A Touch of Class 1973

     American Steve Blackburn is in the insurance business for his occupation.  He is married with two children.  Vickie Allessio is a self described design "stealer" for a knockoff fashion house as her occupation.  She is a recent divorcée with two children.  Steve and Vickie are running into each other more and more in their day to day lives?  They both live in London before even knowing who the other person is and this suits them both fine!!  When they do finally officially meet, Steve is up front that he wants to have an affair with Vickie?  Steve has had affairs in the past whenever his wife Gloria, who is from old money, isn't around.  This is currently the case because she is in the States visiting her parents.  Vickie is up front that she is amenable to a no-strings affair with him under specific circumstances.  Her requirements are that it be at least a classy short term affair.  This means no cheap motels and preferably a weekend away somewhere warm.   Since he is able to arrange a business trip to Málaga Spain for a week, Steve convinces Vickie to change their agreed weekend to a week and off they go!!  

     A Touch Of Class was a groundbreaking film, not because it was a particularly wonderful film because it wasn't or that it was shot in London or that Glenda Jackson played the chick.  It was because it was probably the first time Hollywood noticeably departed from its tradition of casting Cary Grant and Rock Hudson and similar men as big box-office comedic romantic leads.  A Touch Of Class has been synonymous with George Segal since its release in 1973.  Every day that George Segal went to work at Wyndham's Theatre just off Leicester Square, he was forced to go past a house front billboard with huge capitals stating that A TOUCH OF CLASS has come to the cast of Art.  This might be somewhat off-putting for his fellow artists but they didn't know that it's not entirely enviable to have been a very famous Hollywood movie star!!  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)

106 min, comedy directed and written by Melvin Frank, also written by Jack Rose with George Segal, Glenda Jackson, Paul Sorvino, K Callan, Cec Linder, Michael Elwyn, Mary Barclay, Nadim Sawalha, Ian Thompson, Eve Karpf, David de Keyser, Gaye Brown, Carl Oatley, Rebecca De Los Reyes, Felipe Solano.

Note:  Imdb 6.5* out of 10* with 2812 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 83% with 12 critic reviews, 65% with 1000+ audience scores, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 308 reviews, Letterboxd 3* out of 5*, Roger Ebert 3*.

Special Note:  Glenda Jackson's Oscar win for this movie was so shocking to viewers of the ceremony that a recount was considered for the votes?  The Oscar had been rumored to be going to Marsha Mason for Cinderella Liberty or Ellen Burstyn for The Exorcist since they were the front runners.  The black-and-white film on TV that Glenda Jackson and George Segal were weeping to was Brief Encounter (1945).  In that film the main characters both married but not to each other were also having an affair.

Mistakes:  Early on in the film when Vicki and Steve first share the taxi, it is reflected in the windscreen of the taxi just as it pulls up to drop Vicki off in the rain.  At 1:00:06 a camera shadow is on Vickie as she crosses the room.  At 2:43 where Steve falls isn't where he gets up at 2:48.  At 7:08 when Vickie gets out of the cab the position of the window changes.