Synopsis
Film version of the Neil Simon play has three separate acts set in the same hotel suite in New York's Plaza Hotel with Walter Matthau in a triple role. In the first, Karen Nash tries to get her inattentive husband Sam's attention to spruce up their failing marriage. In the second, brash film producer Jesse Kiplinger tries to get his former one-time flame Muriel to see him for what he stands for. In the third, Roy Hubley and his wife Norma try and try to get their uncertain-of-herself daughter out of the bathroom before her approaching wedding.
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Cast
- Walter MatthauRoy Hubley / Jesse Kiplinger / Sam Nash
- Maureen StapletonKaren Nash
- Barbara HarrisMuriel Tate
- Lee GrantNorma Hubley
- Louise SorelMiss McCormack
- Dan Ferronebellboy
- Jose Ocasioroom service waiter
- Thomas CareyBorden Eisler
- Jenny SullivanMimsey Hubley
- Augusta DabneyMrs. Eisler
Recommendations
- 80
Time
All three skits are only mildly illuminating front-line communiqués from the sexual wars. But when Simon is writing them and Matthau reading them, substance seems almost beside the point. - 80
Variety
Each of the femme stars is given much screen time and the result not only is excellent spotlighting of their own talents, but also an adroit restraint on Matthau’s presence. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Some good gags and expert comedy performances. - 60
The Guardian
Schizophrenic performance from the estimable Walter Matthau, playing the central characters of three Neil Simon stories set in New York's Plaza Hotel. His barely contained rage as the dad who finds his daughter refusing to come out of the bathroom on her wedding day is particularly good, but the jokes are thinly rationed. [19 Nov 2005, p.53] - 60
The Observer (UK)
Three thin but amusing one-act comedies spun around guests at Manhattan's Plaza Hotel, adapted with minimum concessions to the cinema by Neil Simon from his own play which ran for three years on Broadway. [20 Nov 2005, p.115] - 50
The New York Times
In the case of Plaza Suite, I don't have the feeling that anything much has been lost, but rather that nothing much was ever there. - 50
Time Out
Harmless piece of Neil Simon fluff, rather flattened by Hiller's steamroller direction. - 40
Village Voice
Plaza Suite is a strenuous bore, far less amusing than the play, but no less empty and heartless in its insistence on creating grotesques for easy laughs and then forcing them to feel sorry for even easier pathos. [20 May 1971, p.61]
