Mann, bist du Klasse!

A Touch of Class starts off being about a married cad's misadventures in attempting to hook up with a divorced woman who's up for the no-strings-attached sex. It makes the movie's title somewhat ironic, doesn't it?

More than likely, "A Touch of Class" refers to double-Oscar winner Glenda Jackson (Women in Love and this movie), who's just about one of the classiest actresses I've seen. Beautiful, regal, and armed with acerbic British wit, she's the perfect foil to the brash and American George Segal, who incidentally looks just about the same 30 years ago as he does now in Just Shoot Me, except with a better body.

A Touch of Class demonstrates how opposites attract - something I've very familiar with. It's a romantic comedy but its comedic element peaks halfway through the movie with a scene in which the two leads engage in an all-out battle that culminates in a clothes fight and a sex fumble. After that, it's primarily about the two trying to make their love affair work despite Segal's marriage. A successful romantic movie draws us into its convolutions by making us care for its characters and what become of them, which A Touch of Class achieves by giving us the realistic trials and tribulations of an extramarital couple.

A TOUCH OF CLASS was a charming romantic comedy about a married American businessman (George Segal) who lives in London and drifts into an affair with an English fashion designer (Glenda Jackson). Though the script borders on the cliché, Segal and Jackson manage to rise above rather ordinary story thanks to their surprisingly effective on screen chemistry. Jackson actually snagged a second Best Actress Oscar for this film (something that still baffles me to this day)but Segal is just as good as she is. Personally, I think this is one of Segal's best performances...Segal's Steven Blackburn is urbane, sophisticated, witty, and sexy and his attraction to Jackson's Vicki Ellesio is a bit of a puzzle since her character is sort of a bitch, but the film is still worth a rental if you've never seen it.

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.

You've got to view this as a reflection of the Sexual Revolution in its full 70s "swinging" mode, where infidelity within an unhappy marriage was viewed as less simply immoral than now. As such it's a charming time capsule with very good casting. I thought this movie was terrific (albeit imperfect) at the time, when I saw it as a teenager. Of course it seemed very sophisticated to me then--and it made me infatuated with George Segal, who seemed so goofy and charming and attractive. A perfect post-Bobby Sherman interest for a curious 12- year-old.

As for Jackson's Best Actress win--well, there really weren't a lot of good roles for women at the time. This is a particular instance (like Louise Fletcher's very-supporting Best Actress win for "Cuckoo's Nest") that proves how dismal the competition was in that era. Of course there were fine actress performances in films during the 70s, albeit ones too small or too foreign or too art-house-y to be noticed by the Academy. But really, the whole era just sucked in terms of substantial women's leading roles.

The film's own dated sexism is apparent in its obliviousness toward divorcée Jackson's drop- everything-whenever-called neglect of her children (guess she has nothing better to do!) whereas much attention is given to Segal's neglect of his wife and children (he's a guy, so of course he's got better things to do!). As if her commitments aren't important, while his naturally are.

"A Touch of Class" seemed overrated at the time (this movie got multiple Oscar nominations in the same year as "Mean Streets"?!?), and it hasn't aged brilliantly. Nonetheless, it's an excellent example of a romantic comedy reflecting a very different moral complexity than movies allow nowadays.

A love story with a built-in dead end: they're crazy about each other, but he's already married. Attempt to recapture the sophisticated romantic-comedies of yesteryear is put to the test under a heavy-handed direction which doesn't know what it's going for, laughs or pathos (the former occasionally bumping clumsily into the latter). There's nothing wrong with a good mix of laughs and tears, but this scenario is cluttered up with too many dolts (like Paul Sorvino's "best friend" character, who is tiresome the minute we meet him) and too many montages which set no certain mood. Oscar-winner Glenda Jackson is warmly sarcastic throughout--and she's delightful working with George Segal--but their characters lost my interest after an hour or so. There's too much bickering over nothing, too much intensity melting away into love-starved giggles. The picture is a situation comedy but there are only occasional laughs, all early on. ** from ****