Monday, June 6, 2011

James Caan, Marsha Mason & Valerie Harper in Chapter Two (1979)

Obscurity factor: 8

Successful author George Schneider (Caan) has recently lost his wife and is having trouble getting back into life. His brother Leo (Joseph Bologna) urges him to go out with other women and fixes him up with actress Jennie MacLaine. While the two hit it off, George has trouble reconciling the relationship with the grief he feels about his wife's passing. Meanwhile Leo has started dating Jennie's friend Faye (Harper). Can the two couples navigate love, loss and dating in the 70's?

This is one of Neil Simon's lesser known films, and there's some charm to be had from it. Marsha Mason is charming as the slightly neurotic actress and though James Caan is a bit wooden, his natural charisma comes through. Harper and Bologna are delightful as the second leads. 

This film is not yet available on DVD, though there is a VHS release of it out. It can also be seen in full on YouTube, though the uploader has disabled embedding, so you'll have to click this link to see it. A television commercial for the film is above, uploaded to YouTube by robatsee2009. The poster above is from Romanian site gk.ro.

Obscurity factor: 8 (not on DVD, not one of Simon's better known films, available on YouTube)

2 comments:

  1. I saw this in the theater at the time of its release. The only thing I remember is how everyone thought Valerie Harper looked way too thin.

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  2. Yes, she's super thin in this one. You can see her vertebrae in one scene.

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