Main Cast: Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Bill Cosby, Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Richard Pryor, Maggie Smith
Release Year: 1978
Country: US
Run Time: 103 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Playwright Neil Simon turned to the hotel setting he used so successfully in his stage-play (later a movie) Plaza Suite to explore four more human dramas in his play California Suite, which was adapted into this quite successful movie. In the first episode, the divorced couple of Bill and Hannah Warren (Alan Alda and Jane Fonda) have rented a suite in a posh Beverly Hills hotel in order to have a discussion about who will get the custody of their child. In the next episode, Sidney Cochran and Diana Barrie (Michael Caine and Maggie Smith) are a hilarious pair of Hollywood stars who have rented the suite to await their appearance at the Academy Awards: it is a "date of convenience" which enables the sexually adventurous duo to conduct their other, more unconventional alliances out of the public eye. Drs. Willis Panama and Chauncy Gump (Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor) have brought their families to Beverly Hills for a vacation which takes on nightmarish tone. Finally, Marvin Michaels (Walter Matthau) tries frantically and unsuccessfully to explain the situation to his wife (Elaine May) when she catches him in flagrante delicto with a hooker. Actress Maggie Smith won an Academy Award as "Best Supporting Actress" for her role in this film, in which she plays the actress waiting to win . . . an Academy Award. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Review
Whether adapting his own plays or writing directly for the screen, Neil Simon was one of the few writers who could draw an audience on his name alone. The typical Simon script combines humor, sentimentality, and pace in ways that Hollywood (and audiences) often found hard to resist. Directed by veteran Herbert Ross and featuring a large cast of big-name actors and immediately accessible character situations, California Suite was destined to be, and in fact was, a popular film. A derivative of Simon's successful 1971 Plaza Suite (three vignettes set in a Manhattan hotel), California Suite is four intercut vignettes set in a Beverly Hill Hotel. Although the four stories appear to be crisscrossed for no reason, and some flounder badly at times, Maggie Smith, who won an Oscar for her role as an aging actress, and Michael Caine steal the show -- a significant achievement considering such talents as Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Walter Matthau, Elaine May, Jane Fonda, and Alan Alda are also on the bill. Simon was nominated for an Academy Award for the script based on his own play (his third nomination in four years). ~ Brendon Hanley, All Movie Guide
Elaine May - Millie Michaels; Gloria E. Gifford - Lola Gump; Sheila Frazier - Bettina Panama; Herb Edelman - Harry Michaels; Army Archerd - Himself; Gino Ardito - Plumber; Nora Boland - Passenger; Michael Boyle - Desk Clerk; Judith Brown - Oscar Winner; Brian Cummings - Autograph Seeker; Buddy Douglas - Page; Denise Galik - Bunny; Rita Gomez - Maid; Kelly Harmon; John Hawker - Sky Cap; Gary Hendrix - Oscar Winner's Date; Len Lawson - Frank; David Matthau - Bellboy; Tawny Moyer - Stewardess; Lupe Ontiveros - Maid; Christopher Pennock - Policeman; Dana Plato - Jenny; David Rini - Airline Rep.; Jack Scanlan - P.R. Man; David Sheehan - Himself; Clint Young - Doorman; James Espinoza - Busboy; Tina Menard - Maid; James Coburn; Bert May; Eddie Villery - Waiter; Jerrold Ziman - Man on Phone
Credit
Ronald L. Schwary - Associate Producer, Pat Norris - Costume Designer, Ann Roth - Costume Designer, Jack Roe - First Assistant Director, Herbert Ross - Director, Margaret Booth - Editor, Michael A. Stevenson - Editor, Claude Bolling - Composer (Music Score), Charles Schram - Makeup, Albert Brenner - Production Designer, David M. Walsh - Cinematographer, Ronald L. Schwary - Production Manager, Ronald L. Schwary - Producer, Raymond Stark - Producer, Marvin March - Set Designer, Robert Dawson - Special Effects, Al Overton, Jr. - Sound/Sound Designer, Neil Simon - Screenwriter, Neil Simon - Play Author
In Visitors from New York, Hannah Warren is a Manhattanworkaholic who flies to Los Angeles to retrieve her teenaged daughter Jenny after she leaves home to live with her successful screenwriter father Bill. The bickering divorced couple is forced to decide what living arrangements are best for the girl.
In Visitors from London, Diana Barrie is a British actress and a first-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actress, an honor that could jumpstart her faltering career, although she knows she doesn't have a chance of winning. She is in deep denial about the true nature of her marriage of convenience to Sidney Cochran, a once-closeted antique dealer who has become increasingly indiscreet about his sexual preference. As she prepares for her moment in the spotlight, her mood fluctuates from hope to panic to despair.
In Visitors from Philadelphia, conservative middle-aged businessman Marvin Michaels awakens to discover a prostitute named Bunny - an unexpected gift from his brother Harry - unconscious in his bed. With his wife Millie on her way up to the suite, he must find a way to conceal all traces of his uncharacteristic indiscretion.
In Visitors from Chicago, Dr. Chauncey Gump and his wife Lola and Dr. Willis Panama and his wife Bettina are taking a much-needed vacation together. Things begin to unravel quickly when everything seems to go wrong and the two men decide to settle their differences by engaging in a very competitive mixed doublestennis match.
Vincent Canby of the New York Times called it "the most agreeably realized Simon film in years" and added, "Here is Mr. Simon in top form, under the direction of Herbert Ross, one of the few directors . . . who can cope with the particular demands of material that simultaneously means to be touching and so nonstop clever one sometimes wants to gag him. It all works in California Suite, not only because the material is superior Simon, but also because the writer and the director have assembled a dream cast." [1]
Variety observed, "Neil Simon and Herbert Ross have gambled in radically altering the successful format of California Suite as it appeared on stage. Instead of four separate playlets, there is now one semi-cohesive narrative revolving around visitors to the Beverly Hills Hotel . . . The technique is less than successful, veering from poignant emotionalism to broad slapstick in sudden shifts." [2]
Time Out New York described the film as "quick and varied comedy, highly suited to Neil Simon's machine-gun gag-writing" and added, "Fonda provides the film with its centre, giving another performance of unnerving sureness. Also on the credit side is a bedroom farce of epic proportions from Matthau and May. The other vignettes are a bit glum." [3]
Channel 4 said, "It's an expertly crafted slick movie that sets up each of its coconuts and knocks them over with a sure eye, but ultimately it's emotional sushi rather than satisfying catharsis." [4]
The film was released on DVD on Region 1 DVD on January 2, 2002. It is in anamorphic widescreen format with audio tracks in English and French and subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai. There are no bonus features.
