Love, the second time around

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 14

Love, the second time around

Neil Simon, prize-win-ning playwright and screenwriter of such hits as “The Odd Couple,” "The Sunshine Boys” and 1978’s smash. "The Goodbye Girl.” has written the screen version of his Broadway hit, “Chapter Two,” due to appear at the Westend theatre in Christchurch tomorrow. The Ray , Stark Production of a Robert Moore Film stars James Caan and Marsha Mason, as a recently widowed novelist and a recently divorced actress who fall in love, despite their best intentions to the contrarv.

When "Chapter Two” opened on . Broadway op. December 4 1977, the critics were lyrically unanimous. Newsweek’s . Jack Kroll hailed it as Neil Simon’s "most personal, intimate and warmly funny play.” Douglas Watt of the New York Daily News said that its lovers were “two of the most attractive characters Simon has ever placed on a stage.” Variety summed up: "a rare, magic blend of laughter and tears.” Much was made of the parallel between its stow and Simon’s own life. The fact is that Neil Simon did lose his first wife in 1973 and six months later he did marry actress Marsha Mason after a romance of 22 days.

But that does not make “Chapter Two” autobiographical, he points out ... at least not in a traditional sense. ' “Almost everything I’ve written has grown out of my own life or the lives of people who were, close to me.” James Caan' says he was as “surprised” as he was pleased when he learned I that Neil Simon wanted ; him to play George ! Schneider in “Chapter ! Two.” . , Caan’s previous roles, in > such films as “The Godfa- ; ther,” “Rollerball,” “Killer ’ Elite” and “Comes a j Horseman,” are a macho ; mile from the reflective, j shyly humorous widower j he plays for “Chapter I Two.” » ! “Picking me to play ! George Schneider is hardly type-casting. After my j performance as the brawl- j ing Sonny Corleone in ’ ‘The Godfather’. I re- • ceived 43 offers to play |

hoods. I could have 1 spent the rest : ,of my life - . *,.' profitably and miserably . . . as a member of the underworld. But,”' says Caan with a straight face, "Neil saw me for what I

. really am . . :‘a‘"gentle soul.” . For Marsha Mason, "fresh from.-her triumphant--portrayal of a 'doctor in “Promises ih the Dark.” “Chapter Two” marks her

second starring role since the immensely successful “The Goodbye Girl,” also written by Simon, which brought the actress her second Academy Award nomination.