A TOUCH OF CLASS 1973

A Touch of Class is one of my favorite romantic comedies. But like The Women, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Cactus Flower, or nearly anything written by Neil Simon, it’s a comedy I can only enjoy by setting aside contemporary sensibilities (both comedic and social), and simply allow it to remain a timepiece firmly ensconced within the bubble of the era in which it was created.

Glenda Jackson as Vickie Allessio

George Segal as Steve Blackburn

Director/writer Melvin Frank’s A Touch of Class is a perfectly amiable, very watchable, and, upon occasion, absolutely hilarious romantic comedy about love and adultery from the era of the sexual revolution. It boasts fine leading performances from then-darlings of the cinema Glenda Jackson and George Segal; a jaunty musical score; crisp, comedy-friendly photography; some nice views of scenic London and Spain; and quite a lot of funny bicker-banter, oil/vinegar chemistry between the two leads.

That being said, it is also a rather ordinary, schticky, sometimes broadly played, middle-brow comedy thoroughly lacking in the kind of wit or distinction that would justify its having won Glenda Jackson her second Best Actress Oscar (and a Golden Globe). Even more mind-boggling--it somehow managed to snag four additional Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, shutting out such possible (and, in my opinion, far worthier) contenders as: Last Tango in Paris, Paper Moon, The Last Detail, The Way We Were, The Long Goodbye, and Mean Streets.

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs 
A Touch of Class makes explicit its intent to be a frankly comedic update of the coy adultery melodramas of the past by having Steve and Vickie fall to pieces watching David Lean's 1946 film, Brief Encounter, on TV. Brief Encounter tells the story of two married people who embark upon an ill-fated love affair.

George Segal is an insurance adjuster, and Glenda Jackson is a fashion designer (“stealer” as she calls it). Both reside in London, he: 11 years wed with two children, she: three years wed - now divorced, also with two children. After a “cute meet” and several coincidental run-ins, the two embark upon a no-strings-attached affair that gets off to a rocky start, grows passionate, and then becomes complicated when lust turns into love. How funny you find Segal’s sitcom-y attempts to lead a double life depends a great deal on how amusing you find the script (serviceable), how charming you find the leads (considerable), and how hilarious you find the concept of ceaseless lying and deception as the cornerstones of familial harmony (not very).

As Glenda Jackson's two children, Edward Kemp and Lisa Vanderpump, appear onscreen for about as long as it took for you to read this. George Segal's children fare even worse. A Touch of Class wants us to believe the bond of family (lies being the glue, apparently) triumphs over homewrecking, but George Segal's Steve Blackburn is such an absentee dad, he makes Ryan O'Neal look like Father of the Year. 

The uninitiated, drawn to A Touch of Class by its Academy Award pedigree or Glenda Jackson’s reputation, are apt to come away from it entertained, but undoubtedly bewildered and scratching their heads, wondering what was being put in the water back in 1973 to result in a movie that plays out like an extended episode of Love, American Style being so widely lauded by critics (although Pauline Kael is said to have walked out on it). I confess, upon revisiting this film, it’s a question I even have to ask myself. And this from the guy who, when it was released, saw A Touch of Class more times than he can count, and considered it one of the funniest comedies he’d seen since What’s Up, Doc?.

Part of this may have to do with changing tastes in comedy. For reasons I’m at a loss to explain, some types of comedy are timeless, while others age rather badly. I saw A Touch of Class when I was 16 years old, and my only guess as to why I fell in love with its bed-hopping clichés is that they weren't yet clichés to me. Another explanation for the film’s success, one I fully recall, is that at the time, America was deep in the throes of a brief but passionate infatuation with Glenda Jackson.

Albeit by way of a terrible wig, audiences were pleased to see BBC's Elizabeth R let her hair down

After capturing the attention of American audiences with her Best Actress Oscar win for Women in Love (1969), Jackson became a prolific presence on screen throughout the decade, going on to feature in many highly acclaimed films: The Music Lovers, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Hedda, The Maids, Mary Queen of Scots, The Romantic Englishwoman, and The Nelson Affair.

She was truly the Meryl Streep of her time. Similarly, just as critics and audiences in the '80s and '90s embraced seeing Streep shed her accents and serious demeanor for lighter films like Postcards from the Edge and Death Becomes Her, audiences in the '70s were excited to find that Glenda Jackson, the intense, neurotic heroine of many Ken Russell melodramas, possessed a real flair for comedy.

George Segal appeared in a staggering number of films, both comedic and dramatic, between 1970s Where's Poppa? and the flop 1979 re-teaming with Glenda Jackson, Lost & Found. Although there was surprisingly little variance in the characters he played, American audiences never seemed to tire of his brand of everyman bemused fluster. 

My rave recommendation of this film to my partner (followed by his subsequent, “Meh!” reaction) clarified for me that A Touch of Class has, for the first-timer, a couple of things working against it. And from highly unlikely sources, to boot. One is its title. A Touch of Class suggests a witty, sophisticated comedy of the sort that once starred Myrna Loy and William Powell. But as many critics couldn't resist noting at the time, a more apt title for A Touch of Class would be A Touch of Crass, what with the screenplay's over-reliance on profanity and smirky sex jokes for laughs.

Considering Jackson's character references author Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth at one point, I'm inclined to believe the film's title, A Touch of Class, is used ironically, similar to Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

Secondly, and this is an odd one, I think it does A Touch of Class no favors that it’s a 1973 Best Picture nominee and that it stars one of the preeminent actresses of her time in her Academy Award-winning role. Why is this a problem? Principally, it sets the viewer up for a film far superior to the one they’re ultimately given. I truly enjoy this movie a great deal, but even in all my rabid Glenda Jackson fandom, there’s no way I consider hers an Oscar-worthy performance, nor this film Best Picture material. I'm convinced my partner's reaction to A Touch of Class would have been far more favorable had he come to it expecting an unexceptional, lightweight, early '70s comedy that's amusing if not laugh-out-loud funny. The latter being rare as hen's teeth today.

Any points A Touch of Class gains in giving Jackson's character a gay male secretary (Michael Elwin, r.) are soon lost by having his every appearance serve as some kind of swishy/homophobic sight gag. (Even Jayne Mansfield would say this apartment is laying on the pink a little heavy.)

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

What works best in A Touch of Class is the marvelous “opposites attract” chemistry between Glenda Jackson and George Segal. And while they don't exactly make us forget Tracy & Hepburn, the two play delightfully antagonistic foils before their romance starts to gel. Jackson's slow, boiling rages so compliment Segal's edgy exasperation that their frequent sparring and bickering scenes crackle with the spark and energy of a well-matched tennis game. Jackson, with her crystal clear diction and mellifluous voice, has it all over Segal for hilariously sarcastic jeremiads, but she doesn't have Segal's gift for physical comedy. George Segal is a joy to watch, and he has the rubbery face (and enormous head) to pull off a veritable lexicon of comic double-takes and reaction shots.

Jackson's flinty British calm contrasts amusingly with Segal's neurotic American excitability 

PERFORMANCES

A Touch of Class is essentially a two-character piece, so it’s great that Jackson and Segal are so enjoyable to watch. That is, inasmuch as Melvin Frank and Jack Rose’s farcical, gag-filled screenplay pauses long enough to give these talented actors enough breathing room to flesh out their characters (Frank and Rose, both in their 60s at the time, got their start writing Bob Hope movies). George Segal coasts a bit on charm alone (and if you don’t find him charming, the blithely immoral character he plays is sure to grate), but Jackson is a revelation. She does wonders with a character not given much more than “typically British” as a personality trait.

If my enjoyment of Breakfast at Tiffany's is ruined every time Mickey Rooney's Mr. Yunioshi shows up, so it is with A Touch of Class and the irksome and cloddish "ubiquitous best friend" character played by Paul Sorvino.  Each time he shows up, I race for the fast-forward button on my remote.

It amuses me to have read several online reviews that state Glenda Jackson’s character is a feminist. She may very well be, but since no mention is made, expressly or covertly, of Jackson’s Vickie Allessio actually being a feminist, I can only take this to mean that young audiences raised on the female masochists typical of today’s rom-coms (Katherine Heigl, Jennifer Anniston, Drew Barrymore, Sarah Jessica Parker) can only envision smart, articulate women who speak up for themselves, know their own minds, and have their own opinions, as a feminist. If that's the case, I think we could use more romantic comedies populated with feminists.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

A Touch of Class is a deliberate throwback to the sex comedies of old with its updated gimmick being the ability to tell the story with the freedoms afforded by the “new permissiveness” of the '70s. While this certainly makes for raunchier language and a less coy approach to the adulterous couplings, it also affords a few awkward moments as the old clashes with the new in unexpected (and sometimes unintentionally funny) ways.

The effortless gravitas Glenda Jackson brings to A Touch of Class significantly compensates for the film's wobbly gender politics which include a rape joke; a homey, constantly cooking mistress; and several cheating husbands but not a single cheating wife.

European films have always been able to combine nudity and comedy, but here in the States, nudity tends to stifle laughter. So, as incongruous as it is for a pair of heated lovers off on an illicit tryst in the free-love '70s, out pop a pair of his and hers pajamas suitable to a Doris Day/ Rock Hudson movie.

Traditional gender roles are adhered to pretty stringently throughout, but every now and then, an unexpected curve is thrown, such as in this scene where a squeamish Steve clings to Vickie at a bullfight

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I began this post by stating how much more I enjoy A Touch of Class when I don’t try to apply modern sensibilities to what is now a 40-year-old film. Not always an easy thing, but it's something that classic film lovers frequently have to do when faced with outmoded attitudes about sex, race, and gender in otherwise terrific films. I'm not exactly captivated by the idea of a film that depicts serial adultery as just another charming personality quirk in boyish, middle-aged men (in fact, as a gay man denied marriage rights in many states, it galls a bit to think of how films like this tend to undervalue and take for granted such a gift...even if it's just for escapist laughs); but it speaks well of the overall tidy professionalism of A Touch of Class that none of these things really occur to you until after the film is over.

Of course, my chief fondness for this film lies with Glenda Jackson, one of the absolute best of the slew of intelligent, interesting actors that seemed to flourish in the '70s, only to disappear come the blockbuster era of the '80s. In this, her first motion picture comedy (if one doesn't count a priceless unbilled cameo in Ken Russell's The Boy Friend) Jackson revealed a heretofore untapped comic gift later put to good use in several films, most notably, House Calls (1977), Nasty Habits (1977) and Robert Altman's little-seen, H.E.A.L.T.H. (1980). There isn't a single moment in A Touch of Class where she doesn't dominate the screen with her lively, fully committed performance. And while it'll always be my personal belief that Ellen Burstyn should have won the Oscar that year for The Exorcist, in reality, could ANY acting award granted Glenda Jackson ever be considered undeserved?

Four-time Oscar nominee, two-time winner. When Jackson retired from acting in 1992 to become a Member of Parliament, film lost a true original. A versatile, intriguing, and very classy actress.

Clip of Glenda Jackson and George Segal in "A Touch of Class" (1973)

*Addendum - After 23 years in Parliament, Glenda Jackson returned to acting at age 79. In 2016, she enjoyed a triumphant return to the stage starring as King Lear at London's Old Vic Theater.

A Touch of Class opened in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 27, 1973. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2013

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? 1966

"'Tis the refuge we take when the unreality of the world sits too heavy on our tiny heads."

The above statement, spoken half in jest (and in a Barry Fitzgerald accent) by a subdued, down-cycle, Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) in a brief moment of introspective lucidity, is proffered as a response/admission as to why she and husband George (Richard Burton) seem only to relate to one another through cruelly sadistic games of "truth and illusion." 

This surprisingly self-aware avowal of the role illusion and willful self-deception play in tent-posting lives of disappointment and regret not only sums up the plot of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but, especially noting the ironic use of the word "unreality" in the quote, could also serve as an explanation for my own lifelong fascination with, and attraction to, film. 

Edward Albee's provocative, 1962 Tony Award-winning stage play was adapted into a censorship-shattering motion picture in 1966 by Broadway wunderkind Mike Nichols. Of course, back then the big attraction wasn't the male half of the famous comedy team of Mike Nichols & Elaine May making his film directing debut. It was the casting of Hollywood's number one power-couple—Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton— and the unlikelihood that one of the most beautiful women in the world could be convincingly transformed into the dowdy, middle-aged harridan of Albee's play.

Elizabeth Taylor as Martha

Richard Burton as George

George Segal as Nick

Sandy Dennis as Honey

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a 2 hour-plus acid bath of personality assassinations and psychological manipulation trussed-up as a cocktail party, was just one of the many age-inappropriate films I saw on Saturday afternoons with my sisters at the local movie house when I was growing up. The year was 1967, it was summer, and after having played all the first-run theaters, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was starting to make the rounds at the neighborhood and downtown double-feature theaters. We lived in San Francisco at the time and I think we saw it at The Embassy Theater on Market Street.

Back in those pre-shopping mall days, I suspect the only peace our recently-divorced mom ever got was when she could ship us all off to the movies on Saturday afternoons, not caring a whit about what was playing, just so long as it kept us out of the house and off the streets until she came for us at 4pm. On the occasion of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, my eldest sister (16 to my 10 years) was apparently all the "mature adult" accompaniment the theater required to grant us access to a film none of us had any chance in hell of understanding. 

Well, I did understand one part. The yelling.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is about one enormously volatile evening in, by all appearances, the ceaselessly volatile lives of George and Martha. George, an associate professor of history at a small New England college, and Martha, the college president's daughter, have been persuaded this night to play night-cap host to the college's newest arrivals: Nick, the newly appointed biology teacher, and his constitutionally delicate wife, Honey. George and Martha, who are 20 years senior to their unsuspecting guests, share a complex relationship of dispiriting affection poisoned by years of acrimony and self-loathing. As a kind of coping mechanism and walking postmortem of their marriage, the elder couple engage their guests in an intricate game of personal attacks and verbal assaults designed to keep real feelings at bay and to mask the real unpleasantness of their existence.

George Segal, an actor amazingly adept at comedic and serious roles, and the brilliant Sandy Dennis, the only actress outside of Elizabeth Hartman who could have made this underwritten role so memorable

As an adult, my partner and I have spent more than our share of squirmy evenings playing Nick and Honey to some sparring couple's George and Martha, but as a kid, the only thing I could relate to in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was the yelling. As my parents' preferred mode of communication with one another prior to their divorce, it was familiar enough to me to at least make the characters in the film recognizable. But beyond that, I can tell you I really had no idea of what was going on.

Nor should I have, at that age. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is pretty sophisticated stuff for even adults to wrap their minds around.

Dashed hopes and good intentions

I remember the slight disappointment I felt on discovering that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was not, as I had hoped, a horror film along the lines of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? An easy enough conclusion to jump to given the sound-alike title and the scary-looking poster art that carried the (ineffectual) warning: No one under the age of 18 will be admitted unless accompanied by a parent.

When, in later years, I came to revisit Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it was as though I was watching the film for the first time. Just a little bit of life experience helped to bring all of Edward Albee's agonizingly perceptive observations into sharp relief. I not only got it, but felt so moved by the daringly theatrical means by which Albee dramatized this simple truth: to live one's life free of illusions is perhaps the most terrifying thing of all.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

It would be difficult to overstate the qualities that Wexler's expressive black-and-white cinematography brings to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In these days of HD, it's even more breathtaking than ever. What an amazing array of gray tones and shadings!

PERFORMANCES

I was never much of a fan of Elizabeth Taylor in my younger years. Her unavoidable presence on the cover of every movie magazine (recounting marital problems, movie-star extravagances, and countless trips to the hospital) soured my impression of her as any kind of serious actress. I never thought of her as much of a beauty, either, as she always reminded me more of a less frumpy Ethel Mertz than one of the most beautiful women in the world. The turning point in my attitude towards Taylor came in 1989 when I had the opportunity to see Glenda Jackson (an actress I absolutely idolized) in a Los Angeles production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? directed by Edward Albee himself. Fond of the film version, I was not exactly persuaded by Taylor's performance. Now was a chance to see what a "real" actress would do with this marvelous character.

Well, to put it bluntly, Ms. Jackson was terrible. She just seemed to miss everything that was vulnerable about Albee's Martha, and (surprising to me) was unable to muster much passion behind her tirades. As the evening wore on, Elizabeth Taylor's performance began to loom largely and impressively in my memory, and by the time the curtain came down, I was convinced that I had given Elizabeth Taylor a bum rap all those years. 

Elizabeth Taylor's monologue in this sequence is some of the finest acting of her career

I've seen a great many Elizabeth Taylor films since then, and not only do I now consider her to have been truly one of the great beauties of the screen, but I feel that her looks and off-screen exploits have clouded many a fair assessment of her talent. I like her a great deal now, and when I look over some of the films I'd once dismissed, I recognize that Taylor was one of the rare ones: a movie star who was also a compelling actress. Her choice of roles that I once regarded as spotty, now seem rather daring in her never pandering to the sort of "safe" casting usually associated with stars of her caliber. She's something the likes of which we're not apt to see again, EVER.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

It must have been quite a voyeuristic thrill for fans of Taylor and Burton to see the famously hard-drinking, combative couple, playing a hard-drinking, combative couple onscreen. And indeed, there is something about their easy rapport and effortless chemistry here that is never duplicated in another film. I particularly like those small moments where George & Martha reveal their deep affection for one another, and how they lapse into familiar patterns of easy cohabitation between the shouting matches. Perhaps all we're seeing is the dysfunctional mutual appreciation of two people who've found in each other, a worthy adversary, someone who can keep up with the game, but it's a layer added to the characters that serve to soften the pain of their near non-stop body blows. That neither Taylor nor Burton plays their roles "one-note" - allowing for flashes of tenderness between the bursts of vitriol - is what makes this film such a standout for me.

Liz and Dick: Probably the only real-life couple ever to display any real chemistry onscreen
besides Gracie Allen & George Burns

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

The grace of all art is its ability to find poetry in the ordinary and prosaic. As I stated earlier, I grew up around a lot of yelling in my family, and along with lacking anything resembling a poetic thrust, it lacked a sense of danger to me. I was used to it and I thought that was how all people who loved each other communicated. Growing up, I identified with comedies and dramas of familial discord to a disturbing degree. (I was a big fan of Tennessee Williams and those "Eunice" segments of the old Carol Burnett variety show. It was only in later years that I came to recognize that that WAS my family.)

As it turns out, my partner of 16 years was raised in a household where his parents talked and discussed things and never allowed him to see them yelling at one another. So, as you might guess, our first viewing of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? together was almost traumatic for him. Even to this day he really can't take the endless shouting and mean-spiritedness, so this is one film I love that I usually enjoy alone (all the better, because I'm often crying like a baby at the finale).

"Total war?"
"Total!"

What's wonderful is that in our years together, my partner has helped me to see that yelling is not the way that healthy people express love, and I've since learned to appreciate histrionic drama where it belongs, on the screen and on the stage, but not in my life.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? may not be everyone's taste, but it's a beautiful film. Mike Nichols and everyone involved did a marvelous job. If you have the stomach for it, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a deeply affecting look at explosive emotions that you get to view from a relatively safe distance.

"Just us?"
It's Elizabeth Taylor at her absolute best in this, the most heartbreaking sequence in the film.
Reduces me to waterworks unfailingly.

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2011