A Touch of Class (1973)

Memorable, crazy movie

How sad is this?

Fantastic!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Bittersweet comedy helped immeasurably by the chemistry of the stars and the skill of their performances. Glenda is brash and delicate in equal measure, George bombastic but good natured. While it shows the pitfalls of infidelity it doesn't judge its characters for their choices and actually presents all the relationships, including Glenda's gay assistant's, evenhandedly rather surprising for the 70's. As far as her receiving an Oscar for this performance, she's sprightly and more relaxed than she usually was on screen but I doubt that even she expected to grab the prize for what is a customary solid job but hardly extraordinary.

A rather unfunny romantic comedy that amazingly got nominated for Best Picture along with four other Oscar nominations, winning Best Actress for Glenda Jackson. I can't for the life of me see what people were thinking at the time. Free love is one thing - I have no problem with that whatsoever - but the male protagonist in this movie, George Segal, is straight up just cheating on his wife. He's the hero of the movie! We're not exactly meant to sympathize with him, but he's supposed to be funny. I don't know how you could see him anything more than a total jerk. And Jackson, though she's thankfully divorced, isn't much better. She's a browbeating little shrew who isn't even remotely attractive, either physically or intellectually. I should have hated this even more than I did, but, though the characters are awful, the performances aren't half bad. And I loved the music. There are a few amusing moments, but this is mostly awful.

The "Love Affair" has been a constant in movies since their beginning and will probably continue to be so as long as cinema is around and society is the way it is with men and women. So comes "A Touch of Class", directed by Melvin Frank, which feels completely like a frolic. It manages to successfully depict a cheating relationship with a homespun, almost as if it were normal, feel. The dialog is a mix of cheekiness and older generation frankness. Not having seen many '73 movies, Glenda Jackson is the stand-out performance and apparently received an Academy Award for her work, which seems too high a praise - but the performance is still good to be sure. Filming locations were on locales, and Paul Sorvino looks a bunch younger than most of the movies I've seen him and his full of spirit and even sage. Segal runs his mouth like typical New Yorker. Definitely worth a watch for the performances, sometimes the dialog, and peek back into the 70s yester-decade.

It's hard to imagine how this film got such a strong reception on its first release. Viewed several decades later, it's trite, formulaic, frustrating, and downright dumb.The strongest redeeming factor is Glenda Jackson: sharp as always, and fun to watch even in this mess. (Unfortunately, her talents are offset by the smirking anti-charismatic presence of George Segal.) Another plus: the lovely locations, especially in London, which make the film at first seem like one of those effervescent European sex comedies... rather than the cliché-ridden Hollywood farce that it is. On top of everything else, the plot is basically a needless reworking of Melvin Frank's far better 1960 film, The Facts of Life. The older film must have been far more adventuresome in its time. It's also blessed with the wonderful pairing of Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. And it actually manages to be about something.A Touch of Class is pretty much the bottom of the barrel for Melvin Frank fans. My advice: check out The Facts of Life, or The Court Jester, and give this creaky curio a miss.