I just remembering watching this movie in 1984,in that time gave 6/10 now in first time on DVD it refresh my mind on this fine picture,if was directed by the great Vincente Minnelli is worth to see itself,Taylor and Burton make a convincing performance in their roles,she as unmarried free woman with a son and he as Dr.Reverend who is school director,they get attracted each other ended up a dead end,he realize that your work is just a keeper of treasure's God when he raised funds to Church in fraudulent way making bad fiscal agreements to take the money,the conflicts existential driven him to start again in a new place alone...strong matters nowadays...Resume: First watch: 1984 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5

A well-made and entertaining movie, as others have said, with gorgeous Big Sur photography. There is one amusing discrepancy, which is that Laura is forever rattling on about how she teaches Danny to disobey unjust laws and to have a reverence for life. (I'm paraphrasing here.) But the kid's in trouble for shooting a deer! Without a license! While under age, probably out of season!Now most people don't think the fish and game laws are unjust, and shooting a deer hardly shows reverence for life, so her lessons aren't getting across. But nobody in authority brings this up to her, either the judge who's putting him in St. Simeon's School, or the headmaster thereof. I think in real life, the judge would certainly say, "Here's why I'm putting him in school. He's poaching deer, which are living things, and protected as public property, and you have failed in your duty to keep him from committing crimes, especially when firearms are involved!" Especially since she's such a sanctimonious, argumentative know-it-all, with a huge chip on her shoulder. But that doesn't occur to anyone in this movie, probably because the kid is just a plot device to get Burton and Taylor together.

Liz Taylor plays a pre-hippie who lives in a "shack" (prime real estate in real life) by the sea. She paints already-finished works of art. The sandpiper is an injured bird whose wing she helps to heal, although the sandpiper is an obvious metaphor for for the free-spirited Liz.She hangs around in designer clothes with her hair perfectly coiffed, which makes it hard to take seriously her role as free-spirited nonconformist. At one point she shows up at her son's school in a fashionable yellow dress and large white hat. After seeing the interior of her "shack", I couldn't help wondering where she keeps all those clothes. Blue jeans and T-shirts (braless) would have been more realistic as attire for her beach-bum life style. Oh well.Richard Burton cannot resist her allure despite his religious convictions and his marriage to Eva Marie Saint.They fall in love, all the while spouting soliloquies about life, love, the existence or non-existence of God, etc. In one scene, where they are on the beach, Liz is espousing philosophy and the wind keeps whipping her hair into her face and I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't pin in back for that scene. In another scene, as Liz is pontificating again, the sandpiper perches on her head! (How did they get it to do that? ha ha ) Liz is made out to be the wiser of the two, Richard Burton being tied down to such terrible things as responsibility and fidelity.Despite being madly in love in real life, I couldn't see a lot of chemistry between them.I watched this because I read the book "Furious Love" - a really good book by the way. The movies they made together are documented in it so I was motivated to watch their films. So now I have seen this one and it's on the "Taming of the Shrew."

One of director Vincente Minnelli's more interesting films, "The Sandpiper" stars Elizabeth Taylor as Laura Reynolds, a free-spirited mother who lives with her youngest son Danny. Laura – the film is very heavy-handed – is a full blown hippie. She's super liberated, is a single mom, atheist, home-schools her kid, lives on the beach, is a painter, promiscuous, hates social norms, her best friend is black and she hangs out with radicals. Oh, and she flaunts her boobs. Damn those beatniks.Mirrored to Laura is Dr Edward Hewitt (Richard Burton), the headmaster of an Episcopal boarding school. Edward is, of course, an ultra conservative. He's everything Laura isn't: rigid, a stickler for rules and regulations, an authoritarian, fundamentalist, traditionalist and stuck in a loveless marriage.Laura and Edward fall in love, but Laura's unconventionality and uninhibitedness disturbs Edward. He begins to have a crisis of faith. When the couple have sex one night, both fall apart. He questions the principles he's always held, she can't believe she's fallen for a man who represents everything she abhors. Realizing the hypocrisy of being a local authority figure who represents charity, religion and decency but takes bribes and bends to the whispers of women and money, Edward scuttles his job. He begins to spend more time with Laura. Maybe she can fix him. Big mistake. Edward's wife learns of the couple's liaisons and Edward is publicly shamed. He's pushed out of town. It's all very melodramatic.Look beyond the lust and you have one of Minnelli's more political films; a film about the political Left and Right recognising that, gee, maybe the Right should relax and the Left should appreciate a little discipline. The film's title refers to a bird which Laura heals and sets free. Laura teaches Edward as she heals this bird, the woman then releasing both into the wild. The film ends with Laura on a beach, Edward high above her on a hill. Symbolically the two positions they represent cannot meet or be reconciled. And so Edward stands on a rock, a mountain face epitomising his rigidity and spiritual arrogance. Laura sits below him, an outsider."The Sandpiper" oozes the era in which it was made. Only in this particular zeitgeist would you have a homosexual director making a politically charged beatnik flick which criticised catholic figureheads, was brazenly sexual, hinged on infidelity and featured Charles Bronson as a gypsy hippie. Minnelli's style is also wonderfully over the top. This is SUPER MELODRAMA, his direction deliberately operatic, campy, baroque and hyper stylised. It's the kind of film which uses crashing waves as a metaphor for sex and giant boobs as a symbol for all that is self-assured womanness. Everything's BIG BIG BIG. Voluptuous. Lurid. Modern audiences unaccustomed to this style have criticised Minnelli, but that was always part of his charm.Some of Minnelli's symbolism is subtle. Urban centres, houses and hard buildings are constantly clashed with more naturalistic, soft locales. This left/right paradigm informs most shots. And while the sandpiper and Edward are set free, Minnelli shows that both seek only to return to their own jails. Edward can't break free of his narrow world view, responds to meeting Laura by disappearing further into his marriage, further into church duties, and Laura is the same. Have they changed? Sure. Laura for the first time paints human beings in her paintings and Edward has started asking questions. But Minnelli is careful to show that conciliation leads only to social marginalisation and isolation. Ultimately, there is no progress here, only TOTAL, and FURTHER entrenchment. To change too much is too violent, there is no common future and the duo remain opposed. As with the majority of Minnelli's other films, it is song, dance and art which bridges opposites and helps bring people together, if only temporarily.8/10 – Worth one viewing.