DVD News: Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds bury the hatchet in “These Old Broads”

Elizabeth Taylor is the two-time Oscar winning star of such classic films as National Velvet, Father of  the Bride, A Place in the Sun, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer, Raintree County, Cleopatra, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

So what is likely to go down as the 77-year-old star’s last on-screen acting role? If you said The Flintstones you’re close. It’s the 2001 television movie These Old Broads which is finally out on DVD this week. (AfterElton.com has a nice DVD round-up posted today).

Broads was written by Carrie Fisher and it is not a great movie by any means. But it is pretty irresistible just to see acting legends Taylor, Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine together. Oh yeah, Joan Collins is in it too. Adorable Jonathan Silverman also co-stars as MacLaine’s gay son and her accepting him is a major plotpoint.

But the real paydirt comes early in the film  in a touching scene between Debbie and Elizabeth when they talk about the ex-husband they have in common: “Freddie Hunter.” It was a poke at Eddie Fisher who famously left Debbie (and their two kids) for Elizabeth in the late 50s. It made her the Jennifer Aniston in the Brad and Angelina triangle and guess who Taylor was.

In the film, Miss Taylor’s Hollywood agent character apologizes to Reynolds, who plays an actress, for stealing her husband all those years ago. She explained in an obvious dig at Fisher: “I married Freddy because I was in a blackout! What’s your excuse?”

Debbie says: “Well, he had a red convertable and because my mother told me to!”

Here’s a synopsis of tbe movie: After their ’60s movie becomes a revival hit, three aging movie stars (Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine, Oscar nominee Debbie Reynolds and bitchy Joan Collins) are given a chance to join forces for a one-time televised concert, if they can overcome their long-standing animosity toward one another. Even when a legendary agent (Oscar winner Elizabeth Taylor) achieves the seemingly impossible task of getting the three to agree to the concert, the producers, worries aren’t over. The drama has only just begun!

I can’t find a clip from the movie on YouTube but I did find this compilation of Elizabeth Taylor interviews from the late 80 and early 90s when she was at her absolute most post-50 beautiful. She had lost all the weight (65 pounds!) she gained during the marriage to John Warner. I remember taping the Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue interviews before they wore out! Donahue did a far better interview than Oprah but I believe Miss Taylor later explained that she was feeling kinda bitchy that day.

There’s also an Arsenio Hall interview here and Miss Taylor looks even more ravishing. She was a newlywed again (to Larry Fortensky), grown her hair out a bit from that spiky late 80s look and maybe had a chin tuck. Arsenio was fun but not a great interview. Remember when Roseanne called him a “triangle head”?