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DVD The Out-of-Towners
Arthur Hiller (Love Story) directed the film adaptation of Neil Simon's curious comedy about a pair of non-New Yorkers (Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis) having a hellish visit to the Big Apple on the eve of a job interview for Lemmon's character. Made in 1970, this hectic film almost seems ahead of its time when compared to more recent misery-piled-on-misery comedies such as Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The couple in this film endure everything that can go wrong on a trip, including being forced to spend the night in a mugger-happy Central Park. The strange element in Simon's script, though, is that Lemmon's character is so unpleasant. A middle-class, uptight guy who can't believe that New Yorkers in the service profession don't perform their jobs slavishly, he's kind of a one-note joke that quickly wears thin. Remade with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. --Tom Keogh
This is the original "The Out of Towners (1970) film based on a Neil Simon story.
George (Jack Lemmon) and Gwen (Sandy Dennis) Kellerman are on their way to the airport to board a plane to New York. Both are excited because this could be a new life for George as Vice President in Charge of Sales, if the interview goes well. The thing is, George must get to the interview on time and then he will be treated with First Class style on the town.
Well, not all goes well. First the plane can not land on time due to "stacking" and then the weather becomes a problem. Then they receive bad news that they will have to land in Boston. From there it is just one problem after another. Will they ever make it to New York City before 9:00am? It's fun to watch them try.
Also in the cast: Ann Prentiss, Ron carey, Richard Libertini, Billy dee Williams, John Brown, Anthony Holland, Robert Walden, Dolph Sweet, Anne Meara, Thalmus Rasulala, Carlos Montalban, Paul Dooley, Paul Jabara and Mary Norman.
Some people think they see John Lennon at the Union Station.
Remade in 1999 starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn.
This is probably where they got the idea for "The Amazing Race" CBS reality tv series (2001-Present).
Recommended: Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft in The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), another New York apartment comedy.
As funny as it gets
Jack Lemmon is a comedic genious, and no where is that more evident than in The Out of Towners. He's an uptight upper management type from Ohio who falls victim to NYC's never ending supply of madness inducing fodder. From the moment he and his wife get on the plane to NY they are trapped in a never ending cycle of misfortune, bad luck and crime ridden streets. Jack Lemmon walks a fine line between nervous hostility and dramatic comedy. I am a native New Yorker and I myself have fallen victim to NYC's endless barrage of crowds, lines, apathetic cops, red tape, crime, pollution and all the other trappings of a big city. Lemmon adds a special touch that you rarely find in an actor. He doesn't come off as a blundering idiot like Steve Martins' rendition of this film and he brings you right into the scene as though it's happening to you. Paul Giamatti is about as close to Jack Lemmon as any of today's actors will get. He has that certain edge that makes him funny and intense all in one performance. If you like this film then you will also enjoy Prisoner of Second Avenue. Another Jack Lemmon classic.
Oh My God!!!!!!
One reviewer said it right. Today's comedies are quite different from what they were when this marvelous gem was made. Today, in the tyranny of Hollywood accountant's bottom line orientation, producers are no longer willing to take risks and attempt to produce art. Today's video game raised generations don't have the patience for humor that is driven by great dialogue, they want the site gags and cliche "hot babes" - okay so it isn't all bad. However, if you are one who enjoys and even demands good writing, and good acting, this movie is calling to you. While far from Lemon's best work, it is indeed excellent.
This is a tale of the Kellerman's (Lemon and Dennis) who's trip to New York evokes Murphy's Law with an attitude. This is a tale of miscalculations, bad timing, blunders, and goofs. Will our heros survive this ill fated trip? Or will the big apple devour them? Their reactions to the various situations they fall into will have you laughing.
Neil Simon's terribly funny play about roommates Oscar the slob and Felix the neurotic was first committed to film in this 1968 production, directed by Gene Saks (Barefoot in the Park). Perfectly timed, ingeniously rendered, not a hair out of place in the history-making performances of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon (or the great support cast), The Odd Couple is a movie that one just has to see every two or three years to stay happy. The poker-game sequence in which Oscar's cronies seem to be falling under the sway of fussy Felix's talent for making sandwiches is priceless. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Gene Saks DVD Release Date: Released the 12 December 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This is one of my all time favorite movies. It shows the funny side of people only concerned about themselves. You have Jack Lemmon as a recently unemployed adman, and Anne Bancroft as his sympathetic yet let's be practical wife. I feel that this is both thier finest hours in this movie as the chemistry shows that they really enjoyed working with each other. I find Lemmon's character is one who just can't believe that his career is over, and he's nowhere near the age of retirement, and plus he's from the old school where the woman stayed at home while the man goes out, and gets the meat. When Bancroft's character goes to work it causes a breakdown in Lemmon's character as his perfect world continues to crumble making him hostile towards everyone; his family, friends, his wife, the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jack Lemmon - Anne Bancroft Director(s): Melvin Frank DVD Release Date: Released the 30 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This 1979 comedy is absolutely indispensable for fans of Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, or Andrew Bergman, who wrote the film's screenplay and went on to direct The Freshman and Honeymoon in Vegas. (Let's forgive him for Striptease.) Arkin is extraordinarily funny as a dentist who quickly grows skeptical about the wild claims of his daughter's future father-in-law (Peter Falk) that he is a CIA agent. When he is drawn into a bizarre adventure in a banana republic, however, he takes a different view. Arthur Hiller (Love Story) provides serviceable direction, but the real draw here is the perfect chemistry between the two leads and Bergman's weirdly comic mind. Watch for the look on Arkin's face when Falk's character tells a story about giant tse-tse flies. --Tom... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Peter Falk - Alan Arkin Director(s): Arthur Hiller DVD Release Date: Released the 13 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Billy Wilder's insurance-scam comedy, written with partner I.A.L. Diamond, is one of the legendary filmmaker's surlier efforts. Were it not for the star-making performance of Walter Matthau (which won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), it might not have registered so strongly with audiences. Shot in a grimy black and white, the story begins as CBS cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon) is injured on the sidelines of a football game when Cleveland Browns star Boom Boom Jackson (Ron Rich) accidentally barrels into him. Hinkle's all right, but his ambulance-chasing brother-in-law William Gingrich (Matthau), also known as "Whiplash Willie," has a lawsuit filed before Hinkle even wakes up at the hospital. Hinkle is reluctant to join in on the scheme, which involves staying in a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jack Lemmon - Walter Matthau Director(s): Billy Wilder DVD Release Date: Released the 06 March 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jack Lemmon - Shirley MacLaine - Fred MacMurray Director(s): Billy Wilder DVD Release Date: Released the 19 June 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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