HAMMERSMITH IS OUT but whether you want to let him in depends on your curiosity factor for movie stars bad choices of properties and your stamina reserves, taxed to put up with the result. The last line uttered in this one is a plea that sums up the 108 minutes it took to get there—“Get me out of here.”

Scuzzy lowlife ‘Billy Breedlove’ (Beau Bridges) jettisons his job as an orderly at a psychiatric hospital after allowing straight-jacketed inmate ‘Hammersmith’ (Richard Burton) to escape. Hammersmith promises to make Billy’s dreams of riches come true, and along with the coarse louts pickup girlfriend, waitress ‘Jimmy Jean Jackson’ (Elizabeth Taylor) the three mismatched loners take off on a spree. But there’s a price waiting to be paid.

Directed by Peter Ustinov—who plays a supporting role as the head of the hospital—Stanford Whitmore’s script takes on the Faust legend. Liz & Dick had previously tackled Faust in 1967’s Doctor Faustus, the first of a slew of duds that broke and erased their winning streak. Though set in the States it was shot in Cuernevaca, Mexico, convenient for the budget and because Elizabeth and Richard had a villa in Puerto Vallarta that they seized after The Night Of The Iguana. The budget was $1,500,000 thanks to Taylor & Burton deferring their usual huge salaries for ownership of the film, which they hoped would be a winner in 1972. *

Hope lay bleeding: the $2,400,000 gross tanked at 111th for the year, the second worst performing (after Under Milkwood) of their ten feature films together. It was also their last big screen teaming: they did a TV movie, Divorce His-Divorce Hers one year later. A year after that they divorced, then remarried, only to split again.

This black comedy split critics between admiration and disgust, the former mostly singling out Taylor’s turn, the latter for nearly everything else. If you can get past the gawdawful music whizzed up by Dominic Frontiere, you have to endure Bridge’s character, obnoxious to the nth degree, Ustinov’s sloppy direction and a mostly terrible script. Burton’s directed to underplay to the point of monotony. The one bright light is Liz, 39, tanned to teak and decked out with a blonde wig, she pulls every bit of fun she can from the material. Watching her finesse laughs rather than dramatics makes you wish she’d done more humorous roles.

Other cast members: John Schuck, George Raft, Anthony Holland, Leon Ames, Leon Askin.

* From Burton’s diary entry of 6-27-70: “It is very wild and formless but just the kind of thing that I would like to do at the moment. Particularly as it has a splendid part for E too, and a film for both of us is what we’ve been looking for a long time. Ustinov is to direct so that should be alright…. It should be wildly funny and fun to do, especially with somebody as congenial as Ustinov and as brilliant, and might be a big commercial success to boot and spur.”   Nope.

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety;” so said Shakespeare of his Cleopatra.