California Suite

Neil Simon's hit Broadway comedy -- a sequel of sorts to his Plaza Suite -- enlists the same format of four distinctive sketches, this time set in the sun-soaked Beverly Hills Hotel. But Simon is texturing his stories with a darker veneer than the older sketches from Plaza Suite, with self-conscious and variable results. The first episode concerns Bill and Hannah (Alan Alda and Jane Fonda), a divorced couple who meet at a suite at the hotel to figure out who will get the custody of their child. Sidney Cochran (Michael Caine) and Diana Barrie (Maggie Smith) are a couple of pretentious movie stars who rent a suite while waiting the Oscar ceremony. Willis Panama (Bill Cosby) and Chauncey Gump (Richard Pryor), two black doctors, rent another suite at the hotel for a family vacation, all goes wrong, and they end up fighting with each other. In the final episode, Marvin (Walter Matthau) has to explain to his wife (Elaine May) why he's been found in the sack with a hooker.