Nothing Personal (1980 film)

Nothing Personal is a 1980 Canadian-American romantic comedy film starring Suzanne Somers and Donald Sutherland. Sutherland plays a professor who objects to the killing of baby seals. Somers, a Harvard-educated attorney, tries to aid him.

The film has been extremely poorly reviewed. Cinema Canada criticized the film's "coarse, obvious humour", "unfunny and unexciting" car chases, and claimed that the film's principal concern was "speed, not coherence".[1] Leonard Maltin described Nothing Personal as an "inane romantic comedy", while TV Guide described the film as "tedious, witless, and implausible, with nonexistent direction and scythe-wielded editing."[2] Even star Suzanne Somers wrote disparagingly of the film in her autobiography, claiming it quickly became apparent during filming that credited director George Bloomfield was in over his head. According to Somers, Donald Sutherland informally assumed direction of the actors as the making of the film continued.

Numerous cast members of the Canadian comedy series SCTV turn up in bit parts in this film: Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara (in her film debut) and Tony Rosato. This casting was entirely due to the connection with director George Bloomfield, who had also directed SCTV from 1977 to 1979, and who brought the SCTV actors into the fold for this film. A similar casting situation occurred with Bloomfield's next film, Double Negative, released just two months after Nothing Personal.