--- title: "Seems Like Old Times" year: 1980 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/seems-like-old-times" fi1m_id: "seems-like-old-times" imdb_id: "tt0081480" tmdb_id: 28124 wikidata_id: "Q1397717" fi1m_score: 68 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-04T17:02:23.501642+00:00" updated: "2026-10-04T17:02:33.311038+00:00" region: "IE" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Seems Like Old Times (1980) Directed by Jay Sandrich · 1h 42m · Comedy, Romance ## Identity Seems Like Old Times - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/seems-like-old-times - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** seems-like-old-times - **IMDb ID:** tt0081480 - **TMDB ID:** 28124 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1397717 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081480/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/28124, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1397717 **Fi1m score: 68** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* Chevy Chase hides in the kitchen, six dogs hide nowhere, and Charles Grodin slowly loses his mind at his own dinner table > Neil Simon’s try at a 1930s screwball comedy is pleasant, slack and often funny, and nearly all the funny is Charles Grodin, whose district attorney watches his house fill with dogs, criminals and his wife’s ex-husband. Worth an evening; do not expect speed. ## Synopsis Nick Gardenia (Chevy Chase), a writer living alone in a cabin on the California coast, is dragged from his desk by two crooks, Dex (Judd Omen) and Bee Gee (Marc Alaimo), who make him hold up a bank at gunpoint while the security camera gets a long look at his face. On the run, he turns up at the only door he can think of. It belongs to his ex-wife Glenda Parks (Goldie Hawn), a Los Angeles public defender who takes in stray dogs and hires her former clients as household staff. Glenda is now married to Ira Parks (Charles Grodin), the district attorney, who has the Governor (George Grizzard) coming to dinner and his eye on higher office. Nick wants somewhere to hide and someone to believe him. Ira wants him in a cell. ## Review Neil Simon has written a 1930s screwball comedy and set it in 1980. The pieces are all the old ones: a divorced couple who still finish each other’s sentences, a respectable second husband, a dinner party that must not go wrong, and a house with too many doors. Jay Sandrich, whose career was in television comedy, directs it the way he would a half-hour show, with the camera standing back and the actors doing the work. Some of them do a great deal of it. One of them does almost all of it. That one is Charles Grodin. Ira Parks is a careful, decent man who keeps being handed things he cannot account for: a strange car in his drive, a strange man’s shoes, a wife who answers every question with a question. Grodin plays him without a single raised voice. He pauses, he looks at the thing, he looks at his wife, and he decides, visibly, not to ask. We laughed out loud, more than once, at the dinner for the Governor, where Ira sits at the head of his own table accepting compliments on a meal he did not cook, from a man he wants to impress, while the fugitive he is prosecuting works the stove on the other side of a swinging door. Grodin’s face across that table is the best thing in the film. Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase had already been paired in *Foul Play* (1978), and they are easy together here. Hawn’s Glenda is a lawyer who believes everyone and is usually right to, and Hawn plays her as warm rather than dim, which is harder than it sounds. Chase is the weaker half. He plays Nick as a man who already knows he is the hero and finds the whole business faintly beneath him, and the smile he gives Hawn in their first scene back together is the smile of someone checking a mirror. When Simon’s dialogue is quick enough he keeps up with it. When it slows, he waits for it. The house staff are the film’s reliable second line. T. K. Carter’s Chester is a chauffeur who has plainly never driven anything, and the car’s repeated failures to get through the gate are timed as well as anything here. Yvonne Wilder’s Aurora is a maid who meets every crisis by fainting, which the script uses exactly the right number of times and then once more. Robert Guillaume, as Fred, Ira’s colleague at the office, gets the dry lines and delivers them drily. Harold Gould turns up as a judge, and we will leave it there. The craft is modest and knows it. David M. Walsh lights every room evenly and brightly, which suits the sitcom timing Sandrich wants and takes away the shadows a farce door could use. Gene Callahan gives the Parks house a tiled hall, a long staircase and a kitchen built around that swinging door, and the geography is always clear, so we know who is behind what. Betsy Cox keeps Hawn in sensible courtroom suits and leaves Chase in the same clothes for most of the film, as a fugitive would be. Marvin Hamlisch’s score is brass and bounce, and the old standard of the title keeps drifting back in like a guest who will not go home. Michael A. Stevenson cuts gently; scenes are allowed to run a beat or two past their last laugh, and 102 minutes feels a little longer than that. That slackness is the real complaint. *The Odd Couple* put two men in one flat and tightened the screws. This puts a husband, a wife, an ex-husband, six dogs, two cats, a maid, a chauffeur and a governor in one house, and then lets them wander. The second half moves to a courtroom and takes a turn we will not describe, but it is the kind of turn that announces itself from the next room. We were never bored; we were never surprised either, and a screwball comedy ought to manage one of those. Watch it on an evening when you want to be amused rather than startled, with someone who likes Charles Grodin or is about to. It is kind, it is tidy, and it is funnier than its pace deserves. *Fi1m score 68, published 4 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Seems Like Old Times worth watching?** *Seems Like Old Times* is worth an evening for anyone who wants a gentle, old-fashioned farce and does not mind it taking its time, and we scored it 68. Nearly all of the laughs belong to Charles Grodin, whose district attorney watches his house fill with dogs, criminals and his wife's ex-husband without once raising his voice. Chevy Chase is the weaker half, and the second half announces its turns from the next room. **How long is Seems Like Old Times, and what is it rated?** *Seems Like Old Times* runs 1h 42m. It is a comedy and romance film. **Where can I watch Seems Like Old Times in Ireland?** *Seems Like Old Times* is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from €3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does Seems Like Old Times compare to Bringing Up Baby?** *Seems Like Old Times* is Neil Simon's imitation of [*Bringing Up Baby*](https://film.one/film/bringing-up-baby), and the earlier film is the tighter and faster of the two by some distance. Howard Hawks allows no slack and is unusually ruthless about romantic pursuit; Simon and Jay Sandrich let their crowded house wander and leave scenes running past their last laugh. Choose Hawks for speed and Grant and Hepburn, and the later film for a kinder, slower evening with Charles Grodin. **What should I watch after Seems Like Old Times?** After *Seems Like Old Times*, try [*Bringing Up Baby*](https://film.one/film/bringing-up-baby) (1938, Fi1m 88): The film Simon is imitating: Hepburn, Grant, a leopard and no slack whatsoever. Then [*His Girl Friday*](https://film.one/film/his-girl-friday) (1940, Fi1m 90): An ex-wife, an ex-husband and a new fiancé, all talked at twice this speed; and [*Midnight Run*](https://film.one/film/midnight-run) (1988, Fi1m 88): Grodin again, handcuffed to De Niro, and still refusing to raise his voice. ### Reviews we read (1) - **Time Out**, DMacp (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a film review, but its verdict is unavailable. The article text is missing, so no specific praise or complaint can be identified. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/seems-like-old-times) ## Details - **Director:** Jay Sandrich - **Director:** Jay Sandrich - **Writer:** Neil Simon - **Cinematography:** David M. Walsh - **Editor:** Michael A. Stevenson - **Music:** Marvin Hamlisch - **Production design:** Gene Callahan - **Costume design:** Betsy Cox - **Producer:** Ray Stark - **Cast:** Goldie Hawn as Glenda Parks; Chevy Chase as Nick Gardenia; Charles Grodin as Ira Parks; Robert Guillaume as Fred; Harold Gould as Judge John Channing; George Grizzard as Governor; Yvonne Wilder as Aurora De La Hoya; T. K. Carter as Chester - **Runtime:** 1h 42m - **First release (Sweden):** 19 December 1980 - **Genres:** Comedy, Romance - **Box office:** $44 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw9TPR93kPk ## Where to watch in Ireland - Amazon Prime Video: rent €3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy €7.99, sd *Checked 2026-10-04.* Also available in: AU, BE, CA, ES, FR, GB, IE, IN, IT, NL, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor - Razzie Award 1981: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor - Razzie Award (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Bringing Up Baby* (1938), Fi1m 88: The film Simon is imitating: Hepburn, Grant, a leopard and no slack whatsoever. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bringing-up-baby.md) - *His Girl Friday* (1940), Fi1m 90: An ex-wife, an ex-husband and a new fiancé, all talked at twice this speed. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/his-girl-friday.md) - *Foul Play* (1978): Hawn and Chase two years earlier, with a plot and a Pope to protect. - *Midnight Run* (1988), Fi1m 88: Grodin again, handcuffed to De Niro, and still refusing to raise his voice. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/midnight-run.md) - *A Fish Called Wanda* (1988), Fi1m 83: Crooks, a barrister’s house, small dogs in peril; the British farce this wants to be. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-fish-called-wanda.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/seems-like-old-times