A Touch Of Class (1973)

I've never, EVER been able to understand why this film was so well received and has any sort of retrospective credibility. It's a clumsy, lame comedy about a married man cheating on his wife with a woman who seems to detest him. I'm also amazed that a 'comedy' about marriage infidelity would have been so accepted in America, then or now. This was the tagline:- Not since Gable battled with Colbert and Hepburn battled with Grant has comedy been such fun. Watch Segal take on Jackson. On top of all that, Glenda won The Oscar? Who else was nominated?

• It seems the competition was strong. Barbra Steisand.. The Way We Were. Ellen Burstyn...The Exoricst What the hell was going on that year? Burstyn seems as shocked as I am.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DT0-rsIdjVok

  OP

• The Exorcist was probably too controversial

• I saw the movie a hundred years ago and it made no impression on me at all. Was it because Glenda was so smart and brisk and utterly sexless? Was she some safe, classy choice for the Academy?

• The best lead female performance that year was Tatum O'Neal's in Paper Moon. Unfortunately, juvenile performances are rarely properly honored in the lead category. Which allowed this weird win to happen.

• Was this surprise win why Burstyn didn't show up the following year to collect her award for "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," fearing another upset with Gena Rowlands breathing over her shoulder? Or was she really too busy "on set?"

• I loved this movie. Glenda and George were hysterical. Their fight is a classic.

• No. Burstyn, according to her book didn't show up because she was appearing on Broadway in "Same Time Next Year" with Charles Grodin and since people paid to see her, she didn't want to disappoint them by taking time off to fly to LA. She ended up winning The Tony that year too.

• "I'm also amazed that a 'comedy' about marriage infidelity would have been so accepted in America, then or now." Perhaps you should watch more comedies. You could start with Roman farces, then Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, and round it off with Moliere, Feydeau, Shaw, Coward, The Awful Truth, Heaven Can Wait (with Don Ameche), The Women, The Apartment, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, and Plaza Suite. r3, Glenda Jackson was not smart, brisk and sexless, she was smart, brisk and in her own way very sexy. r5, as I recall Burstyn was in New York doing yet another American comedy about marital infidelity (which she would later film) Same Time Next Year.

• It was a sophisticated comedy written for adults. In 1973 you could do that sort of thing. Today people are actually "amazed that a 'comedy' about marriage infidelity would have been so accepted in America".

• "In A Touch of Class, under a load of glamour-girl makeup and a suspiciously unvarying hairdo, [Glenda Jackson's] acrid performance was ridiculous; she was like a mean drag queen."

  Pauline%20Kael

• [quote] It was a sophisticated comedy written for adults. Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun!!! (sarcasm) Why was art in the 70s so drab, serious, cerebral and BORING?

• [quote]It was a sophisticated comedy written for adults. What was sophisticated about it? I'd really like to know...but I doubt you'd be able to tell me. I'll check back in hope.

• Why didn't Barbra attend the ceremony?

  ShinjukuBaby

• R12, it takes place in england.

• Wait a second - wasn`t that the point of it - he naively expected somthing with class, because she is English, but it turns out to be just as much of mess as any other affair

• Yes, I guess it was the sophisticated 'European locations' that impressed R9, back in the days when comedies could still be made for 'sophisticated' adults like herself.

• Their loveshack was near Lee Ho Fook's of Werewolves of London fame. How great was that?(BTW, I actually ate at LHF's when I still had teeth.)

• [quote]Why didn't Barbra attend the ceremony? She did, she was backstage. There has been a long standing rumor that this was the closest Best Actress race in Oscar history with only 4 votes separating 1st and 5th place.

• Who else was nominated? I WISH there were some way for me to find out. I've worried for years, and looked, but this information is nowhere. Secret. Unfound. Buried. Thank GOD the DL has special researchers with unusual access to suppressed information, so I can ask questions about things that are simply killing me. Also, do these pants make me look fat? Fatter, I mean? I'm realistic.

  OP

• The Oscar was indeed a surprise to everyone, including Jackson (she didn't attend the Oscars, but she also didn't when she won for WOMEN IN LOVE). I don't know why people think Burstyn's performance in THE EXORCIST is so brilliant. It was perfectly good, but the sensationalism of the film overshadowed the performances, and it's clear that Friedkin really didn't care all that much about the characters as people. Even so, it's obvious she expected to win. The other nominees: Streisand (THE WAY WE WERE), Marsha Mason (CINDERELLA LIBERTY), and Joanne Woodward (SUMMER WISHES,WINTER DREAMS). Frankly, Streisand or Woodward were the most deserving of the group, IMO. But Streisand was disliked by a lot of people in the business. Woodward's film didn't do that much business, and this wasn't her first bitter middle-aged woman role.

• CINDERELLA LIBERTY is terrible. I have no idea how Mason got the nomination. The film is completely unbelievable and it got quite a few pans when it was released. By far the weakest of the bunch. I like TOUCH OF CLASS. It's not a great movie, but it's funny and touching in parts. It's essentially a remake of the producers earlier THE FACTS OF LIFE with Lucy Ball and Bob Hope. Glenda was well liked during that period. She was also doing a one eighty with this movie, her first comedy film. The good reviews helped her get the award. Woodward was terrific but her film was not well known. Streisand was not well liked and already had one. Burstyn was terrific but the movie was very controversial. Mason's movie did not get great reviews. Jackson for the win.

• Streisand was the heavy favorite to win that year and came straight from the Funny Lady set to receive her Oscar. She was shocked when Jackson's name was announced. Obviously, Ellen Burstyn was similarly shocked.

• Lucy was supposed to do A TOUCH OF CLASS, but Gary said that she'd done it before with Bob Hope and it didn't do well, so he talked her out of it.