Main Cast: Bea Arthur, Bonnie Bedelia, Michael Brandon, Richard S. Castellano
Release Year: 1970
Country: US
Run Time: 106 minutes
MPAA Rating: GP
Plot
Lovers and Other Strangers became a "sleeper" hit, based on a play by Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The story is essentially a series of vignettes and anecdotes, unified by an impending marriage. Father of the bride Hal (Gig Young) has problems with his long-suffering mistress, Cathy (Anne Jackson), who spends much of the film sitting on the toilet, crying her eyes out; Wilma (Anne Meara), the bride's sex-starved sister, can't wrest her husband, Johnny (Harry Guardino), away from the TV; and Frank (Richard S. Castellano), as the groom's father, slips comfortably into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations with his oft-repeated query "So what's the story?" Twelfth-billed Diane Keaton makes her film debut as a garrulous wedding guest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
This warm, scraggly film indicates the gradual shift in Hollywood depictions of the modern family away from melodramatic, Peyton Place-style storytelling toward a looser, funnier vision of American clans, inspired by the 1960s. A stellar array of character actors and newcomers populate the cast -- including Anne Meara, Cloris Leachman, Richard Castellano, and Diane Keaton, in her first film role -- and director Cy Howard is adroit at cutting among the various incidents leading up to the wedding of naïfs Bonnie Bedelia and Michael Brandon. Though based on a play, Lovers is rarely stagy; screenwriters Joseph Bologna, David Zelag Goodman, and Renée Taylor would be nominated for an Academy Award for their work, as would future Godfather fixture Castellano, for Best Supporting Actor. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Albert Wolsky - Costume Designer, Cy Howard - Director, David Bretherton - Editor, Sidney Katz - Editor, Fred Karlin - Composer (Music Score), Arthur James - Songwriter, Robb Royer - Songwriter, James Griffin - Songwriter, Ben Edwards - Production Designer, Andrew Laszlo - Cinematographer, David Susskind - Producer, John Alan Hicks - Set Designer, James Shields - Sound/Sound Designer, Joseph Bologna - Screenwriter, Renée Taylor - Screenwriter, David Zelag Goodman - Screenwriter, Joseph Bologna - Play Author, Renée Taylor - Play Author
Lovers and Other Strangers was released by ABC Pictures. It was released on VHS in 1980 by Magnetic Video, but soon went out of print. The Magnetic Video release was a collector's item for many years, but the film was eventually re-released on VHS by CBS/Fox Video in the 1990s. It is now available on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment.
Upon seeing this film, Richard Carpenter set about recording the song played during the wedding scene, For All We Know with his sister Karen. "Karen and I were in Toronto to open the show for Engelbert Humperdinck. We had one night off before opening and our manager Sherwin Bash suggested we see the film Lovers And Other Strangers. We enjoyed the film and noticed the song For All We Know which we recorded upon our return home. (It subsequently won an Oscar for Best Song of 1970)."[1]
Taylor and Bologna followed up with their second screenplay the following year, Made for Each Other in which they also starred.
Synopsis
Lovers and Other Strangers revolves around the wedding of Mike (Michael Brandon) and Susan (Bonnie Bedelia), intercutting their story with those of other couples among their families and friends. As the movie opens, Mike wants to call off the wedding, arguing that it would be hypocritical for them to get married when they’ve already been living together for a year and a half. He only relents when Susan's father, Hal (Gig Young), tells him how Susan went to her first Halloween party dressed as a bride.
Over the course of the movie, we meet:
Susan's WASP-ish parents, Hal and Bernice (Cloris Leachman). Hal, we learn, is having a long-running extramarital affair with Bernice's sister, Kathy (Anne Jackson), who is afraid of being left as a spinster and is using the wedding to get some commitment from Hal.
Susan's sister, Wilma (Anne Meara), and her husband Johnny (Harry Guardino). with two children, Wilma is feeling her age and misses the passion they had at the beginning of their marriage, while Johnny is more interested in watching Spellbound on TV than giving his wife attention.
Mike's brother, Richie (Joseph Hindy) and his wife, Joan (Diane Keaton), who have grown “incompatible” and “unhappy” and are considering divorce.
Bridesmaid Brenda (Marian Hailey) and usher Jerry (Bob Dishy), who Mike and Susan “fix up” for the wedding. Nebbishy Jerry imagines himself a playboy, and spends most of the weekend trying to “score” with Brenda.
The movie's funniest moments – and best lines – belong to Mike's Italian-American parents, Frank (Richard Castellano) and Bea (Beatrice Arthur), who are relentlessly trying to persuade Richie and Joan not to get divorced. (Castellano, who repeated his role from the Broadway play, received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role.)
All the plot lines play out through the rehearsal, wedding, and reception.
