OVP: The Sunshine Boys (1975)

Film: The Sunshine Boys (1975)

Stars: Walter Matthau, George Burns, Richard Benjamin

Director: Herbert Ross

Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Actor-Walter Matthau, Best Supporting Actor-George Burns*, Best Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The 1970's were really the era of the "superstar" screenwriter.  Figures like Paddy Chayefsky, Robert Towne, Elaine May, & Woody Allen all were able to gain a level of fame simply from their work in front of a typewriter, not needing to be onscreen talent (though the latter occasionally were).  One figure like this is Neil Simon, whose many hit plays were a New York theater scene staple throughout the 1970's & made his wife, Marsha Mason, an Oscar perennial for a while.  The problem for me has always been that I never really gravitated in retrospect to Simon's work.  I get the moments that it's good (probably the best excursion for me is The Goodbye Girl), but I've never loved one of his films, and at this point I'm starting to run out of opportunities to relate to what he's making considering today's film, one of his most celebrated, just didn't click for me.  Today we're going to look at the Oscar-winning The Sunshine Boys.

(Spoilers Ahead) Though there are other characters in the picture (including cameos by Steve Allen & Phyllis Diller as themselves), this is mostly a three-man film about a legendary comedy duo Willy Clark (Matthau) and Al Lewis (George Burns) who are coaxed by Willy's nephew Ben (Benjamin) to get the vaudeville team back together for a comedy special on ABC that will net all three men a lot of money.  The only problem is that the two men hate each other, particularly Willy against Al.  We see them hash through old animosities while training for the special, including that Al left the group before Willy was ready to, and that they likely never truly liked each other even though they knew they were good together. The movie hits its climax when, after they can't pull it together in a dress rehearsal for the special, Willy has a heart attack and has to drop out.  At that point, he decides to retire, and during a reconciliation, it turns out both men are destined to end up in the same retirement home, forever linked, but now (perhaps) real friends.

The film weirdly was not a hit in 1975, despite its relatively storied legend as a success at the time, and that's likely due to its awards run.  The film dominated at the Golden Globes (Matthau, Burns, and Benjamin all won (the former two tied), as did the film itself for Best Picture), while it won four Oscar nominations, and took Best Supporting Actor for Burns.  The film wasn't intended to be for Burns initially (Jack Benny was supposed to take the part before he had to drop out due to the pancreatic cancer that would kill him before the film was even released), but Burns got the part on Benny's recommendation, and it totally rebounded his career, getting him a weird renaissance of film parts & lots of stage work for the next couple of decades.

The problem is that the film doesn't really earn any of those Oscar nominations.  The Art Direction is interesting (I love the chaotic lived-in nature of Matthau's apartment, particularly against the orderly nature of Burns' house with his daughter), but it's not all that noteworthy.  The acting is just okay-the film is meant to be heartfelt & funny, but it's really neither of those two things and the premise wears thin.  Matthau is better than Burns, as he's the more experienced actor, but plays the script (which is dated even for 1975) as being a curmudgeonly Jewish comedian that borders into stereotype.  Burns is okay in the role as Al, but it's not acting and sometimes it's hard to tell if he's just got his comic timing off or if he was genuinely missing a line.  It's likely that Hollywood, entranced by the charming comedian getting his big moment-in-the-sun decades after he first became famous with his beloved wife Gracie, couldn't resist giving him a trophy even if there was far better work to pick from in 1975.

OVP: Cactus Flower (1969)

Film: Cactus Flower (1969)
Stars: Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, Goldie Hawn, Jack Weston, Rick Lenz
Director: Gene Saks
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Supporting Actress-Goldie Hawn*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

When my brother and I were young, probably I was 11 or 12, one of our favorite nerdy pastimes was to flip through my almanac, and quickly figure out how many of the "Big 6" Oscar winning films we'd seen (Picture, Director, and the four acting trophies).  We did this with obscene frequency, too often, really, if you think about it, since we did it more than we would actually see the movies (in the era before home computer spreadsheets, this was really the only way you could keep track of such a thing).  I'm not going to go and do the numbers right now of where I stand (suffice it to say I have improved my counts since then), but doing this so often, weird films start to develop a mythic quality to them.  I have relatively few films from, say, pre-1995 (when this habit would've started & therefore were recited the most) that I haven't seen, so when I do, even if it's a minor film in terms of cinematic history, it still feels like a big deal, and it takes a while afterward for me to sort of stop instinctively thinking "well, I haven't seen that" because I've been saying for 25 years that I haven't.  This is probably going to be the case with a movie like Cactus Flower, which I finally saw this past weekend for the first time, and is indeed one of those "Big 6" Oscar winners.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Toni Simmons (Hawn), a young woman who lives in the Village in the late 60's (read-she's kooky & wears a mini skirt), who tries to kill herself because her dentist boyfriend Julian (Matthau) stands her up on their one-year anniversary, presumably because he's with his wife (it gets less depressing in a second).  She is saved by her cute next door neighbor Igor (Lenz), who spends the movie slowly trying to romance her (his naked torso plays a larger role in this movie than you'd think), but she is committed to Julian, particularly after he decides to leave his wife for her.  But first, she wants to make amends with his wife, which is a problem...because he made up the wife to try and get her not to want to marry him (as he's a playboy).  Instead, he convinces his rigid assistant Stephanie (Bergman) to be his "wife," and in the process, he realizes as she lets her hair down around him that she's in fact a beautiful woman (duh, she's Ingrid Bergman) who has been madly in love with him.  In the end, everyone ends up with someone, but not who they started with, and they all live happily ever after.

Cactus Flower is mostly known simply for being the movie that Hawn won her Oscar for today, but it was actually a big hit in 1969, and the score (by a young Quincy Jones) is pretty hip for its time.  Jones features covers of hits by the Monkees and Lulu in his orchestral setup, which feels right for a movie where one of the principle characters works at a record store (and because everything today is through the lens of Covid-19, man I was practically salivating at the idea of browsing through a record store).  The film manages to do something that was occasionally a struggle for American films of the era at that time, especially those focusing on youth culture-feel like it wasn't just of one specific era, but a more universal story.  Weirdly Jones' ability to put timeless hits like "I'm a Believer" and "To Sir with Love," songs that are so iconic they don't feel like part of any era, helps that situation even if they were recent at the time.

The film itself is fine, it's the sort of movie that's easy to know the plot of the second it begins.  Matthau is neither charming nor handsome, so you have to suspend belief as to why two gorgeous women are throwing themselves at him (his "swinging bachelor" is not something he ever really convinces this audience is real).  The women are much better.  Ingrid Bergman is not known for doing comedy, but she's charming as a woman finding herself, and realizing that she doesn't need to devote herself to a man in order to secure one.  This would have been too light to nominate Bergman, a long-time, serious actress for (though she did get a Globe citation), but I kind of wonder if she was closer than you'd think.  Hawn won the Oscar, and brings an innocence to the role that feels authentic.  It's a hard part to play-she has to be both brainy (it's obvious in hindsight that she didn't want to marry Julian the second he became available to her), and dumb, but that's been Hawn's schtick for forty years now so you know she can do it, even though it was brand new then.  I'm a big fan of hers in general, and it's weird to see her so young, to the point where her wealthy Beverly Hills accent hasn't yet developed into what we know from Overboard or The First Wives Club.  A great start to her career, and yet another "Big 6" victor off of my viewing list.

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Film: A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Stars: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick
Director: Elia Kazan
Oscar History: Despite being hailed as a masterpiece in recent years, at the time it received mixed reviews, and scored no nominations despite a DGA citation.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Last month I did something I have wanted to do since it started in the Twin Cities, but never quite pulled the trigger.  Each month, my favorite theater does a "Secret Movie" night where you can buy tickets to a movie having no idea what is playing.  It's not a current film (it'll be a classic, though potentially a new classic like Dreamgirls or Memento), and it has the regular trailers followed by the film just starting.  I didn't go to the fancier version (with a Q&A and a cocktail hour), so I had, for the first time in my life, the thrill of sitting in a movie theater as if it was Christmas morning, opening a present that I didn't know the contents  It took me a few seconds as the opening whistles erupted before I saw the opening placards and realized that we were watching A Face in the Crowd, the 1957 classic that has become more culturally significant in the past few years as the film has drawn comparisons to the rise of Donald Trump (likely why the picture ended up being chosen in the first place, though I have since gone to a different secret film that had no obvious modern connection so that may have just been a coincidence).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with Marcia Jeffries (Neal), a local radio host who goes around trying to discover talent in Arkansas, interviewing a drunken drifter named Larry Rhodes (Griffith), who sings a song for her and charms the audiences with folksy humor and stories.  Rhodes becomes a hit for Jeffries, and he lands a television show under the guise "Lonesome" Rhodes, which gains a national following.  The movie progresses with Rhodes becoming an important entertainment figure with a national show, all-the-while letting the fame get to his head.  He takes advantage of his relationship with Jeffries, the only person who sees him as a good man and not an opportunist or something you can make money or gain power from, and and eventually marries a young majorette (Remick) who quickly starts an affair with Rhodes' manager, who thanks to an iron-clad contract, Rhodes can't fire.  Eventually Rhodes starts to play into politics, campaigning for someone whose politics seem very alien to the core supporters of Rhodes, but because they like Rhodes' charm and "relatability," they support this senator's bid for the presidency, knowing that if he's elected Rhodes will be put in his cabinet and could even assume greater, concrete power in America.  In the end, Jeffries trips Rhodes up while he's making disparaging remarks about his fans, making his microphone go live, and thus ending his career.  The film's final moments are Rhodes screaming into the night as Marcia hurries away, knowing that the folksy drifter she met was not the real person behind the mask, but instead it was the violent, power-hungry guy whom she revealed to the entire world.

If this sounds like a very clear portrait of Donald Trump, well, those were my thoughts too.  There's a terrific monologue that Walter Matthau gives toward the end of the picture where he says that Rhodes will eventually become famous again, but never as much as before, and it will never feel like enough.    He'll always be famous, there will be an appetite for someone who used to be famous, but it will always be smaller each time he emerges.  This feels so appropriate in this era of celebrity commodification (with endless reality shows and "celebrity" competitions), and of course it's probably true of Donald Trump.  Trump will eventually fall, and like Rhodes will never be as famous or as important again, but his specter will never entirely disappear.  But Kazan's tale has a universality that means every era could find its Lonesome Rhodes, whether it's Trump or Jimmy Swaggart or Glenn Beck or whatever peddler of lies hallmarks an era.

Even without the shocking political foresight, though, A Face in the Crowd is a marvelous film, due in many ways to the pitch-perfect performance by Andy Griffith.  Griffith, known to so many of us for his work as Andy Taylor or Ben Matlock on television, is staggering to watch as he descends into a ruthless madness.  The work here is a complete live-wire act that I didn't know he had in him, in many ways feeling like Michael Keaton in Birdman or Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, and even though it wasn't particularly well-regarded in 1957, it still stuns me that such work wasn't nominated for an Academy Award, as it more-than-deserved it.  Neal and Matthau are giving strong work as well, but it's Griffith and screenwriter Budd Schulberg who are doing the heavy-lifting here, making this feel vibrant, terrifying, and all-too-real some sixty years later.  It's hard to imagine all secret movie nights could be this good, as few movies can feel this pressing and classic in a first viewing.

OVP: The Fortune Cookie (1966)

Film: The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Stars: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Judi West, Cliff Osmond
Director: Billy Wilder
Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Supporting Actor-Walter Matthau*, Art Direction, Cinematography, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Few comic pairs have lit up the screen quite like Lemmon and Matthau.  I mean, how can they be both the Odd Couple AND Grumpy Old Men, and still have room for a half dozen other films.  Truly legends, and legends have to begin somewhere, so here we have it-the first of their eleven pairings together onscreen, The Fortune Cookie.

It seems appropriate that they start in the world of Billy Wilder, and of course, in the world of comedy, and in this case, in a world where they don't particularly get along well.  Lemmon plays a down-on-his-luck schmo named Harry Hinkle (then again, when did Lemmon play anything other than an affable loser?) who gets pummeled at a Cleveland Browns football game and is rushed to the hospital.  Matthau, as a shady trial attorney named Willie (who also happens to be Harry's brother-in-law), smells money in the water and tries to extort a settlement from the NFL, despite Hinkle's lack of injuries.  At first Harry doesn't want to go along with it, but when he thinks that it'll bring back his ex-wife (West), he decides to play along with Willie's plan.

The film, though a comedy, has a moral message behind it (as most Wilder films do), but it's one you see a mile away and it deters a bit from an otherwise sharp script.  We know that eventually they will be found out and that Harry will do the right thing and confess, and dump his gold-digger ex-wife and befriend the football player who pummeled him (Rich), who is so racked with guilt that he develops a drinking problem (an oddly dark side story for a comedy, but what can you expect from Wilder-I mean, The Apartment's second half is about a suicide attempt).  But the delivery's the thing with Wilder's rather predictable scripts (the twists and turns of Sunset Blvd. being the obvious exception, and that's even with him telling us the main character is dead in the opening scenes), and we get a delicious delivery.  The chemistry between Lemmon and Matthau is magic-there's no cliched idea that they can't sell as if you're seeing it for the first time (think of all of the pratfalls and constant interactions with Hinkle's constantly ballistic mother in the hands of less skilled comedians).  It should be said that the balance between the two isn't quite right-even though he typically played the straight man and is therefore already at a disadvantage, it's hard to spend much time on Lemmon when Matthau is at his absolute best onscreen.

Though the designation of Matthau as supporting is quite questionable (he's not onscreen nearly as much as Lemmon, but this is very much a two-man show), that doesn't stop him from getting a very deserved Academy Award for his performance.  Matthau, in my opinion so far in their filmographies, has always been the more limited of the two actors (though this film is starting to improve my estimation of him).  Whereas Lemmon could be equally adept at comedy and drama, Matthau always seemed to be playing that same character-a curmudgeon of the highest order.  So it was lovely seeing him here-always on, a first-rate charmer and a believable con man.  Every single one of Wilder and Diamond's lines he crackles for all its worth.  He's helped by a first-rate pair of writers, sure, but this is more than just a fine script-this is someone who understands the timing of a joke, particularly when he always needs to be "on."  Lemmon received barely a mention in awards, whether Oscar or otherwise and while he would be the more beloved (and awards-friendly) of the two in the years to come, Matthau shines like few other comedic performers of the 1960's.  In a film about football, he scored the touchdown.

The other nominations weren't quite as sensational-though good, Wilder and Diamond had done better, and can't compete with the near perfection of the Blow-Up script.  The Cinematography and Art Direction are fine, but nothing to write home regarding.  They likely were nominated not so much due to their excellence, but because this was the last year that they split the categories between B&W and Color, and as this was 1966, B&W films were hardly in vogue.  Even so, the Academy got the one trophy they handed over to the film right.

And now, after our six-film weekend together-what are your thoughts on this final film before the work week begins?  Do you have a favorite Lemmon/Matthau outing?  And do you agree with me that Walter Matthau is the clear choice to win the trophy, or are you more of the camp of George Segal or James Mason?  Click the comments button and share!