General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Nothing Personal (1968 film)

Nothing Personal is a 1980 comedy film directed by George Bloomfield and written by Robert Kaufman, starring Donald Sutherland as a law professor who campaigns to save a colony of harbor seals and Suzanne Somers as the lawyer who joins his cause. The film was produced by Purple Heart Film Corporation and Quadrant Films and released by American International; the date sometimes attached to the title in reference listings, 1968, is not supported by the production record, which places the film's development in 1972 and its production in 1979.¹ The only 1968 comedy of a similar title in the American Film Institute's catalog is the unrelated Universal Pictures film Nobody's Perfect (1968), directed by Alan Rafkin and starring Doug McClure.²

Key fact	Detail
Release	Los Angeles and New York openings on 18 April 1980; some listings give a 28 March 1980 theatrical date¹^•³
Director and writer	George Bloomfield (director), Robert Kaufman (writer)¹
Stars	Donald Sutherland as Roger Keller, Suzanne Somers as Abigail Adams, Lawrence Dane as Ralston¹
Length and rating	96 minutes per the AFI Catalog; MPAA rating PG¹
Production	Purple Heart Film Corporation and Quadrant Films; distributed by American International; filmed in Toronto and Washington, D.C. from 6 June to late August 1979¹
Budget	Set at $4.5 million; final budget reports varied between $5 and $6 million¹
Reception	Negative reviews and weak box-office performance; a 50% Tomatometer score on Google Play and a 4.6 IMDb rating on JustWatch¹^•⁴^•⁵

Spoilers

Plot

At Barnes College, the jaded law professor Roger Keller (Donald Sutherland) learns that a colony of harbor seals in Dawson Bay, Alaska, is being clubbed to death. A new U.S. military base is being built where the seals breed, and residents have been ordered to empty the site by killing off its animals. Because endangered species are protected by law, Keller travels to Washington, D.C., to defend the animals and end the slaughter.¹

Government officials are unsympathetic: a Pentagon colonel (Gary Reineke) argues that the Dawson Bay installation will protect the United States from potential Chinese air strikes, and a senator (John Dehner) says construction is needed to stimulate the economy. Unable to win support from other attorneys, Keller teams up with Abigail Adams (Suzanne Somers), who offers to work for free. Although he presumes she is less qualified than her male colleagues, she wins him over with her knowledge of Dunbar, the construction company building the base, and with the gift of a single share of Dunbar stock. Posing as investors, the two visit Dunbar's corporate office in Philadelphia, where Keller loses composure and orders executive Tom Dickerson (Dabney Coleman) to end the seal killings. The story ends at a Dunbar shareholders' meeting, where Keller makes an impassioned speech on behalf of the seals and the stakeholders vote to suspend construction.¹

Along the way, Keller and Adams begin a romance, and the film pits them against the corporate opposition represented by Ralston (Lawrence Dane) as well as Dickerson.⁶

Production history

A decade in development. On 4 January 1972, Daily Variety reported that television producers David L. Wolper and Stan Margulies were considering acquiring Kaufman's screenplay, and a later item that month confirmed the project had been optioned through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Mel Stuart hired to direct. The film then remained in limbo until May 1978, when Kaufman met the Canadian producer David M. Perlmutter at the Cannes Film Festival. The two formed Quadrant-Bobka Productions to finance Kaufman's projects through Canadian tax-shelter laws, under which national productions were exempt from taxation and Canadian-based filmmaking was regarded as a low-risk investment.¹

Financing and casting. After the success of Kaufman's Love at First Bite (1979), the distributor American International negotiated a $5 million deal for three pictures over three years, with Nothing Personal set as the first production and its budget set at $4.5 million. Interest rose with the casting of Suzanne Somers, who had become famous on the television comedy Three's Company; because she was married to the Canadian talk-show host Alan Hamel, she qualified for ACTRA membership and met the film's tax-exemption requirements. The picture was developed as a vehicle for Somers, whose manager Jay Bernstein introduced her to the script, and it marked her movie debut in a starring role. Both Hamel and Bernstein are credited onscreen as executive producers.¹

Financing by public share sale. Four months before the U.S. release, Perlmutter had oversold the public stock in Canada, generating $7.3 million; each share sold for 10,000 Canadian dollars, and orders exceeded what was needed to redeem his investment by 25 percent. At that time the sum represented the greatest public offering for a single feature film in Canadian history. Despite the enthusiasm of investors, the film received negative reviews and did not perform well at the box office.¹

Principal photography ran from 6 June to late August 1979, on location in Toronto and Washington, D.C. Two directors of photography, Arthur Ibbetson and Laszlo George, are credited, with George Appleby as editor, Mary Kerr as production designer, and Peter Mann composing the original music, including the title song "Nothing Personal," sung by Somers.¹

Cast

The supporting cast draws heavily on Canadian comedy performers. Credited roles include Roscoe Lee Browne as Paxton, Sean McCann as Jake, Chief Dan George as Oscar, Dabney Coleman as Dickerson, Lawrence Dane as Ralston, John Dehner as a senator, Gary Reineke as a colonel, Sean Sullivan as Dean Collier, Michael Wincott as Peter, and Catherine O'Hara as Audrey. Television comics David Steinberg and Craig Russell appear as a talk-show host and guest, and Eugene Levy plays Marty; Maury Chaykin, Joe Flaherty, and Tony Rosato also appear in small roles.¹^•⁷

Reception

Contemporary critics were hostile. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called the film an example of "the Hollywood mentality at its most presumptuously low-brow," writing that director George Bloomfield "betrays no style or discretion" and succeeds only in imposing listlessness on the story; he found Sutherland a "limp defender of righteousness" but praised the teamwork of Lawrence Dane and Dabney Coleman as the corporate villains.⁸ Vincent Canby, chief critic of The New York Times, wrote of Somers's performance that her smile "communicates no amusement, warmth, intelligence or interest."⁹ Retrospective assessments have been similarly unenthusiastic; the critic Jerry Roberts described the film as so wrapped up in money and union regulations that the characters and story take a back seat.¹⁰ Aggregated scores reflect the consensus: Google Play shows a 50% Tomatometer rating, and JustWatch lists an IMDb rating of 4.6.⁴^•⁵

The film remains available on streaming services, including Tubi, and can be rented or purchased digitally.¹¹^•¹²

Other films of the same title

The title Nothing Personal has been used by several unrelated films. Urszula Antoniak's Dutch-Irish drama Nothing Personal (2009), starring Lotte Verbeek and Stephen Rea, won the Leopard for Best Debut Film, the FIPRESCI Prize, and the Leopard for Best Actress at the Locarno International Film Festival.¹³ Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Nothing Personal (1995, originally titled Fanatic Heart) is set in Belfast during the IRA ceasefire of 1975 and moves between Loyalist paramilitaries and their Catholic and Protestant victims.¹⁴ None of these is a 1968 release; the AFI Catalog's only 1968 entry with a similar title is Nobody's Perfect.²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026