A Touch of Class      

By Jeff Shannon

It's tame in hindsight, but A Touch of Class brought much-needed prestige to the romantic-comedy trend of the early and mid Super70s. Glenda Jackson won an Oscar for her performance as a savvy London divorcée who falls in love with married insurance agent George Segal, and the film surprised critics by earning a Best Picture nomination as well. Chemistry's the key, with Jackson and Segal equally adept at bickering and making up (and she even has a gay male friend, long before that became a genre cliché). What begins as a routine affair--complicated by a wide spectrum of lightly comedic pitfalls--ends with mutual love and the dilemma it creates. Writer-director Melvin Frank keeps the dialogue briskly intelligent, and while he can't match Neil Simon word for word, Touch mines the same romantic territory that was perfected in Simon's later hit The Goodbye Girl. Consider them a fine double bill, with A Touch of Class ranking a respectable second.

Academy Awards

A Touch of Class received an Academy Award for Actress (Glenda Jackson). A Touch of Class also received Academy Awards nominations for Best Picture (Melvin Frank - Producer), Writing (Best Story and Screenplay based on factual material or material not previously published or produced; Melvin Frank, Jack Rose), Music Scoring Awards (Best Original Dramatic Score; John Cameron) and Music Best Song (Georgie Barrie - Music, Sammy Cahn - Lyrics).

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