''First Monday in October'' is a 1981 American

comedy-drama film Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

from Paramount Pictures, produced by Paul M. Heller and

Martha Scott Martha Ellen Scott (September 22, 1912 – May 28, 2003) was an American actress. She was featured in major films such as Cecil B. DeMille's ''The Ten Commandments'' (1956), and William Wyler's '' Ben-Hur'' (1959), playing the mother of Charlto ...

, directed by

Ronald Neame Ronald Neame CBE, BSC (23 April 1911 – 16 June 2010) was an English film producer, director, cinematographer, and screenwriter. Beginning his career as a cinematographer, for his work on the British war film '' One of Our Aircraft Is Miss ...

, that is based on the 1978 play of the same name by

Jerome Lawrence Jerome Lawrence (born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz; July 14, 1915 – February 29, 2004) was an American playwright and author. After graduating from the Ohio State University in 1937 and the University of California, Los Angeles in 1939, Lawrence pa ...

and

Robert Edwin Lee Robert Edwin Lee (October 15, 1918 – July 8, 1994) was an American playwright and lyricist. With his writing partner, Jerome Lawrence, Lee worked for Armed Forces Radio during World War II; Lawrence and Lee became the most prolific writing p ...

. The film stars Walter Matthau (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy) and

Jill Clayburgh Jill Clayburgh (April 30, 1944 – November 5, 2010) was an American actress known for her work in theater, television, and cinema. She received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Ac ...

(for which she was nominated for a

Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Golden means made of, or relating to gold. Golden may also refer to: Places United Kingdom *Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall *Golden Cap, Dorset * Golden Square, Soho, London *Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestersh ...

). The cast also co-stars

Jan Sterling Jan Sterling (born Jane Sterling Adriance; April 3, 1921 – March 26, 2004) was an American film, television and stage actress. At her most active in films during the 1950s (immediately prior to which she had joined the Actors Studio), Sterling ...

in her final

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

role. Paramount Pictures originally scheduled ''First Monday in October'' for release in February 1982, but President Ronald Reagan's appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor as the first female Supreme Court justice on July 7, 1981, forced the film's release a month after her nomination, in August 1981. The film's title refers to the day that the Supreme Court commences its annual term, which continues until June or early July of the following year.

Plot

The death of Stanley Moorehead,

Associate Justice Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some sta ...

of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, has created a vacancy on the high court. The President's appointee turns out to be Ruth Loomis, a staunch

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

from

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...

, who is confirmed as the first female Associate Justice. She and Associate Justice Daniel Snow, a committed

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

who is many years older than Loomis and with many years on the Supreme Court, clash intellectually on just about every judicial issue before them. One case involves a pornographic film and involves arguments about freedom of speech. Another is a lawsuit, sent up from the lower court, brought by a company's stockholders regarding the suppression of a possibly revolutionary new power source, a momentum engine. The patent is controlled by the board of directors of Omnitech International, and its CEO Donald Richards, who has not been seen in public for a decade and is unavailable by

subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...

. With time, the two judges develop a liking and respect for each other. They realize this while Snow is recovering in the hospital from a "heart episode" suffered while he and Loomis were debating the complexities of the momentum engine/Omnitech case, after hours, in the courthouse. Based on something Snow intimated during their debate, Loomis returns to Orange County, overnight. There, in a records storage center, she discovers proof that her late husband and his law firm covered up the death of their client, Donald Richards. Because of her former association with the law firm, she concludes she has a serious conflict of interest on the Omnitech case, and must now resign her Associate Justice position. When Snow hears this, he leaves the hospital abruptly and after more debate, talks her out of resigning. They head by taxi to the Supreme Court to announce her discovery, one that will no doubt shake up the Omnitech case and get it on the docket for the high court to review.

Cast

* Walter Matthau as Associate Justice Daniel Snow *

as Associate Justice Ruth Loomis *

Barnard Hughes Bernard Aloysius Kiernan Hughes (July 16, 1915 – July 11, 2006), known professionally as Barnard Hughes, was an American actor of television, theater and film. Hughes became famous for a variety of roles; his most notable roles came after mi ...

as Chief Justice James Jefferson Crawford *

as Christine Snow * James Stephens as Mason Woods *

Joshua Bryant Joshua Bryant (born July 2, 1940) is an American actor, director, author, and speaker who is the founder of the Taos Talking Pictures Film Festival in Taos, New Mexico. Early life and education Bryant was born in Norfolk, Virginia. After at ...

as Bill Russell *

Wiley Harker James "Wiley" Harker (January 27, 1915 – May 1, 2007) was an American character actor who portrayed Crane Tolliver in the soap opera ''General Hospital'' in 1983. He also played Justice Harold Webb in ''First Monday in October'' (1981). He als ...

as Associate Justice Harold Webb * F.J. O'Neil as Associate Justice Waldo Thompson *

Charles Lampkin Charles Lampkin (1913–1989) was an American actor, musician and lecturer. Early life Charles Lampkin was born on March 17, 1913 in Ward 4 of Montgomery, Alabama. He was the third son of Edgar Lampkin and Sarah Bidell. His paternal lineage is ...

as Associate Justice Josiah Clewes *

Lew Palter Lew Palter (born November 3, 1928) is an American film, stage and television actor. He is perhaps best known for playing Isidor Straus in the 1997 film ''Titanic'' and Justice Benjamin Halperin in the 1981 film ''First Monday in October''. Pal ...

as Associate Justice Benjamin Halperin * Richard McMurray as Associate Justice Richard Carey *

Herb Vigran Herbert Vigran (June 5, 1910 – November 29, 1986) was an American character actor in Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1980s. Over his 50-year career, he made over 350 television and film appearances. Early years Vigran was a native of Cin ...

as Associate Justice Ambrose Quincy

Critical response

At the film

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, 47% of 975 viewers liked ''The First Monday in October''. The film carries an average rating of 3.1/5. ''New York Times critic''

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

opened her review of the film with two questions: “What if the latest Supreme Court Justice were a woman? And what if that woman were a terrible pill?” concisely summarizing her problems with the film, which clearly showed signs of having been rushed to market. She praised Matthau's performance and found fault with the character of Justice Ruth Loomis but pointed to the screenplay as “the main source of difficulty. The authors' idea is to confront a crotchety liberal Justice, Dan Snow, with the sprightly, more conservative Ruth Loomis, and let the sparks fly. However, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Lee have a way of mistaking hectoring, nagging and all-out nastiness for the stuff of which sparks are made.” Director Ronald Neame came under fire for a variety of errors, including an August scene set with snow and slush and the discordant—to her—casting of '' The Paper Chase'' star James Stephens in a role very similar to his one he played in the television series.

Home video

''First Monday in October'' was first released on DVD by

Paramount Home Video Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, and originally Paramount Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global. The division oversees PPC's home entertainme ...

on July 6, 2004. No Blu ray release has been announced.

References

External links