Ship of Dancing Fools

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"There's no such thing as too late. That's why they invented death."

Charlie (Walter Matthau)

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Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon made a wonderful comedy team. Individually, they were great; together they were even better.

And together they made nearly a dozen movies. If you want to see them at their best, though, I tend to recommend their early efforts. At some point, they began to lose their edge. Toward the end, their movies shouldn't have been made at all.

Now, that's just my opinion. I confess that there were things about some of their later movies like "Grumpy Old Men" that I thought were good, but I still think most of their later efforts shouldn't have been made.

I put "Out to Sea," which premiered on this day in 1997, at the top of that list. I know people who feel differently, and that's OK. Lemmon and Matthau were always terrific together, even when the material wasn't worthy of them.

And their efforts really were wasted in this one.

Maybe they were victims of their own success. When they were together, they were typecast in the public mind as the characters they first played in "The Odd Couple." Matthau was usually the flawed but generally affable one while Lemmon was the fussy, fastidious one — Oscar and Felix. The characters had different names — except in the thoroughly inadequate sequel the two made in 1998 — but otherwise they were quite similar.

In "Out to Sea," they were brothers–in–law, just as they were more than 30 years earlier in "The Fortune Cookie," their first (and possibly best) movie together.

But this was no sequel.

In that first movie Matthau played a shyster lawyer with a weakness for angles and loopholes. In "Out to Sea," his weakness was gambling. He liked it and he knew how to place bets; he just wasn't very good. To get away from all the folks to whom he owed money, Matthau conned Lemmon — the husband of his late sister — into accompanying him on an all–expenses–paid cruise to Mexico. But he didn't tell Lemmon the catch until the ship was on its way — Matthau had signed them up to work as dance hosts aboard ship.

Now, as I say, Matthau was a bad gambler, but he did know how to place bets. He had no clue how to dance.

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Lemmon knew how to dance. By his own admission, he and his late wife had been dancing for decades.

They both ended up falling in love. Lemmon's love interest was Gloria DeHaven in what turned out to be her final movie role.

Matthau fell in love with Dyan Cannon, perhaps more because he believed her to be wealthy than because of her physical qualities. At age 60, Cannon was probably too old to be playing the kind of sexpot love interest that she did — although she did come across as younger than Matthau by comparison and was almost still capable of pulling off playing a much younger woman.

But Cannon, now 80, was one of those women who remained beautiful late in her life, and at the time "Out to Sea" was made, she still possessed attributes that the 76–year–old Matthau could appreciate. In his character's colorfully vivid way, he described one such attribute this way: "An ass so beautiful it's a shame she has to sit down on it."

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The story was amiable enough, and it was always hard not to like Lemmon and Matthau, but "Out to Sea" nearly achieved the unthinkable.

"Out to Sea" should have been put out with the trash.

Just my opinion, you understand.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Partnership

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Professor Winterhalter (Sig Ruman): All these newfangled machines. Fake! It proves nothing. In the old days, we used to do these things better. The man says he's paralyzed, we simply throw him in the snake pit. If he climbs out, then we know he's lying.

Specialist (Bartlett Robinson): And if he doesn't climb out?

Professor Winterhalter: Then we have lost a patient, but we have found an honest man.

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I'm really fond of the Walter Matthau–Jack Lemmon movie partnership, and today is a milestone anniversary for that partnership. It began — officially — 50 years ago today when Billy Wilder's "The Fortune Cookie" premiered in New York City.

It actually began, of course, whenever the movie was being shot, but as far as the movie–going public was concerned, it began 50 years ago today.

Lemmon played a TV cameraman in Cleveland who was doing sideline work at a Cleveland Browns game on a frigid Sunday afternoon. One of the Browns (played by Ron Rich) ran out of bounds and collided with Lemmon, knocking him backwards over a rolled–up tarpaulin in full view of the folks at the game and watching on TV.

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He was taken to the hospital, where his injuries were minor, but his conniving brother–in–law, an ambulance–chasing lawyer known as "Whiplash Willie" played by Matthau, cooked up a scheme to sue for big money.

Apparently Lemmon's character had suffered a compressed vertebra when he was a child, and Matthau observed that a new back injury was indistinguishable from an old one in X–rays. Matthau's plan was for Lemmon to fake paralysis to win the suit, then make a gradual recovery. Lemmon was resistant — until Matthau implied that it would be a good way to win back Lemmon's ex–wife, Sandy (Judi West) who had run out on him.

Matthau knew Lemmon was still carrying that torch. "You could carry it to Mexico City (site of the next Summer Olympics)," Matthau told him. And he was right. Lemmon's ex–wife was his Achilles' heel, and Matthau used it repeatedly to keep his brother–in–law in line and his plan from imploding.

Now, it imploded, anyway, and the discovery of how it imploded is the kind of movie experience that every viewer should have first hand. I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

But I will tell you that some of the funniest moments in the history of Matthau–Lemmon movies — and they weren't all comedies, but most of them were — occurred in "The Fortune Cookie."

Whiplash Willie must be one of the funniest characters ever to appear in one of Billy Wilder's movies — and that is certainly saying something. As one of the lawyers in the defendants' cadre of counselors described him, Willie was "so full of twists he starts to describe a doughnut, and it comes out a pretzel."

The defendants' lawyers wanted Lemmon to be examined by a team of specialists; all but one concluded the paralysis was genuine. With no medical evidence to contradict the claim, the lawyers hired a private detective (Cliff Osmond) to put Lemmon's apartment under surveillance in hopes of catching him doing something he couldn't possibly do if the paralysis story was true.

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Matthau knew about this and warned Lemmon to be careful. That wasn't so hard until the ex–wife returned to look after him. Matthau told Lemmon to avoid any kind of hanky panky, which was a lot easier said than done.

Lemmon's conscience was bothering him. The player who had collided with him on the sideline was so ridden with guilt that it was ruining other aspects of his life. He performed poorly in a game and got into a fight in a bar. Lemmon battled with his inclination to give up the lawsuit and let the guy off the hook. At the very least, he wanted his brother–in–law to represent the player in court, but Matthau was too busy negotiating a settlement with the defendants in Lemmon's lawsuit.

Then Lemmon learned that the only reason his ex–wife was there was because she wanted a share of the money from the suit to put on a show at a prestigious club and give her singing career a boost.

And the jig was up.

Perhaps I have said too much already. But the ending alone was worth the price of admission.

Matthau won Best Supporting Actor for his performance. Wilder wasn't nominated for Best Director, but he shared a nomination for Best Original Screenplay with I.A.L. Diamond, a frequent collaborator.

There are all sorts of lists of movies that people should see before they die. I would put "The Fortune Cookie" on mine.

Spreading a Little Sunshine

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Ben Clark (Richard Benjamin): I'm getting chest pains. You give me chest pains!

Willy Clark (Walter Matthau): It's my fault you get excited?

Ben Clark: Yes! I only get chest pains on Wednesdays!

Willy Clark: So come Tuesdays.

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If there is a moment that sums up "The Sunshine Boys" — which made its debut on this date in 1975 — for me, it would be late in the movie, when Walter Matthau's character was recuperating from a heart attack.

His nephew Ben (played by Richard Benjamin) was visiting him on a Wednesday, as he usually did, and he suggested to his uncle that he should move into a retirement home across the river in New Jersey.

Matthau's character wanted to know if his nephew would continue to visit him at the retirement home, and his nephew assured him that he would. Why would he think otherwise? Ben asked.

"Well, you know," Matthau said, his eyes glistening, "people don't go out to New Jersey unless they have to."

Those few words revealed so much about Willy Clark; the audience finally understood that he was driven by a fear of abandonment that was rooted in experience. As half of a successful Vaudeville act, he had experienced the abandonment of his long–time partner (played by the one and only George Burns).

Through much of the movie, Willy was a tough guy, but at the very end the audience saw just how squishy soft, how vulnerable he really was.

It was a poignant moment for that character.

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For the most part, I suppose poignance is not what audiences were after in 1975. Furthermore, I presume that those audiences expected — and rightfully so — that a movie starring Walter Matthau and George Burns was bound to have a lot of laughs.

And "The Sunshine Boys" certainly had plenty of laughs. But poignance is what gave the comedy its true meaning.

"The Sunshine Boys" was recognized then and is known today as a comedy, one of the best ever, the story of former Vaudeville partners teaming up again for one night only.

And there was never anyone better for a comedy than George Burns.

There are so many moments in "The Sunshine Boys" that showcased Burns' talent, but my personal favorite has always been the scene where Matthau's nephew (and agent) went to visit Burns to try to persuade him to reunite with Willy in a one–time–only performance of some of their greatest Vaudeville routines.

Burns' character was living with his daughter, son–in–law and grandchildren. When Ben arrived and began making his pitch, Burns interrupted him.

"How old are you?" he asked.

Ben replied, "I'm 34. Why?" Turned out Burns wanted to tell him why he and Matthau split up.

"He called me a son of a bitch bastard," Burns said, then quickly looked around the room. "The kids aren't home from school yet, are they?"

Assured that they were not, he went on to explain that he had been called that simply because he didn't want to do the show anymore.

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Well, they got over their personal issues and got together to do their act again.

And Matthau's previous trauma with Burns poking him in the chest with "the finger" appeared to be playing out again. Yep, everything seemed to be going according to Matthau's fears ... er, expectations.

Of course, there were some good things about their routine — like blonde bombshell Lee Meredith, more eye candy than actress who began her big–screen career as a mostly silent office bimbo in "The Producers" seven years earlier and ended it as a Vaudeville bimbo in "The Sunshine Boys."

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I don't know what Meredith has been doing with herself for the last 40 years, but being in a movie with George Burns and Walter Matthau would be the highlight of most people's careers.

Surprise! Meredith didn't get an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Of course, that really isn't unusual for comedies — even though some of the greatest performances I have ever seen were in comedies.

Nevertheless, Matthau was nominated for Best Actor — but lost to Jack Nicholson for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Burns was nominated for Best Supporting Actor — and won. Neil Simon also received a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Albert Brenner and Marvin March received a nomination for Best Art Direction.

Four Oscar nominations and one win. Not bad for a comedy.

The Truly Divine Miss M

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"Hi. It's me, don't you remember? The tomato from upstairs."

The Girl (Marilyn Monroe)

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I'm a fan of Marilyn Monroe — even though she was way before my time — and I have always believed she was more talented than she got credit for. You probably couldn't tell that, though, from her movie that premiered on this day in 1955 — Billy Wilder's "The Seven–Year Itch."

(It also happened to be Marilyn's 29th birthday.)

She was such a dumb blonde in that one that her character didn't even have a name. She was simply called "The Girl." Oh, there was a time or two when the male lead, Tom Ewell, tried to convince his wife (in imaginary conversations — he was in New York and she was spending the summer in Maine) that he wasn't as predictably faithful as he imagined that she thought. At one point, it was suggested that he had a blonde in his kitchen and was asked who she was. He responded by saying, "Wouldn't you like to know? Maybe it's Marilyn Monroe!" — which, of course, it was.

A nice little inside joke, eh? Just between Tom Ewell and the audience.

But her character was never addressed by any kind of name, not even as The Girl, by anyone in the movie — which suggests two possibilities to me that may have been at work (and both could be happening at the same time). First, it is an indication of how socially insignificant women were in the 1950s. By implication, that seven–year itch was afflicting the man. The Girl just happened to be there. It could have been any female. The man in the scenario had an itch to scratch. With whom he scratched it did not matter.

Second, because she was deemed to be of so little consequence, she wasn't worthy of a name. Even a dog has a name and is addressed by that name, but "The Girl" was not. For all intents and purposes, I suppose, her character was less than a dog. She was a prop, eye candy.

(It's ironic, really, that the girl was regarded as replaceable. I have heard that Wilder wanted to cast Walter Matthau as the male lead, but 20th Century Fox preferred to have Ewell reprise his Broadway role.)

Of course, it didn't help Marilyn's case that her character provided perhaps the most iconic image ever in the movies in the course of making it. It was a very suggestive image, which shouldn't be a surprise really. In spite of the Hays Code, Hollywood has always been about sex appeal. Rather than banning certain thoughts, words or images from the big screen, the Hays Code merely made some things even more tempting because they were forbidden and encouraged some movie makers to skirt around the edges of what was acceptable and what was not.

(And sometimes the movie makers played with fire. I've heard that it was the spectacle of the repeated takes of that scene, before a leering audience from across the street, that was the straw that broke the back of Marilyn's marriage to baseball icon Joe DiMaggio.)

Marilyn certainly did her part to bring about the eventual demise of the Hays Code — in no small part because of the role she played in "The Seven–Year Itch." It was never explicit, mind you, but it was suggestive.

All of that contributed to her sex kitten image. Frankly, I think Marilyn shrewdly used that image whenever and however she pleased.

I've never really understood why Marilyn got such a bad reputation, especially since her character was often capable of some really insightful comments, the kind of thing you didn't hear women saying — openly, anyway — for a few decades, things like this ...

"You think every girl's a dope. You think a girl goes to a party, and there's some guy in a fancy striped vest strutting around giving you that I'm–so–handsome–you–can't–resist–me look. From this she's supposed to fall flat on her face. Well, she doesn't fall on her face. But there's another guy in the room, over in the corner. Maybe he's nervous and shy and perspiring a little. First, you look past him. But then you sense that he's gentle and kind and worried. That he'll be tender with you, nice and sweet. That's what's really exciting."

(Now, personally, I don't really buy that, but perhaps I have become jaded by the times in which I live. In the mid–'50s, though, it must have raised some eyebrows.)

But there was the flip side to that — and it was the side that fueled her dumb blonde image.

The Girl had some unusual tastes ...

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"Hey, did you ever try dunking a potato chip in champagne? It's real crazy!"

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The Girl thought things were elegant — it seemed to be her favorite word. She thought it was elegant that Ewell was married. Cool air on a hot summer evening was elegant, too — actually, she might have been on to something there.

And she thought it was elegant to have an imagination.

"I just have no imagination at all," she said. "I have lots of other things, but I have no imagination."

I'm not so sure that is true. Now, there was no doubt that Ewell's character had a vivid imagination — and, perhaps, when compared to his imagination, anyone's imagination would pale. He was a kind of dweebish publishing executive whose imagination was straining at its leash — the residue, I'm sure, of all his repressive years of proofreading manuscripts.

And there was no doubt that Marilyn's character did, indeed, have "lots of other things." (I suppose you can define that as you wish ...)

But I think she did have an imagination. It just couldn't compete with Ewell's. His only equal, I'm inclined to think, was Walter Mitty.

Even Walter Mitty couldn't conceive of the kind of scenarios Ewell's character could — for example, his fantasy about him and Dolores Rosedale (whose character did have a name — Elaine) in a spoof of the beach scene in "From Here to Eternity."

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I guess it wasn't necessary for Ewell to fantasize about Marilyn; her character, after all, was living in the apartment above his. He was alone for the summer. He still fantasized about her, though.

No fantasy could compete with the real thing. And the real thing was right there, up close and personal all the time; Ewell's fantasies took off.

Like, for example, when he fantasized about seducing her by simply playing Rachmaninoff.

"It isn't fair," he imagined her saying. "Every time I hear it, I go to pieces. It shakes me, it quakes me. It makes me feel goose–pimply all over. I don't know where I am or who I am or what I'm doing. Don't stop. Don't stop. Don't ever stop!"

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In reality, though, they had conversations and looked at books about photography and such.

I guess it was a concession that the movie made. In the play on which the movie was based, the two had sex. They couldn't do that in the movie. That made certain other changes to the story necessary as well.

In fact, Wilder called it a "nothing movie." It should be remade without censorship, he said. "Unless the husband, left alone in New York while the wife and kid are away for the summer, has an affair with that girl, there's nothing. But you couldn't do that in those days, so I was just straitjacketed."

Wilder and Monroe worked together again — in the biggest hit of Monroe's career, "Some Like It Hot."

A 'Cactus Flower' in Full Bloom

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Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman): Mr. Greenfield, please don't handle the instruments.

Harvey (Jack Weston): I was reading the other day, a dentist in New Jersey has topless nurses.

Stephanie: I didn't know you were interested in reading.

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It was simply impossible to not like Goldie Hawn's character in "Cactus Flower," which premiered on this date in 1969.

She was so sweetly earnest, almost naive. There wasn't a deceitful bone in her body — which is probably why her relationship with Walter Matthau, playing a deceitful dentist, became so distasteful for her. That wasn't clear at first. Hawn and Matthau were having an affair. Hawn was led to believe Matthau was married with children. Turned out, though, that he was a bachelor; he just told women he had a family to avoid becoming too involved with them.

But Hawn's character had a strong sense of ethics. She wanted to be married, but she would not take another woman's man and she would not stand between a man and his children. If the relationship with Matthau continued, she would eventually violate those ethics so Matthau had to go.

But it was Hawn who apparently was on the way out when the movie began. She tried to kill herself, but a neighbor intervened — and it was when Matthau learned of the aborted suicide attempt that he realized how much he really cared for Hawn.

To save the relationship, Matthau needed a temporary wife so he turned to his dental assistant, played by Ingrid Bergman, who, as it turned out, had been nursing an infatuation with her boss for quite some time. Matthau told her he needed someone to pose as his wife and assure Hawn that the relationship was over and had been for awhile. Bergman resisted at first but eventually agreed to do it.

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Bergman brought two little boys with her (I think they were her nephews in the story) to her meeting with Hawn and did everything she could to sell the idea that her "marriage" to Matthau was over, but Hawn was a tough interrogator. She had to see Bergman with the boyfriend she claimed to have — he was played by Jack Weston, one of Matthau's patients — before she was convinced.

You know, even though Bergman was in her 50s when she made "Cactus Flower," it seems ironic that someone as beautiful as Bergman was a few decades earlier — in "Casablanca" and "Gaslight" and "Joan of Arc" — and was still beautiful when she made "Cactus Flower" ended up portraying a presumably plain dental assistant. But she did it well.

Perhaps so well that she was inspired to insist, five years later, that she play possibly the plainest character in "Murder on the Orient Express" — for which she was rewarded with an Oscar.

Hawn did win an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress) for her performance in "Cactus Flower" — which, as I recall, surprised some people. Perhaps not so much because of the caliber of her competition — as always, the nominees were good but none seemed to strike observers as particularly inevitable — but because the public memory knew Hawn as the ditzy blonde on TV's Laugh–In.

Stereotypes can be powerful things, and sometimes they distract from the truth — in this case, that Hawn deserved the Oscar she received. Fortunately, the Academy's voters weren't distracted from the truth.

And the truth — as it so often is — was complicated.

Hawn has never been the greatest actress who walked the earth. But she was convincing — and she was not nominated for Best Actress Who Ever Lived. She was so convincing that observers struggled to differentiate between Goldie Hawn the person and the airhead she played on Laugh–In. Like Suzanne Somers a decade later, she was much smarter than the characters she played.

"Cactus Flower" was filled with unexpected surprises — not unlike the cactus that Bergman kept on her desk.

One infrequently sees a flowering cactus, but it does happen, even in the most inhospitable of environments. The cactus that Bergman's character kept on her desk didn't bloom often, but, when it did, it was a sight to see.

The Flip Side of Dr. Strangelove

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Prof. Groeteschele (Walter Matthau): Mr. Secretary, I am convinced that the moment the Russians know bombs will fall on Moscow, they will surrender. They know that whatever they do then, they cannot escape destruction. Don't you see, sir? This our chance. We never would have made the first move deliberately, but Group 6 has made it for us, by accident. We must take advantage of it. History demands it. We must advise the president not to recall those planes.

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I have often said that Sidney Lumet's "Fail–Safe," which premiered on this date in 1964, and "Dr. Strangelove," which premiered in January 1964, should be shown back to back. They are, essentially, opposite sides of the same coin — unintended nuclear attack.

In "Dr. Strangelove," it was triggered by an insane U.S. Air Force general who kept babbling about "precious bodily fluids." In "Fail–Safe," a mechanical malfunction caused by Russian interference unleashed a squadron on a mission to bomb Moscow.

This forced the Americans to do things they never dreamed they would do — in order to prove to the Russians that the mission was a mistake, that a retaliatory attack was not necessary and that they would share secrets with the Russians that would help them shoot down the planes.

This led to some memorable dramatic performances by some actors who are remembered for their comedic skills. In his second–ever movie, Dom DeLuise, for example, played a small part as a technical sergeant who, because he occupied the lowest spot on the totem pole, was forced to divulge to the Soviets how to destroy air–to–air missiles on American aircraft.

DeLuise's character unknowingly triggered a false "go" signal when he replaced a failed electronic component.

Walter Matthau played a hawkish professor who happened to be addressing the Department of Defense that day. He provided reminders of unpleasant facts — for example, in arguing against futile attempts to rescue victims of a midday bombing of New York City, he said troops should be deployed to save the documents of the many corporations that kept their records in the city. "Our economy depends on this," he observed in a rather lifeless monotone that suggested that he could see both the irony and the absurdity of deploying troops with orders to rescue paper instead of people.

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Henry Fonda was brilliant (as always) as the president who had been placed in an extremely delicate position, the kind that civilians know a president could face at any time — but they devoutly hope he never will. His translator was played by a young Larry Hagman; the relationship between Fonda and Hagman, sitting together far below the surface and sharing conversations with the Russians, was one of many highlights in a story of relentlessly escalating tension.

It was a riveting drama, the exact opposite of "Dr. Strangelove," which was a spot–on satire.

Interestingly, Roger Ebert wrote that 1983's "WarGames" was a "'Fail–Safe' retread." I never really thought of it that way, but I have to admit he was right — if he meant that in a complimentary way. And how could he not? There were similarities between the movies; being compared to "Fail–Safe" was a compliment — even if "WarGames" came up short.

I Recommend ...

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I don't often do this. Really.

But Turner Classic Movies will be showing a really good — and underappreciated — Walter Matthau movie tonight at 7 (Central).

It's called "A New Leaf," from 1971, and it was actually written and directed by Elaine May, who co–starred with Matthau.

May apparently tried (unsuccessfully) to have her name removed from the credits when the studio made considerable changes. In spite of those changes, the movie remained a dark and extraordinarily funny story about marriage, money and murder.

I don't want to give too much away because the fun of watching "A New Leaf" is experiencing it for yourself, but I feel I must give you at least a taste.

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Matthau, you see, played a thoroughly self–absorbed playboy who had wasted his inheritance and had no marketable skills.

His first thought was to commit suicide — "All I am, or was, is rich," he lamented, "and it's all I wanted to be" — but he couldn't bring himself to do that so he went for his second option — he had to borrow money from his uncle to keep up appearances while he tried to find a wealthy woman to marry. If he found such a girl and married her in a certain length of time, he would pay back his uncle and resume his extravagant lifestyle.

If, on the other hand, he failed to find someone to marry, his uncle would seize all his assets, and he would be poor. But that was no worse than the predicament in which he found himself. That did not really sink in, though, until his gentleman's gentleman observed that "in a country where every man is what he has, he who has very little is nobody very much."

So Matthau reluctantly embarked on his journey to find a mate — and had no success at first.

(While I know I'm going at this out of sequence, I must say that I think one of the funniest moments in a movie filled with funny moments comes early when Matthau's financial adviser, played by character actor William Redfield, tries to tell him that he is broke.

(He explains to Matthau that he has even dipped into his own pocket at times to cover bills for which Matthau had insufficient funds. He did this, he says, so he could have the satisfaction of knowing that he did not in any way contribute to Matthau's inevitable poverty.

(Matthau, of course, seems oblivious to what his adviser is telling him, insisting that he explain why shares of a stock that he owned had been sold without authorization. Those shares had been sold to raise funds to cover debts.)

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But then he met Henrietta Lowell (May), an isolated and eccentric young heiress, and he set about wooing her. To the amazement of his uncle, he won their wager by marrying May — but was already planning her demise for their honeymoon. However, his plans went unexpectedly off the track, thanks to a number of obstacles, not the least of which was the zany cast of supporting characters played by the likes of James Coco and Jack Weston.

And, if you only know Doris Roberts as the 60–ish matriarch of the Barone family for whom housework was a labor of love in Everybody Loves Raymond, you owe it to yourself to see her when she was about 40 and playing a paid housekeeper whose primary occupation was finding creative ways (which had nothing to do with love — except for the love of money) to supplement her already–extravagant pay.

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Roberts and the rest of May's household staff were not eager to share their cash cow with Matthau — and Matthau had no intention of sharing it with anyone.

Inevitably, there was a clash, and I'm sure you can guess which one won — but it's still fun to watch it happen.

What is even more fun to watch is the effect of May's endearing personality on Matthau in spite of his worst intentions.

Roger Ebert, the movie critic who died recently, wrote that "A New Leaf" was "hilarious and cockeyed and warm."

That about sums it up. Don't miss it.

The Big-Screen Debut of The Odd Couple

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Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau): Who wants food?

Murray (Herb Edelman): What do you got?

Oscar: I got, uh, brown sandwiches and, uh, green sandwiches. Which one do you want?

Murray: What's the green?

Oscar: It's either very new cheese or very old meat.

Murray: I'll take the brown.

Roy (David Sheiner): Are you crazy? You're not going to eat that, are you?

Murray: I'm hungry!

Roy: His refrigerator has been out of order for two weeks now. I saw milk standing in there that wasn't even in the bottle!

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The Walter Matthau–Jack Lemmon movie "The Odd Couple" made its debut 45 years ago today, a couple of years after the Neil Simon–authored play was a splash on Broadway.

It is one of my favorite comedies, and I have written about it before — when it was about to be shown on TV. I'm not sure there is much I can add to that.

Except to say that I have seen it many times in my life, and I still think it is funny every time I see it. I know what's coming. I know all the best lines by heart.

But I still laugh, especially at scenes that I have been laughing at for years. Not even scenes really. I always laugh at Jack Lemmon's portrayal of the fastidious Felix, and I always laugh at Walter Matthau's portrayal of the sloppy Oscar.

They truly were an odd couple. That's what made them funny — but, frankly, Lemmon and Matthau were already funny. When they were paired up, they were even funnier.

And "The Odd Couple" wasn't even their first pairing. That was a couple of years earlier in "The Fortune Cookie," for which Matthau won an Oscar.

Matthau played a lawyer in that movie; he played a sports writer in "The Odd Couple." No matter which movie he was in or which role he played, though, he always looked like he had been sleeping in his clothes.

He didn't have much of a wardrobe in "The Odd Couple" — mostly T–shirts and ball caps — but he didn't really need much.

It was a big part of his charm, I guess.

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Oscar Madison: Look at this. You're the only man in the world with clenched hair.

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Of Lemmon, I guess it can best be said that he proved his talent for comedic roles in "Mister Roberts," "Some Like It Hot" and "The Apartment," but it was a different kind of role in "The Odd Couple."

Lemmon got his share of laughs in "The Odd Couple," to be sure, but most of the time, I guess, he was Matthau's straight man, feeding him setup lines.

Like when he and Oscar were talking about the fairer sex in a bowling alley, and Felix remarked, "Funny, I haven't thought of women in weeks."

"I fail to see the humor," Oscar replied, gazing longingly at a group of excited young women jumping up and down after one of them bowled a strike.

My favorite exchange may have been when Felix said, "I think I'm crazy."

"If it makes you feel any better," Oscar said, "I think so, too."

It was one of the great film partnerships of all time.

Playing Ball

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A new baseball season has begun.

It is a time of new life — and of remembering when life was new. For many of us, those memories involve baseball, the smell of dirt and grass on a warm spring day, a light breeze in your face, a glove or a bat in your hand.

Some movies bring back memories like that. Such a movie made its debut on this day in 1976 — "The Bad News Bears" — and, while it didn't exactly mirror my childhood memories, it does bring back a specific memory to me.

I don't recall hearing much about the movie before I saw it at the theater. What I do remember about the day I saw it was that it was perhaps the last time my brother and I went to a movie with my grandmother — just three of us. If there was a later occasion when just the three of us went to a movie, I don't remember what it was.

My brother and I were both teenagers by that time, and we were getting a bit old to be going to movies with our grandmother, but she insisted that she wanted to take us to see this movie.

I must confess that I felt somewhat obligated. I remembered years earlier, when she and my grandfather had visited my family in our home in Arkansas, and my grandfather wanted to drive me to school one morning. But I was short–sighted. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to ride in the bus with my friends, as I did every day.

In the end, Grandpa relented, but I can still hear him complaining to my mother, "All my friends get to take their grandchildren to school."

In hindsight, I can see I denied him that pleasure. And it is a regret that has remained with me all these years.

I never had the chance to make it up to him. He died a month later.

In 1976, I decided that, if it would make my grandmother happy to take me to see a movie, it was worth a couple of hours of my time. But, after I saw it, I couldn't help wondering why she wanted to see it.

Maybe she was drawn in by the casting. My grandmother was a fan of Walter Matthau, who was the star of the film. As I have written here, her fondness for Matthau went back at least to his work in "The Odd Couple" — and might have gone back farther than that.

It is possible, I guess, that the only thing she knew about the movie before she saw it was that Matthau was in it. At least, that is what I assumed at the time.

She was an avid reader of movie reviews in the Dallas newspaper, but I don't remember her saying anything about what the critics said about that movie. If she had read a review of it, she might have been a bit put off by it. There was a lot of language in it that she almost certainly didn't like — and it's hard for me to imagine that, in the straight–laced city that Dallas was at that time, the reviewers didn't at least mention that children were using objectionable and offensive language throughout the film.

In fact, I remember stealing glances at her while we watched the movie on a warm early summer afternoon in Dallas. I wanted to see how she reacted to the vulgarity and the ethnic slurs that came from the mouths of several children, one in particular.

It was hard to tell much in that darkened theater, but she seemed to enjoy the movie and never mentioned the language to me — or anyone else (at least not within my hearing range). My memory is that, when the three of us returned from the movie, she was full of praise for the story and the acting and laughed as she recalled several scenes.

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I don't know what she thought of Matthau's co–star, Tatum O'Neal — who had won an Oscar for her performance in "Paper Moon" a few years earlier. We never discussed O'Neal.

For his part, Matthau also was coming off an Oscar–winning performance. But the performance wasn't his, it was George Burns' in the film in which they co–starred, 1975's "The Sunshine Boys."

In a way, I guess Matthau's character was a precursor to Tom Hanks' in "A League of Their Own." Matthau was a drunken manager of a Little League team that was getting pulverized in every game — until he brought in a couple of "ringers." Then the team started winning and wound up facing its rival in the championship.

A couple of the other adults in the cast would have been familiar to audiences in 1976 — Vic Morrow was in it, and so was Joyce Van Patten — but none of the other children has gone on to do much in movies. Brandon Cruz appeared as Bill Bixby's son in the TV series The Courtship of Eddie's Father in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but, other than that ...

Not even O'Neal, whose career has been a bit sporadic in the last 35 years, did much after "The Bad News Bears." Yes, she's been in some movies. Yes, she's been on some TV shows. But her career seems to have fizzled as she got older.

The makers of the film knew how to set audiences up for sequels and remakes, though. "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" came along the following year, and that was followed the next year by "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan," neither of which came close to matching the original.

Then, about a quarter of a century later, Hollywood issued a remake of the original starring Billy Bob Thornton. I've heard it wasn't bad, but I've only seen clips.

I guess I inherited my grandmother's appreciation for Matthau.

And I guess I figured that you can't improve on perfection.

Overlooked and Forgotten

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This month would have been actor Walter Matthau's 90th birthday.

I suppose, when most people think of Matthau, they think of the work he did with Jack Lemmon in "The Odd Couple" movies and "The Fortune Cookie." I certainly do.

Or perhaps they think of "The Sunshine Boys," the movie in which Matthau's co–star was the legendary George Burns. That's another one that I think of frequently.

But, lately, my thoughts have been drawn to a film that got a warm reception from critics and audiences when it was released nearly 40 years ago but has been largely overlooked and forgotten since — "A New Leaf."

It is rarely seen on TV anymore, and I simply can't understand why. Matthau's performance as playboy Henry Graham (an "aging youth," in his uncle's words, who is unskilled at anything except being one of the idle rich) is nothing short of brilliant.

But he is matched with the deliciously dry, deadpan delivery of Elaine May, a talented writer and director who is seldom recognized for what she has accomplished. Perhaps she stole some of his thunder.

May wore many hats for "A New Leaf." She was writer and director as well as co–star, adapting a short story into a dark comedy that managed to work in some timeless truths at the same time. Matthau's Henry was self–absorbed; May's Henrietta was the opposite, and together they proved that opposites really do attract — sometimes in spite of themselves.

It's hard to discuss the plot in much detail because so much of the humor of the film has to be experienced. The attached clips are funny — and even presented in a kind of chronological context — but you can't appreciate the film until you see it.

And I encourage you to see it whenever you can.

In a nutshell, though, Matthau plays an aging playboy who has spent his inheritance and is not equipped, by training or temperament, to support himself through labor. His options seem limited and, aside from the step that he can't quite bring himself to take — suicide — he decides to ask his uncle, who was his childhood guardian, for some money.

His uncle refuses so Henry makes a deal with him. His uncle will loan him enough money to keep up appearances for six weeks, during which time he will try to find a wealthy bride, court her and marry her. After the wedding, with his newly acquired fortune, he will repay his uncle.

In the event that he fails to find a bride by the end of the six weeks, he will give all his possessions to his uncle.

Henry's situation looks bleak when the days go by, and all his attempts to woo rich single girls fail. It looks like his uncle (delightfully played by James Coco) will win their wager.

But fate intervenes, and Henry happens to meet Henrietta. She is the heir to a huge fortune, shy (painfully so), naive, klutzy, a botanist.

Upon meeting her and learning of all her shortcomings, Henry, feeling the pressure of the deadline looming only days away, mutters, "She's perfect."

So Henry sets about courting Henrietta and wins his wager with his uncle. But there are complications.

For one, Henrietta's lawyer and her domestic staff have been taking advantage of her trusting nature for years and aren't happy about having to share their gravy train with the new husband. Henry, on the other hand, has no intention of sharing anything with anyone and dismisses them all.

The marriage also encounters opposition from Henry's uncle, who doesn't want to lose his bet.

And the couple's greatest obstacle to wedded bliss is Henry's own self–centered nature. At heart, you see, he is a confirmed bachelor. There is no room for a significant other in his world. He needs Henrietta's money to live the lifestyle to which he is accustomed, but he doesn't need her, and he tries to find a way to do away with her so he can have it all.

But, in the end, he realizes that he really does love her, and the movie ends with the two of them walking away together. "I'll always be able to count on you, won't I?" the hopelessly naive Henrietta says to Henry, and he replies, resignedly, "I'm afraid so."

In many ways, I have come to see it as the triumph of Matthau's career. The character of Henry required him to walk a fine line. Contrary to what some would have you believe, comedy is not always comedy.

In this film, Matthau had to alternate between screwball comedy and a comedy that was sometimes understated and cynical. His role sometimes veered into dramatic territory — but anyone who ever saw his performance in "Fail–Safe" knows he was capable of dramatic turns, even if he was known for his comedy.

But movie viewers who are only old enough to remember his latter years may not realize that Matthau got his start in dramatic roles, and he was equally skilled at both drama and comedy.

Walking the tightrope that he did in "A New Leaf" proved it.

A Unique Talent

I will always remember when Walter Matthau died. It was 10 years ago today.

But, in an unorganized kind of way that might have appealed to his signature character, Oscar Madison, I couldn't say for sure whether I heard about it on the day he actually died or the day after.

You see, I had just moved into the apartment in which I still live, and there were boxes of possessions piled around the place. I'm not sure if the cable had been hooked up yet. I know I didn't have phone service.

July 1, 2000, was a Saturday. My brother and I had moved most of my belongings the day before, so I spent most of that Saturday unpacking and arranging things. It's possible that I had my radio plugged in. If I did — and if I happened to switch the radio on — it's possible that I heard about Matthau's death on the radio. I simply have no memory of that.

What I do remember is going to the nearby grocery store the next day to get some supplies and seeing Matthau's obituary on the front page of the Sunday paper.

And a flood of memories washed over me.

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He was a unique talent.

• I remembered the first time I ever saw Matthau on the big screen. It was in "The Odd Couple," and seeing that movie today brings back fond memories of two ladies who were very important to me — my mother and her mother.
  
  They both loved that movie, especially my grandmother, as I recalled here a few months ago. But, to tell you the truth, I think she was always a big fan of Walter Matthau.
  
  And, frankly, who didn't like Matthau? Even when he was a young man, he seemed to be the personification of a grumpy old man — crabby, hunched over, kinda seedy — with big ears and a Nixonesque jaw that seemed designed to make audiences laugh. He was made for comedy.

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• In fact, though, he was equally agile at both drama and comedy — as I was to learn when I went to college and began watching movies from early in his career, like "Fail–Safe."

But he really had a flair for comedy, especially when he was paired with someone who had a flair for it, too, like George Burns in "The Sunshine Boys." You can watch it today, 35 years after it was made, and it's still as fresh and funny as it was in the mid–1970s.

That's probably the highest compliment anyone can pay to Matthau. Today, 10 years after his death, his performances are still as entertaining as ever.

Part of that, to be sure, is due to the wonderful writing that seemed to be ever present on his projects. And part of it certainly was thanks to the work of some talented directors.

But much of it was his own talent, skill — unique and brilliant and, oh, so missed.

'Odd Couple' Still Funny After All These Years

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You know a comedy was good when there are lines in it that you can tell your friends and family over and over again — and they're always funny, no matter how many times you tell them.

Seems to me that just about every movie that was based on a Neil Simon play was like that. But I think it was especially true of "The Odd Couple," which was turned into a movie starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in 1968.

Matthau played Oscar, a sloppy sportswriter, and Lemmon was Felix, a compulsive neat freak who worked as a news writer. The play/film never established whether they worked for the same news organization, but they lived in New York, which then, as now, had several newspapers.

Anyway, their employer(s) didn't figure as an important part of the story. And the lines are still as good, still as funny as they were in 1968.

My grandmother was probably the best evidence of that. She wasn't the sort of person to recite humorous dialogue from movies, but there was one scene from "The Odd Couple" that always made her laugh. And she loved to tell it.

Oscar asks Felix to move his plate of pasta from the dining table. He calls it "spaghetti." Felix laughs.

Oscar asks him, "What the hell's so funny?"

Chuckling, Felix replies, "It's not spaghetti, it's linguini."

Without saying a word, Oscar picks up the plate of linguini and flings it at the kitchen wall.

He turns around and glares at Felix. "Now it's garbage," he says slowly, softly and deliberately.

I can't tell you how many times my grandmother told us about that scene — or how hard she laughed at the memory of it, years after she first saw it.

The story was really deceptively simple. Felix has been thrown out of the house and considers ending his life, but he winds up at the home of Oscar, his best friend, who gives him a place to stay. Seems like a good solution, right? Wrong. The two personalities are so different that they can't co–exist.

What ensues is some of the best dialogue ever written by Neil Simon. And it was delivered flawlessly by Lemmon and Matthau.

If you've never seen it, I won't spoil it for you by telling you some of the best lines. I'll just urge you to watch it.

You can see it tonight on Turner Classic Movies' "31 Days of Oscar."

It's on at 10:15 p.m. (Central).

The Fortune Cookie

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Here in Dallas today, the temperature is 95° and the heat index is a brutal 108°.

When it is that hot outside, nothing makes me feel cooler than thoughts of a football game.

No games are being played today, so I'm going to stay inside tonight and watch "The Fortune Cookie" on Turner Classic Movies at 7 p.m. (Central).

It's one of my all–time favorite movies. Walter Matthau plays Whiplash Willie, a lawyer who represents his brother–in–law, Jack Lemmon, in a million–dollar lawsuit after Lemmon, a TV cameraman, is run over while covering a pro football game. Even though the fans in the stadium, not to mention the TV audience, saw the whole thing, the defendants in the lawsuit are convinced that it is a hoax, and they make every effort to catch Lemmon and Matthau in the act before the suit can come to court — or before they have to agree to a costly settlement.

The film, which was directed by the legendary Billy Wilder, was made a couple of years before "The Odd Couple" and many years before "Grumpy Old Men." In fact, I believe it was the very first pairing of Lemmon and Matthau.

Even if it wasn't, though, it was hilarious. Everyone should see it.

Settle in and watch it tonight.