CALIFORNIA SUITE, yet another of the seemingly endless line of glib New Yorkers—showbiz & cocktail party related—knocking the entire state of California based on their “acquaintance” with some of the—showbiz & cocktail party related types—in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. This time it’s a script from Neil Simon, taken off his Broadway play, with Herbert Ross directing. A four-part anthology with the stories cross-cutting between one another: two are brittle-barb funny, two forced schticky flails. At least they got the sunny part right.

Visiting L.A. from London to attend the Academy Awards, nominated actress ‘Diana Barrie’ (Maggie Smith) and her husband ‘Sydney Cochran’ (Michael Caine) quip elegantly, their comfortable but passion-absent relationship—he’s an ‘antiques dealer’, so take a wild guess—getting a resilience test as the alcohol-fueled evening unrolls. While they get amusingly snippy, bearing down on the same posh digs (The Beverly Hills Hotel) in a station wagon are a pair of squabbling Chicago doctors and their wives. ‘Chauncey Gump’ (Richard Pryor) and ‘Willis Panama’ (Bill Cosby) are competitive to the breaking point, culminating in a tennis match that’s more like a civil war. In another suite New York based political journalist ‘Hannah Warren’ (Jane Fonda) has shown up to confront ex-husband ‘Bill’ (Alan Alda) over shared custody of their teenage daughter. Laid back filmmaker Bill is happy in the SoCal lifestyle, but bitterness-basting Hannah sees nothing in it but a lot of…nothing. They skirmish while Philadelphia businessman ‘Marvin Michaels’ (Walter Matthau) waits for wife ‘Millie’ (Elaine May) to arrive for a family bar mitzvah. But his younger, more playful brother has arranged button-downed Marvin a wake-up-and-live surprise with a call girl, who in due course inconveniently passes out in Marvin’s bed: a whole bottle of tequila will do that.

Smith and Caine get the highest marks, with the juiciest dialogue. The triumphant gag from the film itself is that Smith, 44, playing a disconsolate loser at the Awards, walked off with a real-life Oscar for Supporting Actress. Their droll, perfectly paced piece gets an A.  The internecine warfare between Fonda-Alda rates a solid B: she’s in form fit merry-bitch mode, he’s more relaxed and less unctuous than usual. Pryor and Cosby get stuck with silly farcing that’s C+ stuff. As the more offended party, Pryor draws smiles, but whatever charm Cosby once held doesn’t age well (for reasons residing outside of this movie). Covering their wives, Gloria Gifford and Sheila Frazier have little to do but act harried. Also in straight C gear are Matthau and May; their whole segment labors like a slightly racier TV episode from Love, American Style.

Herb Edelman does Matthau’s brother, Denise Galik is ‘Bunny’, the tequila-zonked hooker. James Coburn has a jokey cameo at the outset of the Smith-Caine segment. Others on hand for moments include Dana Plato, Christopher Pennock, Kelly Harmon and Army Archerd.

A hit in 1978, 13th in the money zone with a take of $42,900,000. Besides Smith’s win, Oscar nominations were given to Simon’s Screenplay and the Art Direction (with obvious thanks to the Beverly Hills Hotel). The standard 103 minutes. *

* Dame Maggie’s class-act acceptance speech at the Oscars. Honest, thoughtful and BRIEF!—“I just, I just really can’t believe it. I’m very, very honored and very grateful. I would like to thank Neil Simon. I would like to thank Herbie Ross. And I would very much like Michael Caine to be here, because believe you me, he was the most supporting actor ever in the world, and it really should go right down the middle. Thank you very much indeed.”  A Lady, kids.