Love American Style - Season 1, Vol. 1
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DVD Cover Information
Brand: ParamountDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
DVD Release Date: 2007-11-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Love American Style - Season 1, Vol. 1
Movie Review: Playing "Spot the Star"
Summary: 3 Stars
The distracting thing about "Love American Style" is that it is so very much a product of the `Swinging Sixties', and might set off a veritable tsunami of riotously amused laughter from one's offspring at the costumes, the haircuts and the sets, to say nothing of a round of cringing at the open and unashamed display of what was once held to be hip, mod, and up to date. The series is a peep into a world that may only seem to us to have been the day before yesterday, but was indisputably almost four decades ago.
For those who do not remember, or have forgotten - "Love American Style" was an hour long serio-comic anthology show, with three or four original short sketches dealing with love in its many aspects. Meeting, dating, marriage, jealousy, love requited and otherwise, sex - complicated and otherwise, flirting, the rules of engagement and attraction... the whole deal, told with varying degrees of pathos, wit and relevance. Was there ever a time when a gentleman host wore a coat, shirt and tie for a dinner tete a tete in his apartment? Yes there was. And there was also apparently a time when a gentleman could wear a paisley patterned shirt and plaid trousers without anyone nearby him wincing painfully at the sight. And the sets are ony a few short years from James Lilek's Interior Desecrations, Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70sin all their harvest gold and avocado green glory.
It's almost as much fun playing "spot the star" in this series, for there were many and some of them almost recognizable in their early careers - why, there is Harrison Ford, right along in the same episode from 1969 with Rich Little, Jane Wyatt and Dana Wynter. Other episodes feature stars of an earlier age - Margaret O'Brien, Sid Caesar, Broderick Crawford and Bob Crane, among the generous grab-bag of guest stars. This would make a splendid "spot the face you recognize" challenge for movie and TV trivia fans.
Summary of Love American Style - Season 1, Vol. 1
Love, American Style was an hour-long television anthology which originally aired between September 1969 and January 1974. For the 1971 and 1972 seasons it was a part of an ABC Friday prime-time lineup that also included Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room 222, and The Odd Couple. Each week, the show featured different stories of romance, usually with a comedic spin. All episodes were unrelated, featuring different characters, stories and locations. The show often featured the same actors playing different characters in many episodes. In addition a large and ornate brass bed was a recurring prop in many episodes. Charles Fox's delicate yet hip music score, featuring flutes, harp, and flugelhorn set to a contemporary pop beat, provided the "love" ambiance which tied the stories together as a multifaceted romantic comedy each week.No "I Love the '70s" party will be complete without this blast from the groovy past, when women were "chicks," beaded door curtains were cool, and Carl Betz got top billing over Harrison Ford. Love American Style was an anthology series of comedic playlets about modern love, some sweet (two shy ventriloquists let their dummies do the talking in "Love and the Dummies"), some silly (a greeting-card writer's romance is threatened by his penchant for practical jokes in "Love and the Joker"), and some mildly risqu? (In "Love and a Couple of Couples," a man regards his ex-wife's posterior as she asks of their former marital bed, "Is it still firm?"). A more apt title for this series could be, "Comedy, Neil Simon-style." One of the more interesting segments is "Love and the Good Deal," co-written by Garry Marshall, and which plays like a deleted act from Barefoot in the Park in which newlyweds Paul and Corie look for a new bed for their cramped apartment.
Love American Style debuted in 1969, a year in which the networks started to reach out to "modern people living in a modern world" with shows such as Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Mod Squad, and The Music Scene (which anticipated Saturday Night Live with its mix of satirical sketches and contemporary music). Love American Style was hip enough to feature a story called "Love and the Pill" and to refer to Philip Roth's novel Goodbye, Columbus. But traditional values invariably triumphed. In "Pill," a young man tells his girlfriend's overwrought parents that they have abstained from you-know. "That's the way we happen to feel about it," he reassures them. But what we truly love about American Style are the casts. You'd have to sail The Love Boat or visit Fantasy Island to find such a stellar gathering of Hollywood greats, comic legends, TV Land faves, future stars, and unsung character actors with the indelible and unforgettable faces. To name a few: Bill Bixby, Sid Caesar, Hans "Uncle Tonoose" Conreid, Broderick Crawford, Dwayne "Dobie Gillis" Hickman, David Ketchum (Agent 13 on Get Smart), Shari Lewis, Regis Philbin, Connie Stevens, Larry Storch, Paul "Tigger" Winchell, Joe Flynn and Carl Ballentine from McHale's Navy, and Mr. Ford, who shows up as Roger, the boyfriend, in "Love and the Former Marriage." Stuart Margolin (The Rockford Files) is the most recognizable face of the show's stock company who appear in Laugh-In-style blackouts that link the stories. These are hit and miss, but some are blink-twice bizarre, as the one in which a black man reassures his reluctant fianc?e, "Okay, we'll raise the kids Jewish." So cue the Cowsills ("Love American Style/Truer than the red, white and blue..") and ignite the fireworks. It's dated, yes, but Love will never go out of style. --Donald Liebenson
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