Carnal Knowledge **** (1971, Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Ann-Margret, Art Garfunkel, Rita Moreno) – Classic Movie Review 2,878

Mike Nichols’s grown-up 1971 American comedy-drama film Carnal Knowledge is based on a witty screenplay by Jules Feiffer, and stars Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen and Ann-Margret. The US Supreme Court ruled that the subject matter is sex but the film is not obscene.

Director Mike Nichols’s grown-up 1971 film drama Carnal Knowledge stars Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen and Ann-Margret. It is based on a witty screenplay by renowned humourist Jules Feiffer, from his then unproduced play. Feiffer pitched the concept to Nichols as a theatre project, but he said: ‘I see it as a movie.’

That is the foundation of this clever, once modish, still adult film from director Nichols about the long-term friendship of Jonathan (Nicholson) and Sandy (Garfunkel) from bright-eyed college kids as roommates attending Amherst College, Massachusetts, to middle-aged angst, following their sexual lives. Sensitive Sandy meets Susan, while sexually aggressive Jonathan ends up losing his virginity to Myrtle.

First-rate playing from the stars (unexpectedly so in singer Art Garfunkel’s case) but Candice Bergen (Susan), Ann-Margret (Bobbie) and Rita Moreno (Louise) are almost as attractive as the women in their lives. In fact, the show-stopping, scene-stealing Ann-Margret was Oscar nominated as Nicholson’s vulnerable mistress, prompting a career resurgence for the actress. She won Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards.

Also in the cast are Carol Kane and Cynthia O’Neal.

In creating a smart movie, Nichols profits from choosing two of the best names in the business – cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and production designer Richard Sylbert.

Feiffer’s play was finally staged in 1988 in Pasadena, California, and Dallas, Texas.

At a cinema in Albany, Georgia, on January 13, 1972, the police seized the film under local obscenity laws. In March 1972, cinema manager Mr Jenkins was convicted of  ‘distributing obscene material’. On June 24, 1974, the US Supreme Court overturned the conviction.

The court said that there are scenes in which sexual conduct, including ‘ultimate sexual acts’, is to be understood to be taking place, and there are occasional scenes of nudity, but that Carnal Knowledge is simply not the public portrayal of hard core sexual conduct for its own sake.

The screenplay contains numerous uses of strong language, some of the words previously rarely heard on screen.

Producer Joseph E Levine provided the $5 million budget, of which $1 million went to Nichols. It was a big earner, taking $12.3 million at the North American box office, no doubt prompted by the controversy and, of course, as the court mentioned, ‘the subject matter of the picture is, in a broader sense, sex’, always a popular topic. Cashing in on the controversy, Levine’s Avco Embassy company re-released the film in cinemas after the Supreme Court ruling, as ”The United States Supreme Court has ruled that Carnal Knowledge is not obscene. See it now!’

Embassy, which was active from 1942 to 1986, produced The Graduate, The Producers, The Fog, The Howling, Escape from New York, This Is Spinal Tap, and Swamp Thing, 

it was shot in New York City and at Panorama Film Studios in Vancouver.

Release date: June 30, 1971.

Runtime: 97 minutes.

The cast

The cast are Jack Nicholson as Jonathan Fuerst, Candice Bergen as Susan, Art Garfunkel [Arthur Garfunkel] as Sandy, Ann-Margret as Bobbie, Rita Moreno as Louise, Cynthia O’Neal as Cindy, and Carol Kane as Jennifer.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,878

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