Girl Who Had Everything (1953)

A remake of A FREE SOUL, the 1931 film that won Lionel Barrymore his best actor Oscar. An attorney (William Powell in Barrymore’s old role) has led a life doing what whatever he wants, because he wants it and when he wants it. He doesn’t seem to mind when his daughter (Elizabeth Taylor in Norma Shearer‘s old role) lives her life the same way but when she falls for a mobster (Fernando Lamas in Clark Gable‘s old role), he has to re-evaluate his principles. The film is compact at a brief 69 minutes and the film is interesting in the Oedipal relationship between Taylor and Powell that the film suggests but doesn’t explore (the film ends with them in an embrace). The film makes Lamas’ character much more sympathetic than the brutal thug that Gable was in the ’31 version. The jazz tinged score is by Andre Previn. With Gig Young and James Whitmore.