Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

one of my absolute favorites!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

That's the one thing I remembered about this Neil Simon comedy, Maggie Smith saying "That's not funny, that's bizarre" I had never heard the word "bizarre" like that. Bee-zaaaarr, or something like that but Maggie Smith uses it brilliantly as an irresistible comic tool. I remember being kind of put off because Maggie won an Oscar for this over Meryl Streep for The Deer Hunter but, watching it now. I understand. Maggie Smith is fantastic and her marital banter with Michael Caine is a total delight. The movie, as a movie is a whole other story. Flimsy and dated with a musical score that may remind you of some of most generic TV movie. Jane Fonda is great, Elaine May and Walter Matthau, hilarious but it also has Bill Cosby, hard to watch now and a hilarious Richard Pryor. Herbert Ross directs respectfully but without any cinematic ambitions. Maggie Smith and Michael Caine however make the whole thing worth it.

Don't get confused! Maggie Smith, an actress Oscar-nominated for a stupid little comedy, and husband Michael Caine travel from England to California for the Oscar ceremony. Walter Matthau (married to Elaine May) arrives in California for a wedding and gets in a compromising situation with another woman.Alan Alda and Jane Fonda are exes and discuss sharing custody of 17-year-old daughter and how Jane is afraid of losing her once she leaves home.Richard Pryor and wife and Bill Cosby and wife go to California for a relaxing vacation.All this in one movie. You think it sounds interesting, or you think it's a riot. To say this is a complete success in entertainment would be stretching a bit...almost a lot. Right off the bat, Alda and Fonda start in going back and forth on the past and Fonda is so antagonistic, it's almost unbearable to even get through their skit. It lasts over 10 minutes. Walter Matthau's skit gets a little old as he tries to hide the body of a passed out hooker from his wife, who's he's expecting any minute. (He overslept, of course.) But, Elaine May is good in a memorable role.Cosby and Pryor's story actually starts with interest but tires with their constant griping and by the end of the movie, all of their fun ideas have turned into broken bones, bruises and casts. You get the feeling that black viewers would be offended by the way these characters are portrayed.The only saving grace is Caine and Smith, who ironically was so good in this otherwise blah movie, she not only received an Oscar nomination, but she won. But, she is great in everything; so is Caine. They should have scrapped the rest of the footage and made a short film of just these great actors. Those who watch this for them, especially Maggie, will enjoy their performances. But, will otherwise be bored stiff.Those who watch this for Matthau will be minimally pleased. Those who watch this for Cosby and Pryor will be insulted or just plain disappointed of the waste of their talents or BOTH. Those who watch this Fonda or Alda will be talked to death.Nevertheless, I have to give Caine and Smith two thumbs up or two stars each. Therefore, it gets a 4 out of 10 from me.But, if you're in a town where there's a California Suite, run don't walk to an Economy Lodge.

A bland quartet of tales via Neil Simon all set at the Beverly Hills Hotel is a West coast version of Simon's Plaza Suite. The film directed by Herbert Ross entwines the four stories that were presented separately on stage thus the film has no real climax, conclusion or resolution:it just ends. This film like so many others wastes Richard Pryor's genius, and the segment Pryor shares with Bill Cosby is an embarrassment. The scenes between Jane Fonda and Alan Alda couldn't be less interesting, in fact, the only interesting thing is that the late Dana Plato plays their daughter. Michael Caine and Maggie Smith are watchable as a couple in a third skit, though hardly worthy of the Oscar Smith received. For me, the film belongs to Walter Mathhau and Elaine May. Particularly funny is a scene of Matthau trying to put stockings on a passed out hooker. And this is one of the rare instances where Elaine May's distinctive comedic style has been put to good use on film, but 1 out of 4 does not make a worthwhile movie. Fonda fared better in Simon's Barefoot in the Park(67) as did director Ross with Simon's The Goodbye Girl(77). Say goodbye to this one.

Neil Simon got an Oscar nomination for adapting his own hit play for the screen, but his writing seems to be caught in a perpetual time-warp. No subject that gets discussed is fresh, and all his 'witty' one-liners would fall flat without the help of some talented actors to keep things afloat. A Beverly Hills hotel houses Jane Fonda and Alan Alda as bickering ex-marrieds; Walter Matthau as a husband trying to hide a hooker from wife Elaine May; Michael Caine as the put-upon husband of Oscar-nominated actress Maggie Smith (who really did win an Oscar); and Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor as accident-prone husbands vacationing with their wives. Aside from the acidic verbal jousting from Caine and Smith, this comedy directed by Herbert Ross pretty much congeals midway through. Matthau's exaggerated angst is pretty funny, but this seems rote material for the actor (though he and Elaine May are well-matched). Fonda may well have accepted her dim role for the sole excuse to show off her figure in a bikini (it upstages even Alan Alda!). As for Cosby and Pryor--how could Herbert Ross sink two of the most famous comedians of the 1970s with this slapstick torpedo? Neil Simon seems to believe in the Pain of Comedy, with life's woes wrung for laughs, and he gets Ross to believe it, too. But there's too much physical shtick and not enough humanity in "California Suite" to make it the laugh-fest everyone was apparently aiming for. ** from ****