First Monday in October
Added 9/15/2008
Fantastic movie! Sound track was outstanding. Walter Matthau and Jill Clayburgh had some nice chemistry going throughout the movie! Loved it!
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Romance at the Court
Added 10/14/2007
I have loved this movie since it first came out. Walter Matthau and Jill Clayburgh are wonderful together. The supreme court makes an unusual backdrop for the romantic plot.
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soothing smart comedy
Added 8/23/2007
I've watched this movie on film, videotape and now finally on DVD. It's Matthau at his best as an old, crochety, witty supreme court justice who is forced to work with a woman for the first time. It holds up over the years and is one of those films you want to put on when you just want to forget the world, calm your nerves, and enjoy something that makes you feel good. The same for another Matthau movie "Hopscotch" which I'm waiting for on DVD. You'll enjoy this for sure.
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First Monday in October
Added 2/3/2007
This title arrived in a timely fashion and was greatly enjoyed by my husband who loves the scene about the wallpaper. Thanks to Amazaon I was able to replace a lost item in his library.
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See the Lysol Lady of Orange County
Added 1/16/2007
Long before Sandra Day O'Conner (In 1981 President Reagan appointed her to the U.S. Supreme Court) there was a play about the first woman on the Supreme Court.
This movie "First Monday in October" (1981) chronicles the potential problems of allowing such a radical act to happen. It involves momentum engines and cabals. This is a great supporting cast; try to remember where you saw them before.
Justice Dan Snow (Walter Matthau) and Justice Ruth Hagadorn Loomis (Jill Clayburgh) play off each other as they are politically polarized (not necessarily left vs. right) over several subjects. While banding around they come to realize that they have more in common personally than differences. The story shows how they learn from each other and cope with adversity. We have fun in the meantime watching the interaction.
Be sure to look for blue birds and cherry blossoms.
You may notice that we are also introduced to a large dose of Handle's Water Music. Most Walter Matthau chooses many classical pieces of music for his movies. This music was also played in the Charles and Camilla at the religious blessing.
Who Killed the Electric Car?
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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Outstanding
Added 1/20/2010
The script lets Walter hit all the right buttons. A jovial film about a sophisticated retiree "hopscotching" thru danger all over the world. Sparkles after all these years. Great cast! Viva Mozart
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The service was excellent and the DVD arrived in time for Christmas. HOPSCOTCH is a hilarious movie filled with action and suspense. This is one of my favorite movies!
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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"I think your friend Kendig has you well and truly by the short hairs."
Added 1/3/2010
Another Cold War espionage thriller but this one's got a sense of humor. HOPSCOTCH is fueled predominantly by Walter Matthau's performance. Glenda Jackson, then fresh off her pairing with Matthau from the wonderful HOUSE CALLS, steps in for a bit, but she doesn't get at all a lot of screen time. The few scenes Matthau and Jackson get to do together, you can see how well they play off each other. But, yes, this is predominantly a Walter Matthau vehicle. Without him, HOPSCOTCH falls flat on its face. Because the story? Feh.
Decades spent with the CIA as a veteran field operative, and Miles Kendig's independent streak finally gets him disciplined. But Kendig isn't about to take his demotion to desk jockey duty lying down. He erases his personal file and walks out on the agency... and then he starts writing his tell-all memoirs. This instantly targets him for elimination by the CIA. But, first, they have to catch him.
There's a sense of repetitiveness in the film. It boils down to Kendig first taunting and toying with his fellow spooks, then the pursuit, then the getaway. Rinse and repeat. It's one big running "Eff you" from Kendig to his overbearing ex-boss Myerson. And, without Matthau's steady presence and rumpled, sad-dog-faced charm, it would all have become pretty tiresome really quickly. Partly it's because the movie presents a series of lightweight cat & mouse games rather than the atmospheric skullduggery which pans out in heavy casualties. HOPSCOTCH lacks explosive action-packed encounters, and in fact no one buys the farm in this one. The tone is more amiable, never mind that Ned Beatty cusses up a storm as Kendig's primary and perpetually provoked antagonist Myerson. Beatty is very good, by the way, as is a young Sam Waterston who fleshes out Kendig's protégé. Not really at the level of and tonally different from taut spy classics like THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR and MARATHON MAN, HOPSCOTCH offers a less frenzied, more lighthearted look at the world of spooks and skullduggery. But really how many times can we roll with the protagonist tricking the CIA, FBI, and KGB silly thru the cunning subterfuge of assorted passports and messages left on a tape recorder? Walter Matthau makes it work.
The locations are a plus; it's a globe-trotting adventure, after all. We get to see Walter Matthau do his thing while framed in breathtaking locales in Salzburg, Bermuda, Munich, and London and Savannah. Referencing the film's tongue-in-cheeked flavor, note also the subtle touch in which the expression on a framed photo of Myerson keeps changing each time the camera falls on it, gradually going from smiley-faced to morose. Give it a look when you get a chance.
From the Criterion Collection, this DVD has the following bonus features: informative interviews with director Ronald Neame and writer Brian Garfield (who wrote the titular best-seller novel); an optional broadcast television audio track for those with more delicate ears; the original theatrical trailer and the teaser. The featurette with Neame and Garfield is really worth checking out, by the way, as both cats have some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits to tell. One of the fun facts we learn is that Walter Matthau loved listening to Mozart, this leading to his film character also being an avid Mozart fan. The calming strains of Mozart certainly lend a distinctive touch to this cloak & dagger caper. Not to mention, Matthau's singing along gruffly to "Largo al factotum" (the Figaro song) from The Barber of Seville. Walter Matthau a cultured snob? This guy's capable of anything.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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