European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 09, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                The rite of feminism in the 70s brought an upswing of bad Mommy movies. Meryl Streep who walked out on her family in Kramer is. Kramer was perhaps the worst Mommy of All. Continued from pegs 13 originated with he male part of the Union As Well. His Charles Foster Kane lost his first wife in a terrible scandal when he was discovered in a love nest quite innocent with a Singer whom he then attempted to promote into an opera Star. Welles Point was Well taken that in both cases the collapse of the marriage was not necessarily the woman s fault and not necessarily anybody s fault. Love like any product simply wears out with usage unless it is lubricated regularly. Over the decades the idea of the perfect marriage persisted it was the ultimate goal of any woman. How to marry a millionaire from the 1950s, is a perfect example but More generally the thrust of All manner of male female relationships was toward marriage. The Doris Day Gary Grant and later Day Hock Hudson films always played Coy games with sexual possibility As Day s considerable virtue seemed in danger but she was always saved in the end by marriage. But film culture As always reflects the larger culture thai spawned it for reasons too Complex to recount Here or anywhere marriages in the millions began failing sometime in the 1950s suddenly divorce was t the exclusive property of the debauched Rich it had become a Middle class phenomenon and even a working class one. Perhaps the key divorce movie of the late 1960s was p Vorce american style from loosely divorce i Jlian style which announced the arrival of divorce to the k Mart crowd. The movie made a sardonic account of the inequities of divorce Law featuring a memorable line that hangs around to haunt All those thinking about bailing out. She gets the uranium  howled Dick Van Dyke about soon to be sex wife Debbie Reynolds and i get the shall1" divorce was not Only bad it was something worse ii was instant poverty terrifying to newly prosperous heros of the Middle class. The 1970s brought something new to the movies a threatening feminism assaulting some bastions of male Power which resulted in what might be called the upswing of the bad Mommy movie. In a typical bad Mommy movie Mommy infected by feminism did what Only daddies had done theretofore she walked out to find herself. The worst Mommy of them All was meryl Streep in Robert Benlon s Kramer is. Kramer. Mommy walks Oul daddy must be both Mommy and daddy not hard if daddy is that Champion of sensitivity Dustin Hoffman Able to locate in the Crucible of isolation his centers of nurturing and thus become the Mother the boy is missing the 1970s also saw what was probably the Best of the divorce movies the Only one to achieve genuine Art. This was Paul Mazursky s Wise and Clever an unmarried woman with Jill Clayburgh As a new York housewife abandoned by her husband for a younger woman Mazursky was generous to both parties he was t one of those with an ideological a the 60s brought an onslaught of divorce movies most notably divorce american  to grind in the Battle Between the sexes. But he was wonderfully observant. A Brilliant moment was the one in which Michael Murphy dumped by his Young woman came by and actually expected. Sympathy. But sensitivity like Mazursky s was rare. By the 1980s, a new cliche had replaced the cliche of the perfect marriage this was the perfect divorce. In a perfect divorce the partners Exchange no rancor or bitterness and remain friends and confidants in fact they have something of the Elan and ease Ful Mutual Bliss of Nick and Nora Charles. The kids Are All right Loo. And she still does his laundry and figures out the Check Book.  most ridiculous of these despite its beguiling surface was Bud Yorkin s twice in a lifetime in which Gene Hackman dumped his wife Ellen Burstyn for Ann Margret. But the temerity of the film was that it insisted on seeing All this As an Opportunity for  even Burstyn was a better woman for her Ord Al. By the late 1980s, divorce had become useful entirely As a badge of exile for existential heroes. Heavily influenced by film noir states of dissipation the new divorced Man was made Strong by his isolation in Black rain for example. Michael Douglas was proudly divorced and the movie went to great lengths to Point this out. It was seen As a Mark of Honor somehow. It s one of the reverse twists in 1980s hip that which was once scandalous and pathological has now become though seedy somehow a Mark of Cool thus War of the roses and she Devil come As anomalies they return the Prospect of divorce to the realm of pain no matter How comically inflated. They make the Point collectively that breaking up is hard to do that you pay for it in oceans of Hurt. It divorce breaking up is harder by the los Angeles times t s said that War is hell. But a divorce War is even worse. Nowhere is that truer than in los Angeles Home to the big Bucks break up where Nasty divorces among the Rich and famous Are increasingly becoming the Rule rather than the exception. The problem is you have a cumbersome costly and elaborate Legal system attempting to work out problems that it was never designed to solve explains attorney Hillel Chodos who handled the so called reeking havoc Rodeo drive divorce Between Giorgio perfume creators and store owners Fred and Gale Hayman. People who Are gelling divorced usually come to the lawyer to solve problems that no one is qualified to solve. The Legal system can divvy up the Money somehow but it can t make up for the fact that somebody promised to love your client and stopped doing it. So a lot of the fighting Over Money or children is really lighting Over something  and whal s happening Here seems to be afflicting the rest of the country As Well. I talk to lawyers in Houston and Chicago and new York and divorces Are getting nastier All Over declares prominent divorce lawyer Stuart Walzer. It s a spiritual crisis. The whole Damn society is suffering from an excess of greed and a fixation on material things. That makes this a very Tough Era for  it s no wonder that divorces during the 1980s known popularly As the decade of greed escalated into a port Haull and Picasso feeding frenzy for separating spouses and their lawyers. The Boom in real estate values transformed even the average Home into a big ticket item. Baby Boomers competed in a consuming contest in which the couple with the most stuff wins the women s movement taught wives to fight for their rights Down to the last certificate of Deposit. No fault proceedings moved the emphasis in divorces from adultery to assets. So when University of Southern California psychologist and divorce expert Constance Ahrons studied the relationships Between divorced spouses Over five years during the mid-1980s, she found Nasty is. Nice uncoupling were a roughly � things there for indeed i the Yea. And Torr Madonna Phillips. And Sart separate sure separate and am together quits. By most Fri the Legal wrecking sown be Nasty desire to the Divot Calico Law was properly tl2 both be 01 pc we Inlet it no Ca to t in he 81 or m is Page 14 stars and stripes tuesday