Well, truth be told, I don't like this movie very much. Now--I'm a HUGE Neil Simon fan, a HUGE Jack Lemmon fan, a HUGE Sandy Dennis fan. How in the world could this movie have gone so wrong?
1. Neil Simon's episodic tale of an obnoxious neurotic and his annoying wife running into one disaster after another in NYC, happening at the rate of probably one screw-up every five minutes, is so relentless--it induced in me a headache of major proportions. The episodes are not really funny, because they are all so unpleasant--seeing Sandy Dennis' foot bleeding after stepping on a twist top bottle cap in the middle of Central Park, watching Jack Lemmon breaking a tooth eating cracker jack, and the relentless parade of stereotypical NYC (circa 1970) loonies contributing to the unpleasant atmosphere of Dante's Inferno transported to Manhattan is so inexorable, one watches the movie in absolute awe at the blatant humorlessness of it all. Instead of being funny, it is noisy, chaotic and relentless. The two hour or so movie feels like it lasts an eternity.
2. Jack Lemmon's character is just SO obnoxious and obsessive compulsive and unpleasant, he is a walking talking perforated ulcer. Think of a terrible headache, or earache or toothache that won't go away. That's Jack Lemmon in "The Out-of-Towners"!
3. Sandy Dennis says "George" (Jack Lemmon's character's name) I swear to God--maybe 300 or 400 times during the course of the movie. I loved watching Sandy Dennis with her quirks and ticks and unexpected crescendos and decrescendos in her voice in films like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "Up the Down Staircase"--but in this movie, these all just become annoying. But if she didn't keep saying George every 5 seconds in the movie, I probably would have tolerated her a little more. Her final monologue enumerating all the rotten aspects of NYC was a bitter whining recitation at the end of a crappy movie.
On paper this movie might have seemed like a sure thing--maybe it read better then the God-awful resulting translation to the big screen.
For those of us living in New York City for the past 40 years, this movie feels like a relic from the distant past. In place of the strikes and the crime and the stereotypical rudeness, nowadays, with NY being OZ for most of the rest of the world--the main annoyance in 2010 is that the cost of housing is so exorbitant. But this relic of a film is not a revealing view of NY circa 1970--it's just a dumb trifle, taking pot shots at easy targets, and causing queasiness in the viewing audience. Have your Alka Seltzer or aspirin (mega-doses) at hand when you prepare to watch this movie.
1. Neil Simon's episodic tale of an obnoxious neurotic and his annoying wife running into one disaster after another in NYC, happening at the rate of probably one screw-up every five minutes, is so relentless--it induced in me a headache of major proportions. The episodes are not really funny, because they are all so unpleasant--seeing Sandy Dennis' foot bleeding after stepping on a twist top bottle cap in the middle of Central Park, watching Jack Lemmon breaking a tooth eating cracker jack, and the relentless parade of stereotypical NYC (circa 1970) loonies contributing to the unpleasant atmosphere of Dante's Inferno transported to Manhattan is so inexorable, one watches the movie in absolute awe at the blatant humorlessness of it all. Instead of being funny, it is noisy, chaotic and relentless. The two hour or so movie feels like it lasts an eternity.
2. Jack Lemmon's character is just SO obnoxious and obsessive compulsive and unpleasant, he is a walking talking perforated ulcer. Think of a terrible headache, or earache or toothache that won't go away. That's Jack Lemmon in "The Out-of-Towners"!
3. Sandy Dennis says "George" (Jack Lemmon's character's name) I swear to God--maybe 300 or 400 times during the course of the movie. I loved watching Sandy Dennis with her quirks and ticks and unexpected crescendos and decrescendos in her voice in films like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "Up the Down Staircase"--but in this movie, these all just become annoying. But if she didn't keep saying George every 5 seconds in the movie, I probably would have tolerated her a little more. Her final monologue enumerating all the rotten aspects of NYC was a bitter whining recitation at the end of a crappy movie.
On paper this movie might have seemed like a sure thing--maybe it read better then the God-awful resulting translation to the big screen.
For those of us living in New York City for the past 40 years, this movie feels like a relic from the distant past. In place of the strikes and the crime and the stereotypical rudeness, nowadays, with NY being OZ for most of the rest of the world--the main annoyance in 2010 is that the cost of housing is so exorbitant. But this relic of a film is not a revealing view of NY circa 1970--it's just a dumb trifle, taking pot shots at easy targets, and causing queasiness in the viewing audience. Have your Alka Seltzer or aspirin (mega-doses) at hand when you prepare to watch this movie.