First Monday in October

This is a film about the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, released about the same time that Reagan appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court - Sandra Day O'Connor - with the female justice, Justice Ruth Loomis played by Jill Clayburgh, and Walter Matthau as her fellow justice and ideological nemesis, Justice Dan Snow. The chief justice is played by Barnard Hughes who seems to just want to keep the peace and keep a low profile, not really what you would expect from a chief justice. Weirdly nobody calls him by name, they just call him C.J.

This thing is really a time capsule, and that was surprising since I was 23 when it was released and thought of 1981 as modern times. At Loomis' confirmation hearings she is asked if being a woman will influence her decisions and why she doesn't have any children! Even the justices make sexist remarks like saying "the perfume will make the place smell better" and wondering if she will put up curtains! The really interesting thing for me was that I had a hard time telling whether Loomis and Matthau were just disagreeing on individual cases or if one was right and the other left or if one or the other was supposed to be a moderate! Not until the end does the film clearly tell you which is which with a funny line about cab fare and liberals never having money.

There are two cases the justices spar over - one is about a pornographic film that the maker says is actually an educational documentary, and the other is a large corporation's possible attempt to squash the development of an idea that would have competed with their established products.

Loomis naively talks about the virtues of big corporations and how they only want to build up America and their stockholders. Matthau does a monologue about defending everybody's right to free speech no matter how offensive. Today nobody believes big corporations are inherently good, and both libs and conservatives would like to squish the other side's free speech rights if they could.

The dialogue could have been better for the material, but there is a mini-mystery towards the end that gives the film an interesting twist. Matthau is basically just playing a more erudite version of Oscar the slob from The Odd Couple. Matthau's character's wife (Jan Sterling) leaves him in the middle of the movie because - I'm not sure - the reason she gave was that her husband did not know what kind of wallpaper they had, but she made sure to take that fur coat with her! Probably she left so that there could be a possibility of sexual tension between Matthau's and Clayburgh's characters. I'll let you watch and find out if that actually happens.

I loved it if for no other reason than to take a look back at how politics used to be. I'd give it an 8/10 but YMMV. Especially when you see the credits and find that Robert E. Lee co-wrote the play and the screenplay! It probably could not get screened today because of that! Oh how times have changed!

The US Supreme Court elects its first Madam Justice, an attractive, widowed judge from California; the first issue on the docket is whether a Nebraska zealot pining for family values can ban a pornographic film (it's title: "The Naked Nymphomaniac"). Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's script, based upon their play, is cognizant of the effects of a female voice on the Supreme Court, but doesn't give Jill Clayburgh's Ruth Loomis anything but obvious points to make. She is a Woman, hear her Roar! The cutesy repartee with fellow Justice Snow (an uncomfortable-seeming Walter Matthau) matches her women's-lib quips with his scratchy retorts, and no matter how truthful Loomis' arguments may be, everything in this version is underlined with whimsy. It's a poor substitute for strong political comedy, coming off more like a Hepburn-and-Tracy cast-off unearthed in a filing cabinet. *1/2 from ****

Though First Monday In October didn't last too long on Broadway, the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee play made one fine sparkling movie for Walter Matthau and Jill Clayburgh taking over the roles that Henry Fonda and Jill Alexander did on the stage.

In 1978 when this was on stage, the iconoclastic William O. Douglas had been gone three years from the Supreme Court and the idea of a woman justice was yet untried. So imagine the serendipitous joy with the producers when Ronald Reagan added Sandra Day O'Connor to the court. You couldn't buy better publicity.

Matthau is clearly based on William O. Douglas who was a far seeing advocate for social justice and change on the bench. Matthau if you can believe is a kinder, gentler version of Douglas. In real life Douglas was not a nice guy, in fact personally he was a swine. The banter with which you see him engage his law clerk James Stephens would never happen, he went through law clerks like he did wives. Ditto with Jan Sterling playing Mrs. Matthau. The first Mrs. Douglas had taken a hike years earlier and Douglas was on wife number 4 in her twenties at this time. He died in 1980.

O'Connor replaced Potter Stewart in 1981 on the bench so in real life these two never served. Still First Monday In October you'd like to think would be how they got along with even a little romance thrown in once the two got to know each other. Douglas never got along with colleagues, especially those who had a different point of view.

Still Matthau is one of his patented curmudgeons and Clayburgh do have a good cinema chemistry which makes First Monday In October a pleasant piece of viewing.

Walter Mathau left many wonderful performances for us to enjoy, and here is another one of them. In what could be a rehearsal for GRUMPY OLD MEN, it's great to see how he and Jill Clayburgh bounce off each other. Their characters are so different and opposite, yet they're like two pillars holding up the roof of the system. I find it difficult to fault this movie, It's enjoyable from start to finish.

Clayburgh did a fantastic job of balancing Matthau's usual strong performance. The two struck a rapport that I never expected, and they ran off with the movie. I gave it an 8 instead of a 10 mostly because the script and cast couldn't keep up with them. Also, they have some weak spots when they go for light-hearted comedy. For me, the real shining light of the entire show was the way the two managed to continue an understandable discussion of the hot issues in jurisprudence of that time -- at least fifteen minutes of viewing are justified by that historical perspective alone. In short, it's heart-warming, well-acted in the leads, and technically tighter than most viewers would realize.