Ein seltsames Paar

No need to recap the plot. What a triumph of scripting and casting. The premise, viz. the neat freak and the slob, has got to be one of the most durable on record, accounting for both this movie and the long-running TV series. In fact, I count that early 20-minutes around the card table as one of the funniest and best-written episodes I've seen anywhere. If this isn't playwright Simon's best work, I don't know what is.

And what a fine example of ensemble acting are the poker-playing buddies, even if they never seem to play. Then too, get a load of the giddy Pigeon sisters. I love it when killjoy Felix gets them out of a romantic mood with a good cry. No wonder I-need-to-touch-something-soft Oscar wants to throttle him. And I'm still wondering whether Simon came up with the name "Felix Unger" because of the loaded initials or just happened to notice them. Anyway, the initials provide a good laugh.

Of course, filming a stage play is always tricky since there're minimal scene changes. Here there're basically only two sets. But I hardly notice because director Saks manages to keep somebody moving all the time. That, plus the quality of writing and acting, keeps attention from wandering. One thing I did notice. Catch how the poker players are bunched on one side of the table so that the camera can have an unobstructed angle. It's artificial but understandable.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite comedies, and I catch re-runs of the TV series when I can. Thanks Neil Simon for a truly inspired comedic set-up.

I remember something that Roger Ebert said in an interview with Martin Scorcese. Ebert said that "Raging Bull" was a great movie. People would protest that they didn't want to see it because they didn't want to see a film about boxers. No, Ebert insisted. The subject matter of a film is not the heart of the film. Rather, it's how well a film is made that matters. An expertly made film about boxers is better than a badly made film about a topic you may be interested in. So, no, I'm not a man; I'm not divorced. But "The Odd Couple" was so well made that I fell in love with it. I surprised myself by laughing out loud throughout the film.

"The Odd Couple," of course, is the story of news writer Felix Unger leaving his wife and children and moving in with his friend, sports writer Oscar Madison, who is himself a divorcée. Oscar lives in an eight-room Manhattan apartment, which he used to share with his wife and their kids. Felix is neat; Oscar is messy. Sounds pretty trite.

But the movie is a revelation. The script reveals surprising depth about love, hate, and human relationships. The Walter-Matthau-Jack-Lemmon team is like a well-oiled machine – they seem to have perfected their shtick together through several lifetimes.

Jack Lemmon plays the entire movie completely straight. He gives the exact same kind of performance as he did when he was acting in "The Days of Wine and Roses," a hyper serious film about alcoholism. When Lemmon, as Felix, is upset about his meatloaf burning, he shows as much agony as he showed in the previous film about a drunk ruining his own life. It's hysterically funny to watch this poor schmuck wrestle with his petty obsessions and compulsions, oblivious to how he affects others. Even as you laugh at him, you realize he can't help himself. Felix Unger has Asperger's.

What has changed in America, and American film, that this film from 1968 feels like a time capsule from a lost moment in America? Oscar lives in a spacious, eight-room Manhattan apartment. Manhattan real estate has become more expensive, of course. But it's more than that.

The words that kept going through my head as I was watching the movie were "grown-up" and "intelligent."

Oscar, Felix, and their poker buddies are six white guys. They meet and play poker. There are no scenes where these adult, white men are revealed to be inept in comparison to women, blacks, or homosexuals. There are no scenes where the sassy gay man instructs the straight men on how to dress or create romance. There are no scenes where the "magical negro" shows the men that they can't dance. There are no scenes where a woman puts the men down for not knowing how to take care of children or shows the men up as being blinded by lust. There are no scenes where these straight, white men are made to apologize for being straight, white men.

The men are grownups. They have jobs. They wear adult clothing. They wear white shirts and ties, slacks, belts, and shiny shoes. Oscar does wear a backwards baseball cap, but he is the clown of the group. And he does not wear it throughout the film. When he goes out, he dresses properly.

They speak of their marriages as if marriage were something important. They speak of their children as if they love them.

They go on dates. They ask women out, dress up for the occasion, and make witty banter with subtle double entendres.

While watching "The Odd Couple," I thought of recent Judd Apatow comedies starring men like Jason Segel, Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill. These current male stars all play children; they all play losers. They play failed men. The humor in these films is built around what pathetic creatures they are. In "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," Jason Segel, who is fat and prematurely saggy, is shown fully naked. The nakedness highlights his humiliation when his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall, dumps him. These films all use the F word over and over in a manner that feels desperate and limited.

There is one very sly, very funny reference to the f word in "The Odd Couple." Oscar complains to Felix Unger that he is tired of getting little notes from Felix like "We are all out of cornflakes. Signed, FU." Oscar says it took him hours to figure out what "FU" meant. A funny joke. Delivered deliciously. The only time "The Odd Couple" has to refer to the F word to get a laugh.

I've never felt, while watching a Judd Apatow comedy, that I was gaining any insight into the human condition. There are so many payoff moments of absurd comedy in "The Odd Couple," as when Oscar steps on a vacuum cleaner cord and then takes his foot off the cord at just the right moment to send Felix reeling. But there were so many moments that made me say, "Gosh, yes, that's what human relationships are like. That's what it's like to love/hate another human being."

I can't imagine a film like "The Odd Couple" being made today. A genuinely funny, intelligent, rich, grownup comedy about men that shines light on the human condition and that need never speak the F word to get a laugh. And I can't imagine anyone other than a Trump being able to afford that eight-room apartment in Manhattan.

Neil Simon's play was successfully transferred to the big screen in this hilarious film with stars Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as Felix Unger(Super neat but depressed) & Oscar Madison(Super slob but happy). After Felix's wife leaves him, friend Oscar invites him to move in with him for a while(concerned he might kill himself) not counting on the disruption of his life this will cause.

Both Lemmon & Matthau are superb, perfectly cast and bring both unique characters to memorable life. Viewer will most likely identify with one character over the over, but that's to be expected. So many funny scenes and supporting characters, though does tip a bit too much in sympathy with Oscar, Lemmon is so appealing that story doesn't feel lopsided.

This inspired the famous sitcom with Tony Randall & Jack Klugman.

I don't think I've really ever given Walter Matthau his due as a comedic performer. He's certainly been wonderful in plenty of lighthearted roles, but I guess I always put his success down to his characters' grumpiness and ruthlessness, a gruff contrast to the flamboyant personality of his frequent co-star Jack Lemmon, and, I suppose, a natural extension of his earlier work in dramatic pictures. Watching Gene Saks' 'The Odd Couple (1968),' adapted from a popular Neil Simon play, the realisation suddenly clicked: Matthau is, in his own right, absolutely hilarious! Initially striking the audience as filthy, crude and generally unappealing, his Oscar Madison eventually manages to worm his way into our hearts, culminating in a hilariously overplayed confession of emotions that Matthau rasps out in a voice not entirely his own. At the same time, while holding his own as a comedian, his interplay with Lemmon is, of course, pitch-perfect; indeed, the film rightly belongs to both actors, who have never failed to light up the cinema screen by themselves, let alone together.

Calling to mind Billy Wilder's screenplay for 'The Apartment (1960),' this Neil Simon comedy builds itself around around a rather morbid premise. Compulsive house-cleaner Felix Unger (Lemmon), having just been evicted by his wife of twelve years, attempts to commit suicide, but fruitlessly abandons the idea after he wrecks his back trying to open the hotel window. Dejected, he arrives at the house of good friend Oscar (Matthau), a divorced slob who lives alone on a diet of potato crisps and green sandwiches (that might contain either very new cheese or very old meat!). Oscar kindly offers Felix a place to stay, but is soon overwhelmed by his friend's finicky personality and constant insistence on absolute cleanliness. The pair form an unusual sort of marital arrangement, with Felix assuming the role of the effeminate and constantly-nagging wife, and Oscar as the sloppy, unappreciative husband who always comes home later than he's supposed to. This is a marriage that barely lasts three weeks, and, by the end of it, we can completely sympathise with Felix's ex-wife, who remains unseen.

'The Odd Couple' is a terrific comedy, most of all because it has a lot of heart. For all their arguing, it's obvious that the two roommates have plenty of affection for each other, most movingly seen when Felix tries to launch into a furious tirade, instead – perhaps inadvertently – ending up informing Oscar how "tops" he his. The pair's four poker buddies (John Fiedler, Herb Edelman, David Sheiner and Larry Haines) are also constantly badgering each other about some obscure annoyance, but you can't deny that they've got the best of intentions. Their decision to treat Felix as though nothing has happened to him may have sounded fine in theory, but maybe being ignored wasn't quite the correct solution to Felix's gloomy feelings of inadequacy and inconsequentiality. Unlike some comedies based on popular stage plays {I was recently disappointed by Wilder's 'The Seven Year Itch (1955)}, this film doesn't simply strike at the same chord throughout, and the relationship between the two leads is progressively developed, through tears, laughter and much disagreement.

A hallmark Neil Simon comedy shot with Panavision parameter by film/stage director Gene Saks, his second feature film, paired with Lemmon and Matthau, the second out of their 10 collaborations, after their prize-winning bash in Billy Wilder's THE FORTUNE COOKIE (1966).

In the main, it is a one-apartment knockabout, the eponymous couple, Felix Ungar (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau), are best friends but equipped with diametrical personalities, Felix is a fastidious neat-freak whereas Oscar a congenital slob. In the opening scenes, we follow Felix wandering off a hotel-dotted Manhattan in the night, he checks in a high-story room and decides to kill himself spurred by the unforeseen cessation of his 12-year marriage, only to find the window is jammed.

Starting with a suicidal attempt going awry, that's the spirit a quality comedy should have because it heralds that nothing would go more serious than that! So once Felix thinks better of it, he goes to Oscar's place, literally a divorcé's dump littered with garbage, food and permeated with smoke, sweat and other repugnant odor, where he meets their usual poker friends, after a flurry of misunderstanding, Felix moves into Oscar 8-room apartment, that's when the discord begins to ratchet up. It is a time-honored template of mis-matched buddy romp, Neil Simon's script ensures that their disparity runs to the maximum in opposite scales, even to a fault at the expense of its characters' likability, especially Oscar, emblazoned as a macho ingrate, in comparison with Felix's nagging but at least good-natured punctiliousness. Thankfully, the two stars' chemistry gratifyingly hits the right mark (Lemmon is a compelling sprain-prone dynamo and Matthau is in his element with his trademark rakish sloppiness), and leavens the implausible story with trenchant one-liners (that F.U. monogram for instance), including a hilarious double date with the Pigeon sisters (Evans and Shelley) from Britain, where sensuality humbled by sentimentality.

In retrospect, THE ODD COUPLE is an archetype of urban bromance (minus the gay undertone), likens the friendship between two men to a married couple (the only missing link is the consummation) when they are shoved under the same roof, and aggrandizes their tough/vulnerable dichotomy for laughter, a thoroughly pleasurable pot-boiler (if not a sharp-edged satire or an irresistibly droll goofball) borne out of an ingenious idea.