immediately. It is at once familiar and well-suited to the material. The shows take on lots of Hollywood legends, including Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton, Howard Hughes and any of his many women, plus historical and political figures, i.e. British and Russian royalty and others. It's the kind of thing which you'll neither turn off, nor seek out. There's lots of fine rare photos and footage throughout, as well as some famous shots. You could do a lot worse. What takes it down a notch, is the feeling that all of this is a retread of an earlier series with added narration, the same music and scant new visuals. The bottom line is, if you run across it, it might be worth your time to check out, but I wouldn't fall over myself to find it. It's a tame entertainment and I believe, was meant to be exactly that.

Burton/Taylor Insight

[ferryman_za · 10/10 · 18 August 2011]

I purchased Vol 1 of this DVD purely for the section on the Burton-Taylor insight and that is the only bit I have watched so far and is a well constructed account. Now that the long lens of the worlds press scrutinizing every move this couple made has long since gone we can now reflect on the phenomenon of Burton/Taylor that swept and so raptured the world with a different perspective. There is something about the Burton-Taylor partnership that seems to be so en-grained into public consciousness that it still resonates today. It is one of those phenomena like how does a bird know how to fly? Because it's programmed to do so, I feel the same about Burton/Taylor it just seems to be part of our programming, part of our being. Maybe it's the idea of the perfect existence that could not survive the harsh realities of life.

I found the piece on Burton poignant, tragic, sad and a bit tearful. The images towards the end of the mini-documentary of Burton's funeral is well told and even leaves you with a sense of your own personal loss. In all my readings about Burton it seems that public persona was very different to the private man and that we may now never truly know the real Richard Burton. Burton is synonymous with, well BURTON, there is just no other way to describe it.