These Old Broads *** (2001, Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor, Jonathan Silverman, Peter Graves, Gene Barry) – Classic Movie Review 7800

Director Matthew Diamond’s 2001 TV movie These Old Broads stars Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine and Joan Collins as drama queens Piper Grayson, Kate Westbourne and Addie Holden, who vow never to work together again but get back together for a reunion show after their Sixties film Boy Crazy is a hit again on its re-release.

Elizabeth Taylor plays their hard-as-nails manager/ agent Beryl Mason, Jonathan Silverman plays MacLaine’s son Wesley and Peter Graves plays Reynolds’s husband Bill, with Gene Barry as Mr Stern, Carlos Jacott, Pat Crawford Brown and Pat Harrington Jr.

These Old Broads is an entertaining, ideally cast broad farce, in the Neal Simon vein, amusingly written by Reynolds’s real-life daughter Carrie Fisher (with Elaine Pope).

How did they manage to get these four old broads in the same room as each other for more than a minute at a time?

It proved Elizabeth Taylor’s last film. Carrie Fisher has a cameo as a hooker, Tricia Leigh Fisher also plays a hooker, Todd Fisher plays Timothy, and June Allyson appears in her last film as Lady in Hotel.

Debbie Reynolds (1932–2016), Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011), Jonathan Silverman, Peter Graves (1926–2010), Gene Barry (1919–2009), June Allyson (1917–2006) and Carrie Fisher (1956–2016).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7800

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