Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

A Touch of Class Blu-ray Movie Review

Tracy & Hepburn or Laurel & Hardy?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 11, 2019

The great English actress Glenda Jackson belongs to the same generation of luminaries that includes Judy Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren. In her younger days, she was considered a sex symbol, "the thinking man's Brigitte Bardot" (as one critic put it). She shifted easily between art house and mainstream cinema and was equally at home on the screen and the stage. Though she disdained awards, she was showered with them anyway, including two Best Actress Oscars within four years.

So why isn't Dame Jackson's name as familiar to today's moviegoers as those of her equally talented contemporaries? The short answer is that she quit acting in 1992 to go into politics, winning a seat in Parliament and serving in the House of Commons for twenty-three years. Not until 2015, when she was nearly 80, did the acting world reclaim Jackson's talents, which are undimmed with time. Since her political retirement, she has appeared regularly on the stage, winning Broadway's Tony award in 2018 for a revival of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women and, at the age of 83, recently completing a Broadway run as the title character of King Lear, possibly the most strenuous role in Shakespeare's canon. (I saw both shows; the performances were astonishing.)

Jackson's first Oscar was for Ken Russell's 1969 Women in Love, in which her character famously faced off on foot against a herd of horned steers. Her second was for a film that couldn't be further removed from the literary heights of a D.H. Lawrence screen adaptation: the farcical romantic comedy, A Touch of Class, released in 1973. Jackson's Oscar was a surprise win against favored contenders Marsha Mason for Cinderella Liberty and Ellen Burstyn for The Exorcist. Looking at the film today, it's not hard to spot the qualities of the multi-layered performance that appealed to Academy voters, as Jackson breathed vitality into every corner of a character who, in other hands, could have easily become a bundle of cliches. Blu-ray viewers can now experience her portrayal of a single mom having an impossible affair with a married man in a sparkling new presentation of A Touch of Class by the Warner Archive Collection.

(Note: The final paragraph of this section contains what some might regard as a spoiler, although I would argue that the film's ending is self-evident from the outset. Nevertheless, due warning has been given.)

Jackson plays Vickie Alessio, a London-based divorcée with two kids and a frenetic job designing knock-offs of high-end fashion labels. In the film's opening, she keeps crossing paths with George Segal's Steve Blackburn, an American insurance salesman living in London with his wife (Hildegard Neil) and their two children. Attraction sparks almost immediately, but Vickie makes it clear from the outset that, while she's not looking for an emotional entanglement, she does insist on something more romantic than a quick grope in a grotty hotel like the one that Steve initially chooses. Eventually the pair agree to get away for a week at the sunny Spanish seaside in Málaga. (Vickie insists that their room have a view of Gibraltar, which leads to some interesting complications.)

For much of its running time, A Touch of Class plays as a comedy of errors, as Vickie and Steve encounter one obstacle after another in their effort to enjoy a clandestine carnal vacation from their regular lives. Some of the worst impediments arrive courtesy of Steve's movie producer friend, Walter, who is played by a young Paul Sorvino (before he became typecast as a gangster) and who keeps popping up at inconvenient moments. But much of the comedy arises from the simple fact that the couple is a mismatched pair. Steve is a smooth-talking operator, who's gone far on good looks and charm, and he's also a practiced cheater, skilled at returning to his wife after a fling without a flicker of conscience. Vickie is far more cautious, having been badly burned by the now-departed Mr. Alessio. She's also smarter than Steve, coolly assessing her surroundings from behind a mask of control and a repertoire of sarcastic remarks. It's the kind of exterior that sustains the stereotype of the cold Englishwoman—an accusation that Steve tosses at her in an angry moment—but Jackson shows you the well of emotion that Vickie holds in check behind those calculating eyes. When she erupts with anger (or passion), the effect is bracing.

Final paragraph (see above): A Touch of Class shifts gear in its third act, after the pair returns to London and sets up their own private getaway in a secluded Soho apartment (all of the building's other flats are occupied by working girls who think Vickie is one of them). It's a far bigger commitment than either half of the couple envisioned when the affair began, and they never manage to recapture the magic of Málaga. Instead, as Steve must resort to ever more frantic machinations to escape his wife for a stolen hour or two with Vickie, the strain reveals to each of the partners that they've progressed from an affair to a relationship. "I'm beginning to sound like a wife", says Vickie at one particularly fraught moment, and the discovery is more shattering to her than it is to him. (Much of Steve's original appeal for Vickie was that she expected to be able to say goodbye with ease and no regrets.) The story's conclusion is never in doubt, but director/co-writer Melvin Frank (The Prisoner of Second Avenue) attempts to imbue the denouement with a pathos radically at odds with the comic hijinks that have dominated the film. It's an unsatisfying turn that Jackson manages far better than the writing deserves. Frank's script, co-written with Jack Rose (Houseboat), was obviously aiming for a romantic pairing of sparring lovers who would recall Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburne or William Powell and Myrna Loy. But those stories typically involved married couples whose feuding could neatly dissolve into wedded bliss by the film's end. Vickie and Steve never intend to end up that way, even after they discover (too late) that they might like to.

A Touch of Class Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Touch of Class was shot by British cinematographer Austin Dempster (Bedazzled and The Looking Glass War). For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, the Warner Archive Collection has commissioned a new scan of an interpositive, which was performed by Warner's MPI facility at 2K, followed by MPI's customarily meticulous color correction and WAC's typically thorough cleanup. The resulting image is wonderfully film-like and beautifully detailed, aptly showcasing the London and Spanish locations and capturing every flicker of emotion in the many intimate closeups of the film's two co-stars. (Jackson's face is uniquely expressive; it's a throwback to the great movie star faces of the Thirties.) The film's gentle palette is delicately rendered, the densities are stable throughout, and the image is free of banding, aliasing or any other form of artifact or distortion. As usual with WAC, there's nary a streak, dust spot or speckle to be seen. WAC has mastered A Touch of Class at its usual high bitrate, here 34.99 Mbps.

A Touch of Class Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original mono track has been taken from the magnetic master, cleaned of any age-related damage and encoded as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's a serviceable mix, and WAC's presentation is so clear that you can easily detect the post-dubbing (if you care about that sort of thing). The sounds of the London streets and of Steve's and Vickie's Spanish getaway are aptly reproduced, including the roar of the crowd at a bullfight the couple attends. The cheerful score is by John Cameron (The Ruling Class). The title song, and several others, were written by four-time Oscar winner Sammy Cahn (who was nominated again for this film) with George Barrie.

A Touch of Class Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only extra is the film's trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:33), which has been remastered in 1080p. Warner's 2002 DVD was similarly bare.

A Touch of Class Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For those new to Glenda Jackson's talents, A Touch of Class is an easy place to start, even though the role doesn't scale the dramatic heights of which she was capable in films like Women in Love or Sunday Bloody Sunday. One could also start with the pair of comedies Jackson made with Walter Mathau, Hopscotch and House Calls (the latter sadly missing on Blu-ray). In whatever she has appeared, from Shakespeare to comic fluff, Jackson is always a force to be reckoned with. WAC has given her Oscar-winning performance the first-rate treatment it deserves, which is highly recommended.