La grande combine

Whereas these days a successful movie series means endless spin-offs and sequels, there was a time when there were brilliant creative teams who got together time and again, producing a kind of motion picture brand that you could trust. The series of comedies written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, directed by Wilder and (many of them) starring Jack Lemmon are such neat works of professionalism and congruent talent that during their heyday in the 1960s they provided a guarantee of smoothly intelligent yet undemanding entertainment.

Billy Wilder had one of the most apparently laid back directorial styles of his era. He barely moves the camera, and his shots tend last as long as is practical. But within this fixed frame he juggles everything with expertise. He uses the cinemascope ratio to keep various elements on the screen – for example the camera and microphones which keep stealing into shot as a reminder of the private eyes that are bugging the flat. This idea of keeping things in view without making them centre of attention also applies to Wilder's presentation of comedy. There's a great example where Walter Matthau is on the phone at one edge of the frame, while the rest of the screen reveals the interior of his home. His children skate around while his wife prepares dinner, which culminates in an incidental gag, punctuating the scene, while Matthau's phone conversation remains what the scene is about. This is very much Wilder's way – not to make the jokes leap out at you but to weave them into the background, noticeable but never forced.

Lead man Jack Lemmon was by now a familiar piece of Wilder furniture, and you can see why. He has a slightly exaggerated look, with a duck-like face and a manic way of moving, and yet he can also "do normal" and convince us that he is an everyman. Still, this time around he is upstaged by an exuberant Walter Matthau. There are many great facets to Matthau's performance – his sudden overt gestures, his ability to move his hat as if it were part of his body, the way he paces around, managing to get closest to the camera as his voice reaches a bizarre crescendo or his facial expression is at its most absurdly comical. However I think what really makes him fit in here is the way, although he gets all the funniest lines, he doesn't show them off, simply delivering them as if they were the natural thing for his character to say, which of course makes them all the funnier. It's also a lot like Wilder's style of weaving the comedy into the narrative material rather than hammering the jokes home.

But what about this narrative material, sharply scripted by Wilder and Diamond? The Fortune Cookie is ostensibly about an insurance scam, but gradually the friendship between Jack Lemmon and the football player who accidentally injured him emerges as the main story arc. It's almost like a love story between two men. I'm not implying anything homoerotic here, simply that the story is structured like a romance with a friendship taking the place of the love angle. The fact that Boom Boom (played by the little-known Ron Rich) is black is not drawn attention to or made an issue of, and this is rather interesting. This picture was made at the height of the civil rights movement, but it is not making an overt point about race, nor is it even a political picture. But it works as a nicely harmonious accompaniment to what was going on in the streets at the time. Wilder comedies could calmly cover areas other pictures couldn't even touch without making a mess.

In the course of Hollywood legends, there emerges a great chemistry when certain scripts, actors, and directors are combined to make a movie. In this immortal Black and White film, we have such a combination. Herein we have, the late, great Jack Lemmon playing Harry Hinkle, a standard cameraman working with a TV crew covering a Cleveland Browns football game. As the game proceeds, a celebrity running-back Luther " Boom Boom " Jackson (Ron Rich) accidentally runs off the field and directly into the filming cameraman, knocking him out cold. Fortunately for Hinkle, his wily Brother-in-law, William Gingrich, attorney-at-law, (Walter Matthau) leaps into his life and proposes an insurance lawsuit which, if Hinkle goes along with, will net them $1.000.000. Hinkle explains to 'Whiplash Willy,' there is nothing wrong with him and will not participate in the scheme. The plan is doomed, until Gingrich uses a trump card, Hinkles' ex-wife Sandy, (Judi West) whom Harry believes still loves him. The plan is flawless despite the fact, the Insurance company hires the Purkey (Cliff Osmond) Dectective Agency to spy on him 24 hours a day. While Gingrich is busy with the Insurance lawyers and Hinkle is attempting to win his wife back, by pretending to be an invalid, no one notices Luthor Jackson is miserable, drinking and becoming despondent. The movie is wonderful as Lemmon and Matthau are a superb team under the direction of their favorite director Billy Wilder. This is a great movie and certain to become a Classic. ****

Finally caught it on TCM yesterday, and was able to watch it "fresh," compared to "The Odd Couple" or "The Front Page," which one might already know all about.

A fine study in contrasts at work here; Matthau, as the shyster lawyer has something resembling a family life, while Lemmon, ostensibly the nice guy, is shown to be very lonely, still stuck in the apartment his wife left him in (and aren't those exteriors filmed in Cleveland? I don't think those buildings on his street were seen in any other Hollywood backlot, and they looked a touch more shabby than ordinary). So we have "Boom Boom" as the real moral center of the movie. He's racked with guilt over having injured Hinkle (Lemmon), so much so that he sees to Hinkle's recovery, even carrying him around like a wounded puppy, letting his game suffer, and he's the one who's most hurt by the scam.

The movie also shows a hopeful light on race relations in the mid-60's: Ron Rich gets to play a character with some feelings and some ambition beyond the NFL, and it's he and Lemmon's characters who become buddies at the end.

One of these days I am going to watch a bad Billy Wilder movie...so far I have not even come close. Each year we observe the passing of great talents (this year, 2003 has seen an extrordinary number of death), I begin to realize we will never again see the likes of Lemmon and Matthau who passed away in 2000 and 1999 respectively. These two are great actors in comedic or serious roles. Matthau's sleazy lawyer is played just right, not too over the top and Lemmon plays the victim in this movie who is basically going along for the ride. As the movie progresses Lemmon gets further disenchanted with the pending cash settlement for his fake injuries and in his own inimitable way blows the whistle on his brother-in-law, Whiplash Willie (Matthau.) I found Wilder's use of Cliff Ormond and Noam Pitlik as the bumbling private eye surveillance team to be reminiscent of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney on the Honeymooners, or even a latter day type of slapstick in the style of Abbot and Costello. Also, the supporting role of Boom Boom the Cleveland Browns running back who accidentally injures Lemmon on the sideline at a game was played with depth. All in all another wonderful treat this movie is to watch.

A greedy lawyer convinces his cameraman brother-in-law to sue after the latter is inadvertently hit by a football player while filming an NFL game. In the first of several films to pair Lemmon and Mathau, the actors play roles typical of their collaborations, with the former a decent, neurotic fellow and the latter a shyster. After "The Apartment," Wilder never quite achieved the success he experienced earlier in his great career as he was churning out one classic after another. This is a product of his declining years - not bad but not very funny either and far too long for a comedy. Whatever happened to West, the attractive actress who plays Lemmon's ex-wife?