Plaza Suite

Neil Simon's Broadway success, brought to the screen in a dung-colored transfer. Walter Matthau plays three different men who check into suite 719 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City at different times. In the opener, he's a neglectful husband to needy, chatty Maureen Stapleton; in the second, he's a movie producer from Hollywood who phones up old flame Barbara Harris for a tryst; and for the finale, Matthau is married to Lee Grant and suffering the wedding catastrophe blues after his daughter gets cold feet before her ceremony. Simon, despite having penned the adaptation himself, was reportedly not happy with the picture; George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton had played all the central parts on stage, though Simon felt Matthau's take on the three male characters didn't work on film. He was partly right (Matthau is most ill-at-ease in the second episode), but the main problem with the film is the first installment. Portraying a long-suffering married couple on the brink of imploding, Matthau and Stapleton are busily beleaguered and convincingly antagonistic...it might have helped if they were funnier. Matthau's incarnation of the callous (and cheating) hubby is, unfortunately, so unfeeling towards his spouse--in a story which is not satisfactorily resolved--that it leaves a sour residue from which the rest of "Plaza Suite" never recovers. Some of the flip talk is cheeky and amusing, Lee Grant gets some colorful bits of business, but this is still a depressing experience. The Plaza Hotel must have been infuriated with the art direction: this picture makes the posh resort look like a Burger King. ** from ****

I expected this 1971 film to be a bright comedy. Instead I was presented with the filming of a very deep three-part stage play about the dark side of human relationships; only the last of the three stories could really be called funny.

A bride-to-be locks herself in the bathroom and her parents go through all kinds of hilarious slapstick agony trying to persuade her to come out. It is free of the darker undertones of the first two vignettes and has a cute surprise ending with a happy message. The other two, while being wry and witty in places, are really commentaries on the nature of man's unfaithfulness and exploitation of women, and women's culpability in allowing that state of affairs to develop and continue.

Walter Matthau plays the lead in each of the three stories, which take place in the same suite, 719, of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. He has different leading ladies in each one: Maureen Stapleton, Barbara Harris and Lee Grant. There are a few incidental characters but the stories revolve around the two main characters in each story. The dialogue is quite true to real life, even appearing to be repetitive and meaningless in places as real life conversations can be, but the playwright is taking us in each case to a specific understanding of the characters. There is nothing extraneous even though at first it appears to be cluttered with incidentals.

In the first story, a husband and wife check into the Plaza Hotel for their anniversary - and then things begin to fall apart. Maureen Stapleton as the seemingly scatterbrained wife is brilliant in playing both the tragic and comic aspects of this complicated role. As the story unfolds we realize things are not as they appear on the surface.

In the second story, a sleazy Hollywood businessman calls up various names in his little black book so that he can have some woman - any woman - come to his suite for sex from 2 to 4 between meetings. The woman from his past whom he persuades to show up is both afraid of the possible seduction and hoping he will talk her into it. This is all too painful and familiar a scenario and anyone will relate to the awkward dance between two individuals who have to try to save face while getting their needs met.

If you are looking for a light and fluffy comedy this is not the one to choose. It will disturb you and make you think about the tragic aspects of love, sex and marriage, long after it is over.

Not very funny or interesting. All three of the skits are pretty boring. I could hardly keep myself awake during the second one, I only watched the third one because i heard it was the best of the three, It was just as bad as the first two. Walter Matthau is a fine actor but not in here.

Matthau scores in all three vignettes from Neil Simon's long running triumph about different people who stay at a particular room in the posh New York hotel. His three ladies Stapelton, Harris and Grant are also wonderful. This is among the best of Simon's works to be adapted for the screen.

The old cliche applies to this brilliantly acted and wonderfully scripted film; they don't make them like this any more. The comedy, the intensity, the emotion is all in the dialogue and in the performances of the leading ladies and of course, that of Walter Matthau as the three lead male characters.

The dialogue crackles from start to finish. I don't think a script like this would ever get the green light in Hollywood today. Too much talk, not enough drama, nothing that really happens. In many ways it's more like a French film.

Walter Matthau is from that wonderful generation of fifties and sixties comic actors who could be over-the-top without overracting (Peter Sellers, Phil Silvers, Tony Hancock etc.). He manages to do this whilst never losing his grip on his characters and always managing to surprise with his subtle facial expressions and the comic timing of his movement.

Great performances and a great film.