1980 Week: A Change of Seasons & The Last Married Couple in America & Loving Couples

          Turns out Blake Edwards’ hit sex comedy 10 (1979) presaged a string of Hollywood movies exploring the angst of middle-aged white men who consider marriage and success so inhibiting they must reaffirm their identities with extramarital sex, all under the guise of “finding themselves.” Yes, this is Me Decade entitlement taken to an absurd extreme—adultery as personal growth. Films about midlife crises were nothing new, of course, but something about this group of pictures reflects a collective reaction to body blows inflicted upon the institution of marriage during the Sexual Revolution. In fact, many of these flicks directly question the relevance of lifelong monogamous relationships. Yet despite all their with-it posturing, these pictures are also moralistic and old-fashioned. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

          Cowritten by Love Story’s Erich Segal, A Change of Seasons begins on a lurid note—nubile coed Lindsey Rutledge (Bo Derek) repeatedly emerges from the bubbling water of a hot tub, her long hair flailing and her pert breasts glistening in slow motion. What better illustration of the fantasy element coursing through this subgenre’s veins? The fellow in the hot tub with Bo is graying college professor Adam Evans (Anthony Hopkins). Later, Adam’s wife, Karyn (Shirley MacLaine), correctly guesses that he’s having an affair. He seems perplexed that she’s upset, offering idiotic remarks such as the following: “Men are different—our needs are more baroque.” Karyn responds by taking a lover of her own, freespirited handyman Pete Lachapelle (Michael Brandon). The two couples take a vacation together, and the trip is staged like a watered-down version of French farce, complete with the surprise appearances of new characters at awkward moments. Notwithstanding the spicy opening sequence, A Change of Seasons is all talk, with the cast spewing endless psychobabble about Oedipal issues and such, and the quasi-feminist ending is but one of many false notes. Costar Mary Beth Hurt lands a few jokes as the flummoxed daughter of philandering parents, and Brandon has a nice moment of pathos revealing his character’s overwrought backstory, but A Change of Seasons is ultimately just a lot of navel-gazing superficiality set to sickly-sweet music by Henry Mancini and a slew of awful songs. A baroque-en record, if you will.

          The Last Married Couple in America proceeds from a stronger comic premise and mostly avoids melodrama, but it’s not much better as a cinematic experience. George Segal and Natalie Wood play Jeff and Mari Thompson, an affluent Los Angeles couple who, as the title suggests, become exceptions to the rule as all of their friends divorce. Predictably, Jeff and Mari stray from each other, although the reasons why are neither clear nor convincing. After all, they’re still so hot for each other that at one point, they get hassled by police for making out in their car. Apparently the issue has to do with boredom, peer pressure, and the fact that Jeff has become a fuddy-duddy—somewhat hard to believe seeing as how he married an artist. (Mari is a sculptor.) In a sign of the movie’s desperation to generate hard-punchline jokes, the filmmakers include a pointless subplot about Walter (Dom DeLuise), a friend of the Thompsons who becomes a porn star. This leads to a “wild” party featuring adult-film actors and hookers, but rarely will you witness a tamer depiction of debauchery. Only the bits with Bob Dishy as a sleazy lawyer who seduces divorcées are amusing, simply because Dishy commits so wholeheartedly to his role.

          Loving Couples has echoes of A Change of Seasons, and not just because Shirley MacLaine costars—it’s another story about spouses attempting to accommodate each other’s infidelities. This time, the wife is the first to wander. In the opening scene, Dr. Evelyn Kirby (MacLaine) rides a horse and catches the eye of young stud Greg Plunkett (Stephen Collins) as he drives alongside a horse trail. He crashes his car but suffers only minor injuries, so his recovery provides an opportunity for wooing Evelyn. After these two begin sleeping together, Greg’s hot girlfriend, Stephanie Beck (Susan Sarandon), breaks the news to Evelyn’s husband, self-absorbed Dr. Walter Kirby (James Coburn). Naturally, Walter responds by commencing a fling with Stephanie. Once the truth outs, the Kirbys separate and move in with their young lovers. Complications ensue. Featuring a threadbare storyline and noxious montages, Loving Couples is perhaps the most cynical of these films, playing the destruction of relationships for lighthearted humor.

          Quite frankly, however, there’s a bit of nihilism in all of these pictures. By abandoning their principles for cheap thrills, the spouses in these films embrace a sort of spiritual nothingness. In that sense, perhaps even more disquieting than asking what these films say about their era is asking whether the filmmakers recognized the obligation—or even the opportunity—to make any sort of statement whatsoever. One more sign, perhaps, that it was just as well the ’70s were over. As a footnote, while it’s tempting to lump the 1980 Canada/U.S. coproduction Middle Age Crazy into the same category as these pictures, Middle Age Crazy casts a wider thematic net, treating adultery as a symptom of rampant consumerism. Even though it’s a weak film, Middle Age Crazy is a damn sight more thoughtful than any of these vapid flicks.

A Change of Seasons: FUNKY

The Last Married Couple in America: FUNKY

Loving Couples: FUNKY

I Wonder Who’s Killing Her Now? (1975)

A dreadful attempt at black comedy in which nearly every joke falls flat, and in which nearly every characterization is predicated upon some irritatingly stupid contrivance or stereotype, I Wonder Who’s Killing Her Now? was apparently prepared as a starring vehicle for British funnyman Peter Sellers, but it’s not as if the presence of replacement star Bob Dishy is the problem. A reliable comedic player in films, plays, and television who thrived in supporting roles (as subtlety was never his forte), Dishy does everything he can to enliven old-fashioned gags powered by idiotic non sequiturs and laborious wordplay. Dishy plays Jordan Oliver, a cheerfully corrupt businessman who gets fired from his father-in-law’s company for embezzlement. The same day, his wife says she wants a divorce, adding that she plans to leave Jordan with nothing. Jordan responds by taking out a $1 million insurance policy on his wife and conspiring to kill her, which leads to the movie’s main farcical notion—after Jordan hires a hit man, the assassin subcontracts the work, the subcontractor hires someone else, and so on. So when Jordan learns that his insurance policy has been cancelled, he must track down all of the weirdos who have inherited the contract on Jordan’s wife in order to prevent the murder. Although director Steven Hilliard Stern films I Wonder Who’s Killing Her Now? with his usual polished style, the script is abysmal. (Sample routine: “He practices brain surgery—it affects the brain.” “How can brain surgery affect the brain?” “He practices on his own brain.”) At one point late in this tedious movie, the filmmakers become so desperate to generate gags that they accidentally enter the realm of surrealism. When three characters in enormous fat suits sneak into a weight-loss clinic, they encounter a screaming-queen doctor wearing Kabuki makeup and speaking in a Bela Lugosi accent, who’s assisted by a man cross-dressing in a nurse’s costume. Huh? Adding to the movie’s sins, terrific character actors Severn Darden and Richard Libertini, each of whom plays multiple roles, are utterly wasted.

I Wonder Who’s Killing Her Now?: LAME

Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)

          A significant commercial and critical hit back in the day, the ensemble dramedy Lovers and Other Strangers mixes keen observations about marriage with hit-or-miss sex-comedy vignettes. Based on a play by Joseph Bologna and Renée Taylor, the movie concerns the wedding of a young couple and how the event impacts the couple’s friends and relatives. On a deeper level, the story is an exploration of changing values during the Women’s Liberation era. Does marriage mean anything during a time when young people embrace premarital cohabitation? Is the old notion of accepting contentment in marriage passé for kids who expect to sustain passion forever? And how can young women protect themselves from predatory men who use with-it lingo to pressure women into sex? These were important questions in 1970, so even though time has dulled the edge off Lovers and Other Strangers, the picture is still interesting as a snapshot of a turbulent period. Additionally, some of the characters are rendered so well that they’re timeless.

          The youngsters preparing to marry are Mike (Michael Brandon) and Susan (Bonnie Bedelia). He’s terrified of commitment even though he and Susan have lived together for some time, and he’s nervous that his old-fashioned Italian parents will find out he’s “living in sin.” The engaged couple’s anxieties are juxtaposed with problems plaguing new marriages, troubles faced by single people, and the wisdom of people who have been married for decades. One of the imperiled new marriages is between Susan’s sister, Wilma (Anne Meara), and Johnny (Harry Guardino)—she tries to keep the sexual spark alive while he resents her rejection of the idea that being male entitles Johnny to unconditional dominance. The other endangered new union is between Mike’s brother, Richie (Joseph Hindy), and Joan (Diane Keaton, in her first movie role), who have scandalized the family by announcing plans to divorce. Representing the singles scene is Susan’s friend Brenda (Marian Hailey), who runs hot and cold with fast-talking horndog Jerry (Bob Dishy). There’s also a subplot about Susan’s father, Hal (Gig Young), having an affair with his sister-in-law, Kathy (Anne Jackson). Rounding out the principal cast are Mike’s parents, Frank (Richard Castellano) and Bea (Beatrice Arthur).

          Some threads of the story have more punch than others. The stuff with Bea and Frank is terrific because veteran stage actors Arthur and Castellano give pitch-perfect comic performances; Castellano earned an Oscar nomination for his work, and Lovers and Other Strangers helped pave the way for Arthur’s conquest of television a few years later. The Brenda/Jerry storyline gets old quickly because Brenda is depicted as a mess of catch phrases and neuroses, while Jerry is portrayed as nothing but a compendium of come-on lines. Similarly, the Hal/Kathy storyline is mostly a vehicle for Hal contriving ways to string Kathy along while Kathy endures humiliating treatment because the alternative of being alone is too dismaying. Whereas those two subplots feel shallow and trite, the Johnny/Wilma storyline pays off nicely when the couple embraces compromise.

          Lovers and Other Strangers gives viewers a lot to digest, but despite some honest insights and zippy one-liners, the movie never achieves real depth or hilarity. Although the film is thoroughly respectable, the writers (including David Zelag Goodman, who helped adapt the play) employ comedy as a means of dancing around tough issues. Nonetheless, the mere fact that Lovers and Other Strangers engages with serious topics places the movie a few notches above the average bedroom farce, and the presence of consistently good acting raises the movie’s quality even higher.

Lovers and Other Strangers: GROOVY