As someone must have said by now, this is a 1970s movie. Its subject is confrontations between bewildered, sympathetic or bemused feminists of the period and bewildered, sympathetic or bemused males of the period. It is a comedy with elements of satire, meaning the viewer know things should turn out fine, although it just does not seem so during the earlier stages. This made-for-TV classic of its sort has a likable and fine cast, a witty script and more fun per minute than almost any other film on the same topic. It is a look at the bad position women have been placed in in the U.S., at 1970, and since 1770. and what some people wanted to do about that problem; it is also about persons who do not have all the answers but are trying to negotiate a way of restating the questions. The chosen story-line pits two "natural" antagonists, a nice-guy police officer played by David Hartman who is not anti-feminine just not pro 'women's lib" and about as confused as anyone is on the topic, and Barbara Eden, a young woman who is sure she is pro-feminine but not certain how she ought to proceed. Each gets bad advice from their friends, in Eden's case JoAnn Worley and in Hartman's case just about everyone. Eden has a fiancée, nice-guy Herb Edelman, who is sympathetic but gormless; and there is a hitch...because there are so few apartments in San Francisco, Hartman and Eden cannot have the apartment they love and need except by sharing it. Since their schedules do not clash, they agree to try a mutual occupation arrangement. But not until after she has harassed him and he has frisked her, in the line of duty; by this time we viewers have had demonstrated several facts--that they annoy one another and are attracted to one another; but that he is not ready to admit she needs more rights and she is not ready to admit some in the movement have overdone their protests. The clever script omits nothing--bra burning, enlisting prostitutes who agree with the idea of liberation to the point of sometimes overdoing lack of controls, her father's spending time with Julie Newmar, a charming lady of the streets, Worley and Edelman getting together and deciding that if she wants to dominate he really wants her to do so, and the principals overcoming their differences and falling in love. A message in this film? Hardly. It is about the need for non-acrimonious communication, confronting 70's issues and the fun provided by the script's author, James S. Henerson. Jerry Paris, TV veteran actor and director, kept the events moving fluidly. In addition to the good actors already named, the cast included TV veterans Arthur Batanides, Harry Morgan as Eden's father, John McGiver, Farrah Fawcett, Roger Perry, Sheila James and Penny Marshall, among others. Cinematography was by Emil Oster, good and suitably-comedic original music by Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson. Theladies take up karate, the men take to worrying, but in the end this pleasant film's creators, a film very much imitated by never duplicated since, comes down on the side not of compromise but of tolerant understanding and individual choices--surely a welcome alternative to preaching, maintaining a rightless status quo for females or compounding a bad situation with more bad ideas. Give it a try; this film is funny and occasionally wise. As most who have seen it would say, this is memorable and balanced.
