Writer
Neil Simon's movie
The Sunshine Boys (1975) has at its core the subject of a comedy team, most specifically a vaudeville comedy team. As such, the Friar's Club is holding a soirée honoring the movie and its creative team of Simon, and stars
Walter Matthau,
George Burns, and
Richard Benjamin, with a plethora of comedy veterans providing commentary on the movie, the history of comedy in American entertainment, and their favorite comedians of all time. Burns provides his own assessment of who is the best. Although the characters of the Sunshine Boys in the movie are an amalgam of many comedians, Simon acknowledges that it is primarily about and an homage to the vaudeville comedy team of Smith and Dale (
Joe Smith and
Charles Dale).
—Huggo