success of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hollywood's most famous power couple, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, 
opted for a very different kind of prestige theater adaptation. They decided to star in and produce an opulent, Italian-U.K.-U.S. production of The Taming of the Shrew that had been in the works for Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni for first-time filmmaker, noted theater director, and Visconti protege Franco Zeffirelli. Given a splashy release by Columbia Pictures, the film is best known today as the lighter precursor to Zeffirelli's wildly successful Romeo and Juliet the following year which brought back cast member Michael York. Already frequently filmed, spoofed, and famously musicalized as Kiss Me Kate, the source material proved to be a sturdy vehicle for its two stars and boasted a fine score by the legendary Nino Rota, who also came back to do the honors for his smash hit work on Romeo.
arrival Petruchio (Burton), whose friendship with Lucentio makes him the perfect choice to woo and wed the fiery Kate -- but even if he succeeds in marrying her, their trials might still just be starting. 
a Golden Eye), this remains the most well-known version of the William Shakespeare play that has become one of his more debated works along with the even more controversial The Merchant of Venice. Its depiction of courtship as a process of taming and even spanking is one that's been interpreted in a variety of ways involving consent or lack thereof, and this particular take makes it clear that Kate is smitten with her suitor right away and has control over the situation throughout. It doesn't hurt that she's played by Taylor at the height of her powers here, and the star is clearly having a ball opposite her real-life husband amidst their ongoing tabloid coverage. This would ultimately mark the end of the Taylor-Burton box office reign as well, with their subsequent pairings heading off into truly bizarre but fascinating territory with Doctor Faustus, Boom!, The Comedians, Hammersmith Is Out, and Under Milk Wood.
featuring the usual excellent Sony HD master we've had as a streaming option for years but given a nice, attentive encoding 
here. The LPCM 1.0 mono English track also sounds excellent and comes with new optional English SDH subtitles that handle the tricky, sometimes chaotic dialogue well. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson appear for a new audio commentary and are clearly having a blast chatting about all things Dick and Liz while also comparing this to other cinematic versions, noting how it deviates to and honors the original text, and contextualizing this within the larger pop culture framework of the later '60s. The 2018 Roy Holder interview "His Name Is Biondello" (6m4s) covers his recruiting to this film along with York while doing a National Theatre production of Much Ado about Nothing (which is a lot of Shakespeare to keep in your head at once!), his connections to come of the other actors here, and his memories of the colorful shoot. In "A Breathless Tussle" (21m25s), writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet surveys the creation of the film as a possible reflection of the times and a harbinger of things to come later in the decade with its comical and romantic elements handled in a distinctive way. Also included are a newsreel of the Royal Film Performance screening (1m44s) with Princess Margaret, Michael Redgrave, Stanley Baker, Zero Mostel, Mia Farrow, Christopher Plummer, Laurence Harvey, and numerous other familiar faces, a silent 48s look at the French premiere with the two stars, the very rowdy theatrical trailer and teaser, an 86-image gallery of photos and promotional material, and the 18-image U.S. film program. As usual the insert booklet is a big extra in and of itself featuring a new essay by Bethan Roberts ("A Marriage of Two Minds") about the backgrounds of the stars and director as well as the treatment of wedlock farce here, a 1966 set report from Rome by John Francis Lane, and a sample of numerous critical responses.