LUV

US, 1967, 95 minutes, Colour.
Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk, Elaine May, Nina Wayne, Eddie Mayehoff, Paul Hartman, Severn Darden.
Directed by Clive Donner.

Luv is based on a play by Murray Schisgal. Successful on stage, not so successful in cinema adaptation. A more successful adaptation of Schisgal material was in Arthur Hiller's The Tiger Makes Out.

This is a '60s black comedy - just before black comedy was more acceptable to the public. However, while the stage play is opened up for the colour Panavision screen, the stage contrivances remain strongly and seem to be at odds with the realistic look of the film. Within this context, Jack Lemmon gives a vigorous performance. It is a variation on so many of his comic and serious themes e.g. Save The Tiger, The Entertainer. Peter Falk does his turn as usual. Elaine May, at a time when she was most successful in improvised comedy routines on stage with Mike Nicholls, gives a more subdued but successful performance. There is a variation jazz musical score by Gerry Mulligan and direction is by Englishman Clive Donner. Donner had adapted Pinter for the screen with The Caretaker. Had made successful films like Nothing But The Best as well as the eccentricities of Woody Allen's What's New Pussycat. Donner was to make serious films like Alfred The Great and Rogue Male with Peter O'Toole. However, he worked much more with eccentric and visually eccentric comedies: Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, Vampira, The Nude Bomb, Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen.

1. The tone of the title, its spelling, indications of parody and mock? Realism and irony? The point of the title and the themes of the film?

2. Audience response to black comedy? American satire? One critic called it wrist-cutting comedy - how exact is this? Laughing at and laughing with? Contrivances, exaggerated situations and characters? The jolt to the average audience?

3. The '60s and black comedy - changing society, more awareness of the bleakness of life, the morals revolution? How does the film reflect the questions of the '60s?

4. The play was successful - the adaptation of the play to the screen? The use of very artificial stage conventions, parallelisms? Talk? Satire? The unreality of the conventions compared with colour Panavision? The performances of the stars? The opening up of the New York city and suburban world?

5. Jack Lemmon's style as Harry - on the bridge contemplating suicide, the oddball American type, the explanation of his past, his being saved accidentally by Milt? The friendship and then his being used by Milt? The meal and the encounter? The irony of the Flamenco dancing, the falling in love? The divorce and the wedding? The satire with the Niagara Falls setting and the testing of love by destruction? Her work and Harry being a slob at home? His interest in medicine and his using the cellar for experiments? The confrontation and his getting the job lift-driving and the comic chaos? His being a victim for murder? The rescue? Harry as a realistic character, as a depressed and suicidal type?

6. Elaine May's performance as the wife? Seeing her with her make-up and Milt, her charts and lecturing Milt, her dressing for dinner, the encounter with Harry at the meal and the Flamenco dancing etc.? The divorce and the property settlement? The pain of breaking with Milt? The motives for marrying Harry? Her response to the tests of love at Niagara? Her capacity for running things? The decision to meet Milt, the plan for the meal, the disaster of the meal? The farce on the bridge? An American woman- realistically, type?

7. Peter Falk's style as Milt? Collecting trash for sale, the encounter with Harry on the bridge, his incessant talking, his wheeler-dealing especially with his wife? Her confronting him? His deception of her with the Phys. Ed. teacher? Property settlement, divorce? The humour of the wedding? The Phys. Ed. teacher becoming a slob? His needing money? Seeing him in his office and his pretending to sit on the chair? Letting the furniture go and losing his wife? The encounter with his wife at the market, the plan for the Japanese meal? The farcical sequences on the bridge and his going into the water? Satirical type?

8. The Phys. Ed. teacher and her affair with Milt, her wedding and her becoming a slob, losing the furniture, leaving? The encounter with Harry at the lift? The fiasco of the meal? Her running on the bridge and being involved in the resolution?

9. The background characters - the two men collecting the trash and doing the deals in the home, in the office? The business manager and the checking accounts with Milt? The shoppers? The Japanese restaurant?

10. The impact of the confined and contrived patterns on screen - husband and wife, break-up, the desire to return to each other by husband and wife and getting rid of the other parties? Much ado about returning to the original state of affairs? Patterns of love, change, proof of love. affirmation?

11. The incidentals for the style of the film - devices for editing, use of advertisements, television, atmosphere of Niagara Falls, the selling of trash, shops? The atmosphere of the musical score?

12. Critics considered the film a failure - a just decision? Entertaining? Satirical point?