Mature Movies, Hollywood Style

The most popular film currently on our screens is Blake Edwards’s 10, about an aging bachelor, George (Dudley Moore), a pop-song composer living in reasonable, if not close, harmony with Sam, his girlfriend of similarly mature years but also, unlike him, mature attitudes (Julie Andrews), and his lyric writer, a likewise aging fellow who, however, is a homosexual and has troubles with his young lover. Then George spots Jenny (Bo Derek), the perfect 11 on a scale of one to ten, and becomes intransi- gently infatuated with her on what turns out to be her wedding day. Through a series of intricate farcical maneuvers he manages to move into the same Mexican hotel where Jenny is honeymooning, and then, even closer, into her bed—only to discover that a featherweight brain and fly-by-night sex are a turnoff. Predictably, he ends up with Sam, who simmers downs and forgives.

The plot is simple and old, which would not matter if Edwards, who wrote as well as directed it, were not simplistic and old-hat. On the one hand, 10 attempts to be a seriocomic examination of midlife crisis, our sexual mores, and what constitutes, in the parlous new parlance, a meaningful relationship; on the other, both Moore and Edwards are farceurs for whom the basic unit is not the scenario but the skit, the blackout sketch, the gimmick. Hence there is not so much a plot based on the interaction and development of characters as a concatenation of funny and not so funny bits, often unrelated to the profile of the action and strung together with a looseness that courts promiscuity.

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John Simon

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The most popular film currently on our screens is Blake Edwards’s 10, about an aging bachelor, George (Dudley Moore), a pop-song composer living in reasonable, if not close, harmony with Sam, his girlfriend of similarly mature years but also, unlike him, mature attitudes (Julie Andrews), and his lyric writer, a likewise aging fellow who, however, is a homosexual and has troubles with his young lover. Then George spots Jenny (Bo Derek), the perfect 11 on a scale of one to ten, and becomes intransi- gently infatuated with her on what turns out to be her wedding day. Through a series of intricate farcical maneuvers he manages to move into the same Mexican hotel where Jenny is honeymooning, and then, even closer, into her bed—only to discover that a featherweight brain and fly-by-night sex are a turnoff. Predictably, he ends up with Sam, who simmers downs and forgives.

The plot is simple and old, which would not matter if Edwards, who wrote as well as directed it, were not simplistic and old-hat. On the one hand, 10 attempts to be a seriocomic examination of midlife crisis, our sexual mores, and what constitutes, in the parlous new parlance, a meaningful relationship; on the other, both Moore and Edwards are farceurs for whom the basic unit is not the scenario but the skit, the blackout sketch, the gimmick. Hence there is not so much a plot based on the interaction and development of characters as a concatenation of funny and not so funny bits, often unrelated to the profile of the action and strung together with a looseness that courts promiscuity.