Movie of the Day: September 5, 2003

IMDb Movie of the Day
In the early 1970s, the world couldn't get enough of Glenda Jackson. Having made a splash in 1966 as the insane Charlotte Corday in the film version of Marat/Sade, Jackson won an Oscar in 1970 for her first big movie, Women in Love, and after that was seen always in high dramatic fashion. She played Tchaikovsky's deranged wife in The Music Lovers, a divorced woman in love with a bisexual sculptor in Sunday Bloody Sunday, and delivered a royal one-two punch as Queen Elizabeth in both Mary, Queen of Scots and the miniseries Elizabeth R. Looking to leave some of the angst behind, Jackson decided to try on a "big American comedy," as she called it. A throwback to the romantic comedies of old, gussied up with some 70s fashions and adultery, A Touch of Class starred Jackson as a saucy, successful career woman who embarks on a fling with a married American businessman (George Segal). What starts out as a romp turns into something deeper, even as the two keep bickering and making up, all the while trying to keep their affair under wraps. The adultery gag is played a little too broadly, as Hollywood was still flirting with the concept of cheating lovers as the basis for comedy, but Jackson -- witty, acerbic, suave and sexy -- rose serenely above the material. Proving she could play comedy just as adroitly as drama, Jackson won a surprise second Academy Award, besting dramatic performances by Barbra Streisand, Joanne Woodward, Ellen Burstyn and Marsha Mason. - Mark Englehart (more)

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