There's one scene where Walter Matthau's character is having a heart-attack and when Jill Clayburgh asks him if he's OK, he replies with a smile on the face that he likes all that. I can say that "First Monday In October" is just like this situation, I can say that I liked some things of the film but I'm gonna say with a painful expression on my face.
Matthau and Clayburgh are wonderful but the movie doesn't fly high in imagination and in space simply because it's a filmed play, with long dialogs that neither were interesting or too funny to be put on the screen to be classified as a comedy on serious matters like the election of a female judge to occupy a seat in the Supreme Court. The subject is too serious to be taken fun of, in fact, I've never seen a movie with this theme being hilariously funny without being a goofy comedy (except the last minutes of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" which is brilliant).
Ronald Neame directs a boring plot, with some sparkles between the main characters who exchange great lines about court ethics on trials, and specially about Matthau's conduct in not watching a obscene film called "The Nymphomaniac Naked" which was the case whether that film was pornography or an art film; the "fake" trial where Matthau plays the director of such film is the most memorable moment of the film; and the funniest being the scene where all the judges are taking a photograph which seems to be an impossible mission to the photographer since all the characters can't stop arguing and laughing at each other over their different points of view.
"First Monday In October" is 80% drama and 20% comedy, as you see there's no balance between the two genres and that's why it was difficult to swallow and digest the film as being a good film; it almost got there, but I was expecting something like "House Calls", a previous work starring Matthau and Glenda Jackson, that had a rivalry that later becomes a romance between the two, and with some dramatic moments, without killing the humor away. Instead, all I've got was an almost dated subject with few humor, vast quantity of drama, touching performances. It goes into many ways to end up being humorless. Made to be as substitute for sleeping pills. 5/10
Matthau and Clayburgh are wonderful but the movie doesn't fly high in imagination and in space simply because it's a filmed play, with long dialogs that neither were interesting or too funny to be put on the screen to be classified as a comedy on serious matters like the election of a female judge to occupy a seat in the Supreme Court. The subject is too serious to be taken fun of, in fact, I've never seen a movie with this theme being hilariously funny without being a goofy comedy (except the last minutes of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" which is brilliant).
Ronald Neame directs a boring plot, with some sparkles between the main characters who exchange great lines about court ethics on trials, and specially about Matthau's conduct in not watching a obscene film called "The Nymphomaniac Naked" which was the case whether that film was pornography or an art film; the "fake" trial where Matthau plays the director of such film is the most memorable moment of the film; and the funniest being the scene where all the judges are taking a photograph which seems to be an impossible mission to the photographer since all the characters can't stop arguing and laughing at each other over their different points of view.
"First Monday In October" is 80% drama and 20% comedy, as you see there's no balance between the two genres and that's why it was difficult to swallow and digest the film as being a good film; it almost got there, but I was expecting something like "House Calls", a previous work starring Matthau and Glenda Jackson, that had a rivalry that later becomes a romance between the two, and with some dramatic moments, without killing the humor away. Instead, all I've got was an almost dated subject with few humor, vast quantity of drama, touching performances. It goes into many ways to end up being humorless. Made to be as substitute for sleeping pills. 5/10