Lovers and Other Strangers

This warm, scraggly film indicates the gradual shift in Hollywood depictions of the modern family away from melodramatic, Peyton Place-style storytelling toward a looser, funnier vision of American clans, inspired by the 1960s. A stellar array of character actors and newcomers populate the cast -- including Anne Meara, Cloris Leachman, Richard Castellano, and Diane Keaton, in her first film role -- and director Cy Howard is adroit at cutting among the various incidents leading up to the wedding of naïfs Bonnie Bedelia and Michael Brandon. Though based on a play, Lovers is rarely stagy; screenwriters Joseph Bologna, David Zelag Goodman, and Renée Taylor would be nominated for an Academy Award for their work, as would future Godfather fixture Castellano, for Best Supporting Actor. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide