Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds star as a suburban couple who learn that not even divorce can solve all their problems.Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds star as a suburban couple who learn that not even divorce can solve all their problems.Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds star as a suburban couple who learn that not even divorce can solve all their problems.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 3 nominations total
- Mark Harmon
- (as Tim Matthieson)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe judge presiding over divorce proceedings in the film is played by John J. Anthony, a real-life marriage guidance counselor. This was his only acting role in a film.
- GoofsWhen Debbie Reynolds is curling her hair and Dick Van Dyke is cutting his toenails, we see Debbie from behind and her reflection in the mirror. There are clearly two rollers pinned to the top of her head. Dick cuts a toenail that lands on Debbie's vanity table. She is shot from the front where we see her flick the toenail off the table with no rollers on her head. In the next shot from behind again, the rollers magically reappear.
- Quotes
David Grieff: Well now, to the property settlement. I've prepared a list here of major items of community property with some suggestions as to how they may be distributed amongst the parties.
Richard Harmon: [looking at the list] Seems to be fair. Split right down the middle. The house to Barbara; the mortgage payments to me. The furnishings, colour TV and piano to Barbara; the monthly payments to me. The insurance benefits to Barbara; the premiums to me. The uranium in our uranium mine to Barbara...
David Grieff: Uranium mine?
Richard Harmon: And the shaft to me!
- Crazy creditsSPOILER: Opening credits (and the musical score) begin when a conductor - having just walked across a field and set up a music stand - raises his baton, gives a downbeat, and "cues" the sounds of husbands and wives arguing from the houses in the neighborhood below. At the end of the picture, the conductor again appears in the field above the neighborhood and begins conducting the final musical score through the closing credits (and drowning out the sound of arguing).
- ConnectionsFeatured in Film Review: Film Review (1967)
To begin with, there was no such thing as no-fault divorce. A divorce had to involve one "guilty" party, and one "innocent" party. Two "guilty" parties would just be blown off with "You two deserve each other." And it was regarded as standard good manners for the man to offer himself up as "guilty", unless the woman was a complete slut or psycho. (See "The Gay Divorcée" for an example of a man who /doesn't/ follow this social rule, because he's a pig.)
Now, also during this period, the usual rule was that the wife got the kids, and the wife and kids were entitled to be just as well off as they had been before the divorce. (Remember, as far as the Law was concerned, she and they were officially innocent victims of the Big Bad Man.) So alimony could be very high indeed.
As to her getting a job....
There was no such thing as professional daycare. If a divorced woman were poor, she could probably leave the kids with a neighbor, because poor folks have been doing that for thousands of years, but for a middle-class divorced woman to do that would have been regarded as shameless freeloading.
There were relatively few jobs for women, and even fewer that paid decently. A woman could be a secretary, but shorthand and typing take years of practice. (There were no personal computers then; few people could type except for writers and secretaries.) And secretaries didn't make much more than minimum wage, anyway. The same for stitchers in clothing factories (America had clothing factories back then). Beautician? Cleaning woman? Hotel maid? Nurse? None of them paid all that well. There were a handful of woman doctors, lawyers, and the like, but the closest pointer to the future was that there have always been quite a few women in computer programming. But you couldn't just walk in and ask for a programming job if you'd never done it before.
In short, this movie makes the usual exaggerations you expect in a comedy, but it is nowhere near "preposterous" or "ridiculously unrealistic". It's pretty solidly grounded in 1967 reality.
Now, on the other hand, I can't say I like the movie all that much. I guess I'm too romantic to take divorce as a joke. But the performances are sound, and I have to say that Van Dyke and Reynolds both had guts to tackle this script at all. Both of them have always been typecast as "lovable".
- How long is Divorce American Style?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Razvod na americki nacin
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $12,000,000
- Runtime1 hour 49 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1