On U List of Movie Reviews

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Under Milk Wood (1971)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 12/18

12/18: If there's an impossible accomplishment in cinema, it's making a great film out of a poem.

I honestly didn't know what I was in for when I started playing Under Milk Wood and thought of it as another movie with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor plus Peter O'Toole.

Don't be fooled by the movie poster because it's anything but. Clocking at 87 minutes, it's a torture to sit through which took me four nights to complete. Admittedly, I didn't understand the nonsense that was being spewed out. Filmed in Wales, Under Milk Wood was a massive box-office failure against a budget of $300,000 which was mostly financed by Richard Burton. Unsurprisingly, everybody wrote it off as a tax loss.

All in all, Elizabeth Taylor, who makes a scant appearance in Under Milk Wood, said it the best: "The final effect is to leave one wondering what, precisely, is the point of the exercise."

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