I have always loved "Loving. That's partly because during the 1970's I was an aspiring commercial artist in Sydney, Australia. My heroes were the great illustrators, mainly American: Norman Rockwell, Tom Lovell, Robert McGuiness, Bob Peak, Mitchell Hooks, dozens of them. I kept scrapbooks of their work - it wasn't safe to leave a magazine near me in those days. "Loving" gave an insight into their world - sort of.Brooks Wilson is a struggling illustrator in New York who is about to land a big account (the type that would have gone into my scrapbooks). However Brooks isn't happy. He is married to Selma (Eve Marie Saint) who loves him, and has two precocious daughters, but he is having an affair on the side. Brooks is bitter about many things and lets everyone down - it's hard to feel sorry for him.Like many illustrators, Brooks feels his work is just to pay the bills and isn't that worthwhile. In a telling scene, Brook's crosses a busy street in New York to look at some enigmatic paintings hanging in the window of an art gallery - real art.The film is based on a novel by J. M. Ryan, the pen name of John McDermott. McDermott was an accomplished illustrator especially of action scenes. He also hated the changes the filmmakers made to the story.McDermott's illustrations were used as props in the movie and can be seen in the agent's office, and when the assistant visits Brooks at home. All the detail of Brooks' art life is authentic, especially his working methods. In one fascinating sequence, Selma puts down her knitting to pose as a Southern belle for reference for sketches Brooks needs to have ready in the morning.George Segal's persona as a nice guy who somewhere along the way got cynical is in full flower here. The film was made at a time when faith in institutions was under pressure. "Loving" captures a disillusioned, hedonistic vibe with middle-aged guys running around with their new cookies.Keenan Wynn plays Brook's harassed agent, while Sterling Hayden as the demanding client, Lepridon, almost seems to be channelling Captain Ahab, and Roy Scheider has a small role as an ad rep. "Loving" is a bit close to the bone to be a comedy, but it's better than its obscurity would indicate. And if you feel nostalgic for those magnificent, hand-drawn illustrations of yesteryear, then it's a film to appreciate on a number of levels.

Who needs blood and guts when you can watch more interesting destructive behavior? George Segal embodies studied amorality perfectly. There is no God, no religion, no moral sensibility, only what I do and what I can get away with. But it's not just George. All the men in the film are just in it for themselves, down to the kvetching neighbor complaining about George's crab-grass. We are a long way from Puritan New England in this cold portrayal of suburban hustle set in Westport, CT. Some of the women, especially Eve Marie-Saint, still think the old rules - middle-class conventions - still have meaning, value, and valor, but not the men and certainly not two of the women (Mistress and Fling for discussion purposes herein). We get no inner life of George, he just communicates his superiority as an artist, his ability to hustle accounts (in a bizarre cameo by Sterling Hayden, who plays an embodiment of Lincoln), and his ability to have a wife, a mistress, and whatever Fling stirs him at the moment, which becomes the essential plot device of this otherwise aimless movie, aimless if you don't see the trainwreck coming at breakneck speed, despite the movie's studied languor. We would have no movie, however, if only George was amoral - and you know George is amoral, that the part was a cakewalk for him, because that is who he is. Yuk! I will certainly research any movie that stars George Segal before deciding how much degradation and loss of tradition I want to experience.Of course, to him and his ilk, there is no other reality. Life is to be lived through their gimlet eyes, and my job is to identify these types early, and thence to avoid them. I am not even going to look up the name of the "party-host husband" who casually schtupes a drunken guest (that would be Fling #2 for George, but he doesn't get to her) while his wife vainly tries to keep the party upscale, only to have her husband tee up live-pornography for his guests. As my secretary says, you can't make this stuff up, and this movie perfectly illustrates what happens when you believe in nothing other than the primacy of your own sexual prowess.Thoroughly distasteful but an essential watch for those who need to understand why we have a new religion in this land, one whose commandments consist of micro-aggression "Shalt-nots," identity politics, and a belief that government must make laws enforcing all this BS, and must take care of us from cradle-to-grave. For those rejecting the traditions of our ancestors, it is George jungle out there unless we abide by our new religion. It's an easy choice for me (the ol' time religion), but not for most, with their obsession with "truth," and hence our new religion. In this religion, all that matters is your posturing, and your obeisances to the identity politic gods (and police), even if the world is falling down around you. I'll take the old-time religion always.Performances are excellent throughout. The children - the poor children: their suffering isn't shown, but it is forboded - are superb. The hard-bitten Mistress, angling for George to divorce, is perfect in her callous disregard for other's feelings. And the two Flings are the cynical embodiment of George - they are also just in it for the momentary pleasure George is living for. In fact, the only moral judgment ever passed in this movie is when Fling #1 (Fling #2 having passed out upstairs where the host gets her) accuses George of being middle-class for wanting his pants back before going back into the house to get food and drink for their outside tryst. Double yuk.But powerful. After traditional religion but before our new Neo-Victorian secular religion enforced by the state (and its high priests), this movie is a must-see for American cultural history.

In the wake of Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice came a string of similar sex comedy/dramas including Loving. George Segal was on a role in the late 60's/early 70's, but this is one of his lesser known efforts from the period. And seeing how few votes this movie has gotten here on IMDb, it's still quite unknown despite being available on DVD since 2003.The film has a typical plot of it's time: successful man throwing away his perfect life with wife and kids with his unfaithfulness. Eva Marie Saint who plays his wife is far more attractive than the woman he's seeing on the side, so it was hard for me to feel any sympathy at all for this guy. A young Sherry Lansing (the future Paramount producer) shows up in a small but memorable role, looking like the twin sister of Raquel Welch. She should of played the "other woman" instead, we would of understood why he was cheating on his wife a whole lot more. Not only did Lansing's career end not long after Loving, but the actress who played the other woman, Janice Young, vanished completely after Loving, as did the other major actress in the movie, Nancie Phillips. Neither of their IMDb listings list them as being deceased, so i'm definitely curious as to their whereabouts.One major reason why this movie deserves more attention is that it now possesses more historical importance than ever before. As noted in the trivia section, there's a scene that takes place at a construction site, and that scene was shot on location at none other than the World Trade Center construction site, of all places.

I caught this film on late night cable (maybe even the 'romance' movie channel) and it left a deep impression. There is a gap between this type of melodrama in European cinema at the time and the 'revolution' that was happening in American cinema, particularly the suspension of moral judgment outside of epiphany. The main character is having a typical middle age, middle class crisis and we are allowed to see it unfold unencumbered by a personal transformation, a complete crash. This type of screen writing is having a revival in shows like 6 feet under on HBO. I would recommend it to anyone interested in that dark, muddy 1970's American cinema that seems to put the middle class of the 1960's to rest but doesn't become another 'desert road trip' film.