Leoni Haney
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
SnoopyStyle
Various guests arrive at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Hannah (Jane Fonda) and Bill Warren (Alan Alda) are a troubled couple getting a divorce. Chauncey Gump (Richard Pryor) and Willis Panama (Bill Cosby) are bickering Chicago doctors vacationing with their wives. London actress Diana Barrie (Maggie Smith) travels with her closeted husband Sidney Cochran (Michael Caine) for her Oscar nomination. Marvin Michaels (Walter Matthau) is surprised by the call girl sent by his sleazy brother Harry and then his wife arrives.The four stories have varying effectiveness. I most wanted to see this movie for Pryor. His and Cosby's section has the foursome in quirky slapstick comedy. It's odd. Pryor is more known in slapstick with usual partner Gene Wilder. Cosby's present day troubles is problematic. Matthau's section has one main scene. It suffers a little due to the fact that he's not an innocent. It would be infinitely funnier if none of it is his fault. Imagine him finding the hooker naked in bed and immediately his wife arrives. That way he does nothing wrong and is left with all the blame. That would be infinitely funnier. The Fonda Alda coupling is rather forgettable and it could have been more. Maybe if their children joins them and they have to deal with them. Smith and Caine have the best part. In fact, Maggie gets an Oscar which is ironic for this story. They do great work and have room to do the work.
Danny Blankenship
Neil Simon had one of the better works of 1978 as his comedy drama "California Suite" is a really well done take on the adventures and ups and downs of life and he shows it with an intersection of different characters all who check in and out of a Beverly Hills Hotel. Yet the characters involved have come for different reasons still all involved face personal dilemmas.You have a British couple Sidney Cochran(Michael Caine)who has to battle with his depressed actress wife Diana(Maggie Smith)who's in an outrage when she loses at the Oscars!(oddly enough Smith would win a real Oscar for best supporting actress in this role). Still thru it all no loss can prevent the love that this couple has to conquer it all.Next up on the plate is Marvin Michaels(Walter Matthau)an old east coast guy who visits the west coast only to explain to his arrived wife(Elaine May)how a sexy California blonde hooker got in his bed. This act is funny and it takes an interesting twist at the end! Then it's funny and educational as we see Hannah Warren(Jane Fonda)who's a witty educated snob and proper like socialite who's uneasy about her ex husband's(the good Alan Alda) new California life. As Hannah wants their daughter to go back with her and her new life on the east coast. This was one interesting segment as the chemistry between Fonda and Alda is top notch.And to round out two Chicago friends a doctor named Gump(the very funny Richard Pryor)and his friend(Bill Cosby)take a trip to California for vacation and both have manners that conflicts with imposing means! Overall well done picture from Neil Simon that's funny with wit and charm showing that life, love, and relationship is drama and a fun challenge of change and time. Really this is one movie to watch and enjoy.
edwagreen
Neil Simon focuses his attention on a variety of people at a hotel in this 1978 comedy hit.Walter Matthau certainly has a penchant as a hotel guest. Remember him with Maureen Stapleton and several other ladies in another hotel farce comedy-drama?Matthau, as always, is hilarious when he attempts to hide a hooker from his wife. It seems that Elaine May is always the naive victim in films. Remember her in 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid?"The real acting kudos here goes to Maggie Smith for a gem of a supporting Oscar-winning performance in this film. Smith plays an actress at the hotel who has been nominated for an Oscar. A win would mean a tremendous comeback for her. Naturally, she loses. How many people have won Oscars for playing an Oscar loser in a film? Judy Garland accomplished the opposite in 1954 in "A Star is Born." In the film she is an actress who wins the academy award but in real-life competition lost it to Grace Kelly for "The Country Girl." Only the lord knows why.Smith is just grand as she prances around the room delivering memorable one-liners. This is just a gem of a film.
dglink
Despite a talented all-star cast, "California Suite," which was based on a hit Neil Simon play, is a wildly uneven film. The episodic story traces several unrelated couples from across the U.S. that check into a Beverly Hills hotel. Like a comedic "Grand Hotel," the film cuts between the stories, although the editing makes no comments, ironic or otherwise, between the episodes. Actually, the often foolish, self-centered characters make "California Suite" more a "Ship of Fools" in the sunshine than a "Grand Hotel" under the palms. The original play was a follow-up to the more successful "Plaza Suite" and demonstrated Simon's shakier take on the West Coast than on the East. For the most part, the hotel guests speak and behave like the transplanted or visiting New Yorkers that they are.Jane Fonda portrays the ultimate New York snob, and her bitchy banter with ex-husband Alan Alda only underscores her arrogance and intolerance of anything that exists west of the Hudson. Alda is a New Yorker's stereotype of a Californian with pastel sweaters and perpetual tan. While a few amusing lines pass between the terminally mismatched couple, Fonda and Alda's episode is more grating than funny. However, the New York couple display Noel-Coward wit in comparison to the wasted talents and misfires in the scenes that involve Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby as vacationing doctors. The premise of two couples that arrive to find a reservation for only one has promise. However, director Herbert Ross should have studied Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd before he devised the broad, unfunny physical stunts that will leave viewers grateful that both Pryor and Cosby survived the mess and moved on to better material.However, the film does have some fine moments between comedic experts Walter Matthau and Elaine May. When Matthau arrives in LA a day early, his brother surprises him with a prostitute, who passes out from too much tequila and cannot be awakened in the morning. Of course, Matthau's wife, the always-delicious Elaine May, arrives, and the comedy moves into high gear. The best episode in the film, however, involves an English actress, Maggie Smith, and her bisexual husband, Michael Caine. The couple arrives to attend the Academy Awards, because Smith is a Best Actress nominee. While Smith has some of the best-written lines in the film, her role also has a depth and poignancy that goes far beyond the cardboard characters in the other episodes. Although Caine is equally fine, Smith's role is showier, and she won a deserved Academy Award for the part. The film's special irony is that the part of an Oscar-losing-actress won an Oscar for the actress who played her."California Suite" is one of those films in which a few superior scenes make it worthy entertainment, and the Smith-Caine episode pulls the film several notches higher than it otherwise deserves. Add the sparkling Matthau-May scenes, and there is at least one-half of a good movie. Although the Fonda-Alda episode is bearable and occasionally amusing, the Pryor-Cosby scenes are often labored and unfunny. However, with a strong finger on the fast-forward button, there is a good hour of comedy and fine performances to be had in this inconsistent film.
