The TV movie These Old Broads, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds and Joan Collins, airing tonight (Monday), is receiving high marks for concept but low ones for execution.

Tom Shales in the Washington Post excoriates the production: "It's a movie that shouldn't be reviewed so much as sent a sympathy card," he writes. "The minute it's over we should all be merciful and tactful and just forget it ever happened -- unless by some vicious miracle it gets good ratings. Then they'll all get together and, God help us, do it again." Eric Mink in the New York Daily News comments: "Half show-business satire, half warm-and-fuzzy morality play, the film winds up becoming exactly what it tries to mock." Linda Stasi in the New York Post remarks: "The old broads themselves are great -- too bad they're made to look like no-talent drag queens."

But Caryn James in the New York Times takes note of the fact that at the beginning of the film, Taylor is seen sitting in front of an Andy Warhol picture of her at the height of her screen stardom. "The juxtaposition is not kind," James writes, "except as a reminder that all these women have legacies that will survive this disaster."

Source: Studio Briefing