Divorce American Style

1967

An acerbic satire about the state of American marriage and divorce. Written by Norman Lear and Robert Kaufman, it tackles the at-the-time controversial topic of divorce with humor, and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Lear would go on to perfect this formula in television, creating numerous legendary sitcoms such as All in the Family and The Jeffersons that confront uncomfortable topics using comedy as a foil.

Perhaps because I never heard a peep about this movie from my dad, I expected this movie to be bad, and with low expectations I was pleasantly surprised. It's technically polished, it's actually funny at times, and yes, it is dated. If you can look past the he-vs-she cliches of the 1960s, centering men (of course), I think it's a lot of fun.

I love the opening of this film. Cars, cars, cars on the freeway, immediately you know it's LA. Reminds me of La La Land, whose opening credits are a mad musical and visual tribute to the legendary Los Angeles traffic. (Damian Chazelle, did you see Divorce American Style?)

As the opening credits roll, cars drive through a hilly neighborhood, parking in their respective driveways, men exiting their cars to their houses, with children or their toys in the yard. One car drives up to a grassy hill. A man gets out and walks to the top of the hill, opens his briefcase, dons a black gown, grabs a baton and, overseeing his orchestra of houses he cues the music and boom! main title "Divorce American Style" lands, followed by a symphony of petty domestic arguments. On closer look, his briefcase says, Judge Arthur A. Vernal. Good fun. ( I must note that most of the bickering is from the wives. Another sign of who is telling this story – men.)

The plot

Dick van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds play a married couple, Richard and Barbara Von Harmon, in that stale bickering stage of a marriage that those of us who have been married a while might know. After yet another late-night spat, Richard leaves the house and divorce is suddenly on the table. Jason, as Nelson, shows up nearly halfway through the film at the bowling alley, and targets Richard as a divorcé like himself. He hopes to set Richard up with his ex-wife Nancy, played by Jean Simmons, so he can be relieved of his alimony payments, which are rendering him broke, driving an old car and unable to afford knee surgery even though he has a prominent job.

There is a rueful sense of humor in this movie, perhaps from the lived experience of the screenwriter and producer Norman Lear, who himself divorced more than once. The conceit is that decent, hardworking, successful men are bankrupted by their wives who choose to divorce them. Wives who don't know how good they have it. And with divorce proceedings, mayhem ensues. Hardly anyone is spared the critical eye – neighbors, lawyers, suitors – except the children, who are often wiser and more resilient than expected.

Divorce, Robards Style

My dad undoubtedly related to this storyline. In 1966 when they were in production, he is five years married to his third wife, Lauren Bacall, and paying alimony and child support for three of his children to his first wife, Eleanore, and alimony to his second wife, Rachel, to whom he was married just two weeks.

From his 1980 transcript:

"[I]n those days, I was practically overlapping my marriages. It was like I couldn't go out with a girl without marrying her. Once, I was getting a divorce on a Thursday, and getting married on Friday, and I told my father. He said, "Jesus Christ, Jason. Can't you give yourself a weekend off, just once?" I don't know what it was. I just had to have something."

There is more to tell about these marriages than just their breakdown, but suffice it to say he was often underwater financially due to alimony and child support, even with plenty of work.

From his memoir transcripts, 1980:

All these financial ties to my ex-wives were driving me crazy.

There was a time when Rachel [wife#2] was threatening to attach my salary because I was behind in my alimony. It wasn't because I didn't plan to, I just didn't have enough money. So I had to have Eleanore [first wife] go down and attach my salary, so she could get it rather than Rachel. I wanted Eleanore to have it, because of her problems, and because she had children. But that was the worst. That was when I had to wonder: What have I got? I'd go up on the stage and work my ass off, then go down to the box office and ask someone to lend me 10 bucks. I was the leading member of the company, but I never saw the money.

Once, they slapped a summons on me at the curtain call. Those are bad moments. I was up there taking my bows. This fine gentleman appears out of nowhere, in front of the whole audience....Then I'd go out and get drunk, because I didn't want to think about any of it.

So yeah, he probably related. (Not to mention his middle name is Nelson.) That said, Divorce American Style is a film of its time, not misogynist but definitely most sympathetic to the male side of marriage and divorce. The film portrays women divorcing men for trivial reasons like "emotional connection," and, once divorced, living high on the hog, while their decent, hard-working ex-husbands suffer.

In the past, divorce did impact husbands financially due to spousal and family support defaulting to them, and this was absolutely true for my dad, and I'm sure others. There is more than a grain of truth to this movie, without fully telling the other side. In 1966, women weren't allowed to hold a credit card or bank account in their own name and earned 59 cents to a man's dollar in the workplace, among other inequalities. Today, statistically women are the ones who financially suffer the most from a divorce, even though women initiate divorce more often. As a "gay divorcee" myself, I can attest that modern "equal distribution" law in divorce resulted in my ex walking away with plenty.

Finally, can we agree that very few people initiate divorce for trivial reasons? It's an incredibly difficult thing to go through, for the whole family, even if the end result is vastly healthier and happier.

Don't you "Look-Nelson" me!

So, this movie is a lighthearted poke at marriage and especially divorce. In a twist, Dick van Dyke has opportunities to play the straight man, and Robards has opportunities to play funny. Perhaps from watching all the tragic drunks my dad has played, I delight seeing him go all-in on a comedic drunk scene, when he barges in on his ex-wife, Nancy (Simmons) and Richard, who are finally making a connection. I had a good laugh at his line: "Don't youuuu 'Look-Nelson' me!"

Dick Van Dyke, known for his physical comedy, has way more range and subtlety than I expected. And there's plenty of room for DVD's classic schtick, love it or hate it. But it's almost weird to see DVD being the more subdued actor, especially when Robards is in the scene with him. Perhaps that was the director's instruction, a role reversal of sorts. Sometimes the dissonance of Van Dyke being serious and Robards nervously laughing all the time makes the scenes feel a little off, but it doesn't mar the picture overall.

Jean Simmons and Debbie Reynolds are class acts in every scene they are in, and I think they make the guys better. Debbie and Dick are really wonderful together. In an expertly crafted early scene, they are getting ready for bed, doing all those mundane toiletries, and with almost no dialogue their body language shows the disharmony in their relationship without saying a word. Not my usual thing, but I guess I was feeling open-minded.

Sadly, Dad and Debbie only are in one scene together, a group scene, though it sounds like they got to know each other. In her book Unsinkable, Debbie recounted that Dick and Dad would come to her house in Malibu where they would laugh, drink and sing. Apparently Dad would sing along to the Mame soundtrack. Love it.

Like Debbie and Dick, Jean and Jason also play off of each other beautifully, but in a different style. There's a naturalism and warmth. I don't think they worked together before this film, but they went on to work on four other projects. One quirky film, Mr. Sycamore, and two TV movies, including Inherit the Wind, which I very much look forward to revisiting. I know they had a longstanding mutual affection for one another (entirely professional), and he would mention how breathtaking she was as Estella in David Lean's Great Expectations, her film debut. I agree with him there, and personally have great affection for her voicing of Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki.

Bud Yorkin and Normal Lear crafted several funny set pieces in this film, and one can easily see why they moved successfully to episodic comedy. In All in the Family and The Jeffersons, they mastered the art of moving between naturalism and slapstick, here it's not fully honed. Like these sitcoms, in Divorce American Style, almost everyone and everything is playfully lambasted, and lawyers are certainly not spared:

Jason personally had his share of unhelpful lawyers, from his 1980 transcripts:

"She [Rachel] had tough lawyers. My lawyers were all drunks I'd met in bars. I had one lawyer I'd met out drinking. I loved the guy....He was one of the guys you'd meet at Harry Hope's (from The Iceman Cometh) so naturally I fell right for him.

We went to a meeting with Rachel's lawyers one day, and he's in there shaking with a hangover, and those guys were rolling right over us. I said, "Holy shit, I'm really in trouble now." I couldn't stand it any longer, watching the poor guy squirm. So I said, "Jack, don't make it hard on yourself. Let them have it. I don't give a shit. Let's go over to the Palace and have a drink." So we left and went over to the Palace, and got loaded. Then went to have some Chinese food. So that was another yellowdog contract I got myself into."

As I mentioned before, Dad did his best to uphold his financial duty to all three ex-wives and all four children for many decades. To make ends meet, he would do what he called "alimony movies". Literally to pay the alimony. These were the particular stinkers, like Hurricane, that would pay all the bills between plays. The play's always the thing for Dad.

However, Divorce American Style is not an "alimony movie" – it's a polished and genuine effort by all parties. If you watch this through the correct lens, it's a lighthearted farce poking fun at both marriage and divorce, very much a product of its time. Recommend.

Connections:

Jean Simmons appeared again with Jason in Mr Sycamore 1975, The Easter Promise 1975, Inherit the Wind 1988

Norman Lear again as producer and writer, cast Jason in The Night They Raided Minsky's, 1968. I'm surprised to learn that Lear and Robards worked together again.

Ferris Webster, editor for Hour of the Gun 1967 – I wonder if he was sick of seeing my dad's face after two movies in one year! (He also edited some really big movies! The Manchurian Candidate, Magnificent Seven, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof among many.)

Then/Now:

Stay tuned, researching Columbia Pictures lot – now Sony Pictures lot.

The Westfield Topanga Plaza, where Debbie Reynolds' character meets up with her friend, is still standing! Opened in 1964, it was the first major indoor shopping center in Southern California. It no longer has an ice rink or the huge indoor waterfall. Here's a little historical video in case you're really interested: