Elizabeth Taylor Cast as Caine's Wife, Zee (Published 1972) (2024)

Although I've seen "X Y & Zee" only once (and have no intention of sitting through it a second time), I'm reasonably convinced that the original screenplay by Edna O'Brien ("Three Into Two Won't Go") is a much more interesting study of an absolutely dreadful marriage, and of the sweet though not especially innocent girl who is brought into it, than anything in the movie that Brian G. Hutton has made from it. The film is coarse, noisy and, finally, stupid, like people at a nearby table who won't shut up.Zee (Elizabeth Taylor) and Robert (Michael Caine), a wealthy London architect, live on the edge of high-class despair and love every minute of it. Zee's face is still extraordinarily beautiful and she calls herself womanly, although she is probably just fat. It's hard to tell since she wears tent-like dresses that seem to have been designed for a restless grave. She also boozes constantly and plays the stereo at such a pitch that my first thought was that Robert was hanging around as often as he does only because he is deaf.He isn't, Robert likes confusion. He and Zee are blatantly unfaithful to each other, fight to physical knock-downs, and then make up in sudden moments of what pass for tenderness in your ordinary, upper middle-class, sado-masoch*stic relationships. All goes swingingly until Robert falls genuinely in love with Stella (Susannah York), who runs a boutique (and may thus quality as a hip equivalent to the old sewing machine girl).The story of "X Y & Zee" (my nomination for the dumbest title of the year—and this is only January) concerns Zee's fierce campaign to keep Robert, one way and another, which eventually necessitates her using (are you really ready?) her body, of which, of course, she has plenty to spare. Poor Stella, it seems, has tendencies.As directed by Mr. Hutton, who made one of my favorite idiotic action moves ("Where Eagles Dare"), "X Y & Zee" never misses an opportunity to overstate a line, a point or a mood, or simply to confuse the few things that, from the delicacy of the original (not televised) version of "Three Into Two Won't Go," I take to be Miss O'Brien's sensibilities.Behind the posh, but essentially junky production values (lovely sets, good character actors, including superb Margaret Leighton wearing a lot of odd-colored wigs), one can gather hints of what "X Y and Zee" means to be about. It is—if I read Miss O'Brien correctly—a kind of case history of a series of individual conspiracies, each designed to overthrow a heart. The tactics may be murderous but the manners always civilized.For the film to make any sense, the performances must be on something like the same plane. Not necessarily at the same volume, but in the same world, Mr. Caine and Miss York do, I think, effect connections that are occasionally complex and moving. Their characters have histories and recognizable patterns of behavior—pasts that are as much apparent in gestures and modes of speech as in spoken exposition.There is, however, a great void in the case of the character the film cannot take its eyes off of. Miss Taylor is not a very interesting actress, but she need not seem as bad as she does here. Mr. Hutton allows her to play Zee as if she were the ghost of whor*s past, present and future, clanking her jewelry, her headbands, her earrings and her feelings behind her like someone out to haunt a funhouse.It is an unfortunately ridiculous performance, and you may have some idea of the measure of the imbalance that her presence effects when I say that I'm convinced the story might have had a different ending had Miss Taylor worn just one less Medusa ringlet, or even one less layer of eye shadow.

The CastX Y & ZEE, directed by Brian G. Hutton; original screenplay by Edna O'Brien; director of photography, Billy Williams; editor, Jim Clark; produced by Jay Kantor and Alan Ladd Jr.; executive producer, Elliott Kastner; distributed by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 110 minutes. At the Loew's State 2, Broadway near 45th Street, and Loew's Orpheum Cinema, 86th Street near Third Avenue. (The Motion Picture Association of America's Production Code and Rating Administration classified this film "R—restricted, persons under 17 not admitted unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.")Zee . . . . . Elizabeth TaylorRobert . . . . . Michael CaineStella . . . . . Susannah YorkGladys . . . . . Margaret LeightonGordon . . . . . John StandingRita . . . . . Mary LarkinGavin . . . . . Michael Cashman