Divorce American Style

'When was the last time you had relations, Mr Harmon?' With this question, put by a marriage counsellor to Dick Van Dyke - who is of course excused from answering - Norman Lear's script toys uneasily with the realities of marital life but carefully preserves the conventions. Despite the trappings of hard-boiled satire - a couple breaking up in a welter of money-grubbing ill-temper, children facing up to broken homes, other divorcees hovering in hopes of snaring a remarriage that will get them off the alimony hook - this is in fact divorce Hollywood style. Li'l ol' love wins out, with Dick and Debbie coming together again like the beautiful people they are. Two or three very funny scenes, all the same, and a first-rate batch of supporting performances.