The Last Married Couple in America ** (1980, George Segal, Natalie Wood, Richard Benjamin, Valerie Harper, Bob Dishy, Dom DeLuise) – Classic Movie Review 11,191

Director Gilbert Cates’s 1980 comedy film The Last Married Couple in America stars George Segal and Natalie Wood as a sweet Californian Mr and Mrs (Jeff Thompson and Mari Thompson) whose happily married life falls to pieces because of their friends’ marriage failures and partner-swapping activities, as Mari’s alluring old college friend Barbara (Valerie Harper) attracts Jeff (Segal)’s eye away from Mari (Wood), prompting her to think of having an affair too.

The fun cast, with six really nice stars, is the whole show, brightening the sagging, rather outmoded script by John Herman Shaner and the tepid entertainment that comes from the mild sexual situations.

On a sour note, it comes complete with four rotten songs: Do You Think I’m Sexy, We Could Have It All, Got to Be Real and I’m Trippin’ On You. We Could Have It All, written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel and sung by Maureen McGovern, is the film’s theme song, becoming a minor hit.

Also in the cast are Valerie Harper, Bob Dishy, Dom DeLuise, Arlene Golonka, Allan Arbus, Marilyn Sokol, Oliver Clark, Priscilla Barnes, Mark Lonow, Sondra Currie, Catherine Hickland and Robert Wahler.

It is the last completed theatrical release Natalie Wood made before her death in 1981. Wood described the film as ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice ten years later’. Wood drowned off Santa Catalina Island on 29 November 1981, aged 43, during a holiday break from the production of Brainstorm (1983) with Christopher Walken on board Robert Wagner’s yacht Splendour.

Its $12,835,544 box office was considered a disappointment.

The Last Married Couple in America is directed by Gilbert Cates, runs 103 minutes, is made by Cates Brothers and Universal Pictures, is released by Universal Pictures (1980) (US) and Cinema International Corporation (CIC) (1980) (UK), is written by John Herman Shaner, is shot in Technicolor by Ralph Woolsey, is produced by Gilbert Cates (executive producer), Joseph Cates (executive producer), Edward S Feldman and John Herman Shaner, is scored by Charles Fox and designed by Gene Callahan (Production Design) and Peter Landsdown Smith [Peter Smith] (Art Direction).

George Segal.

RIP George Segal (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021). He is noted for King Rat (1965), Ship of Fools (1965), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), Where’s Poppa? (1970), The Hot Rock (1972), Blume in Love (1973), A Touch of Class (1973), California Split (1974), For the Boys (1991), Flirting with Disaster (1996), and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,191

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com