This was already a 43-year-old play in this 1979 broadcast, and my viewing of it is 44 years after that. Being a TV broadcast of a play means minimal production values: broad lighting, no camera tricks, minimal music support. By today's standards, it looks pretty rough. The acting is pretty fair, but the script itself simply doesn't give anyone much to work with. Without a live audience to chuckle at the family's antics, the characters just come across self-absorbed rather than self-possessed. Which is too bad; in 1979, these actors were practically household names, with some four or five top shows between them. But without the clever writing that fueled those shows, the actors are largely left to cavorting across the stage, interrupting each other, and living out a philosophy afforded only because the grandfather has passive income.
End result: a play which in 1979 was already a curious relic of a certain social stratum at a certain time (i.e., those who could afford New York theaters during the Depression), and is now a curious collection of then-popular actors in something other than what they were known for. For some, this allowed some versatility from their iconic roles, but for most (if not all) -- this might as well have been lost forever. The best moments, however, do have some interest to them: the word game played when the fiance's parents come to dinner, and the family's respectful reaction to their visit from the grand duchess. Those two scenes raised my rating from 4 stars to five.
