London Suite [Neil Simon’s London Suite] * (1996, Kelsey Grammer, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus) – Classic Movie Review 8021

A very good cast is dreadfully wasted in director Jay Sandrich’s naff, turgid and woeful 1996 comedy London Suite, an adaptation of Neil Simon’s follow-up to his hilarious plays and films California Suite and Plaza Suite. Its tourists’ eye view of London is as old-fashioned and pathetic as its jokes.

Poor Kelsey Grammer is embarrassed and embarrassing as Sidney, the English gay character played by Michael Caine in California Suite, in love with a Swiss abstract artist on the isle of Mykonos, hitting his ex-wife Diana (Patricia Clarkson) for money (wittily she calls the island ‘Mickey Mouse’). With even the super Madeline Kahn (as Sharon Semple) and Richard Mulligan (as Dennis Cummings) rotten, William Franklyn is about the only saving grace as the hotel manager.

This is the kind of contemptuous movie that shows that if you walk west along Westminster Gardens towards Pimlico you apparently reach a restaurant overlooking Tower Bridge! Londoners and gays should stand by to be offended – or better still watch something else. How could the once so talented Simon have completely lost his ability to be funny or write a single line of amusing dialogue?

Also in the cast are Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julie Hagerty, Jane Carr, Paxton Whitehead, Michael Richards, Kristen Johnston, Jonathan Silverman, Margot Steinberg, Janine Duvitsky, Robert McBain, Deborah Moore, Rolf Saxon and Virginia Stride.

The four playlets in London Suite are Going Home, Settling Accounts, Diana and Sidney and The Man on the Floor. The Diana and Sidney characters are based on those in California Suite, played by Maggie Smith (who won an Oscar) and Michael Caine.

London Suite [Neil Simon’s London Suite] (1996) is directed by Jay Sandrich, runs 95 minutes, is made by Hallmark Entertainment and Metropolitan Productions, is written by Neil Simon, is shot by Denis C Lewiston, is produced by Robert Halmi Sr and Greg Smith, and is scored by Lee Holdridge.

London Suite is one of three 1996 made for TV Neil Simon adaptations, the others being Jake’s Women (1996) and The Sunshine Boys (1996), all made by Hallmark Entertainment and Metropolitan Productions. It is the second of two Neil Simon films directed by Jay Sandrich following Seems Like Old Times (1980). It is the fourth of Neil Simon’s four Suite movies following Plaza Suite (1971), California Suite (1978), and the remake of Plaza Suite  (1987).

The source play premiered at the Seattle Repertory Theatre on 12 October 1994 running to 5 November 1994. The original New York production opened off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre on 28 March 1995 and ran for 169 performances to 3 September 1995. 

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 8021

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