Marriage-Go-Round

There are plenty of good things to go around in Lovers and Other Strangers, and most of those things are actors. The movie, which is slight but highly amusing stuff about the vagaries and hypocrisies of (yes, again) modern marriage, provides a first-rate showcase for some of the year's best ensemble acting. The cast, with a couple of obvious exceptions, is made up of actors whose concern with performance rather than appearance ought to send many of their colleagues scurrying back to acting class.

The plot is a somewhat chaotic contrivance, involving two kids (Michael Brandon and Bonnie Bedelia) who have lived together for a year and finally decide to get married. Her family provides them a stylish wedding but sets a terrible example. Father (Gig Young) is carrying on with mother's best friend (Anne Jackson). Brother (Joseph Hindy) and sister-in-law (Diane Keaton) are determined to divorce. The groom's father (Richard Castellano) explains he has never really been happy with his wife (Beatrice Arthur), while a bridesmaid (Marian Hailey) fights off the advances of a lecherous usher (Bob Dishy), and the bride's sister (Anne Meara) argues the virtues of feminine equality with her male-chauvinist husband (Harry Guardino).

Every one of the lovers and strangers is good, and there are a handful who are truly exceptional. Gig Young, who looks as if aged in alcohol, plays the suburban husband with just the right touch of craven satyriasis. Anne Jackson portrays his paramour with fine shades of comic realism, and Bob Dishy lunges about hilariously in pursuit of the superbly addled Marian Hailey. Harry Guardino plays his character with broad sympathy and a fine eye for detail, right down to his onyx pinkie ring.

Director Cy Howard, a former gagwriter, keeps things lively by providing his performers with shrewd bits of comic business. In one memorable interlude, Dishy, having finally conquered Miss Hailey, lies spent and sleepy on the bed. Miss Hailey wants to know if the interlude was really something more than merely physical. In his desperation to be rid of her, Dishy moves so far away from her that his head rests on the night table. If it lacks real depth, Lovers and Other Strangers also lacks pretension. It aims only to be thoroughly diverting, not definitive. And that's all right too.

-- Jay Cocks

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