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This was definitely a tour-de-force performance for Jack Lemmon.

I believe the strength of this film is that his performance allows it to strike a multi-generational cord with viewers...a key theme of the movie is the way the world has changed since they way we remembered it when we were younger, which I think is a pang that all of us get, no matter what age. The world always seems darker and more complicated now and concept that needs no real transposition between eras.

Harry Stoner is a man of his times...swing bands, baseball, and World War II. His life is still influenced by all three, but only in quick flashes of fond memories or flashbacks of a beach in Italy. Lemmon gives us a character that does what he has to do in order to maintain what he has worked for, and that rationalizes that which may or may not be quite on the up-and-up.

Jack Gilford is excellent as his partner in Capri Casuals, representing a voice of conscience that is not quite as blind to circumstance as Jack's character, and there are several other good performances in the film. Jack Lemmon stands out, as he does in most films, and richly deserved the Academy Award for this one.

I saw this movie on cable when I was probably 18 or 20 years old, and from the first time watching it, I was enthralled. It really does engross you. I think the credit (and Im happy to say the Oscar) goes to Jack Lemmon, an actor who

really did have the everyman down to a science. The movie is an excellent

commentary on dreams coming apart, the loss of old friends, and realizing

youre time may have come and gone. Not exactly the most uplifting movie but it is raw and honest. Lemmon and his partner run Capri Casuals, a women's wear

line based in southern California in the early 70's. (incidentally the name comes from the island where most of Lemmons war time buddies were killed and

buried) When times get tough and Lemmon is lowering himself by becoming a

pimp to a big customer, he realizes his American dream might be over. In

consultation with his partner he decides to hire an arsonist to destroy his factory for the insurance. An intense, searing performance from Lemmon, makes Save

the Tiger a movie that should be watched for years to come.

Highly Recommended.

The wife is out of town, the kids are in bed, it's just me and the dog.....Save the Tiger came on AMC. I remember going to the theater in 1973, at age 18 and seeing this movie. I was impressed by Jack Lemmon's performance back then. Seeing it now, at age 44....Wow! Jack was my father back then, now I'm my father. I think save the Tiger was the first movie I ever saw that didn't have a happy ending. Except for some dated parts, it is still a very powerful movie about the harshness of life. In real life, well dressed men and women spend every day trying to continue while burdened with almost impossible problems on their back. And we do what we have to do to get by. Little honor in that, but it's real life. Save the Tiger reminded me to be a little nicer to the next grump I meet, I may not know what is hiding behind the nice suit. Laurie Heineman as Myra the hippy chick excited me then and now and is still that fantasy oasis every aging, harried man dreams of to escape the world of his own making.

Jack Lemmon will always be remembered for his comic performances. However, he could have been just as great as a dramatic actor. Save the Tiger and his tour-de-force performance in it more than proves that.

He plays Harry Stoner, owner of an heavily indebted ladies designer clothes manufacturing company. The film covers just 2-3 days of his life and we get a pretty good idea of his sad existence in the urban jungle and what he has become - no longer a good, decent person fighting for the right cause. There are references to Stoner's war record and patriotism throughout the film. The fact that the US was fighting the very unpopular Vietnam war could have influenced the themes of this film.

There is little in the way of plot but there is a rich characterization made deeper by the crises in Stoner's life and Lemmon's excellent depiction of a man who is cracking at the seams. My favorite scenes were the ones in the car with the hippie girl towards the beginning of the film and the question she asked him and Lemmon's comic reaction....

Jack Lemmon does a great job as the harried, depressed businessman trying to beat the system in the 70's, but Brando should have won Oscar for LAST TANGO. John Avildsen made a better film in 1970 (JOE with Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon), but creates a believable L.A. mood, although the hippie chick looks right but can't act at all. Jack Gilford is timidly authentic as usual and Thayer David is always a scary bovine presence as the "fire" man.

A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Mr. Lemmon. Nice script by Steve Shagan, but not as heavy as it purports to be. I'm really glad I saw this though.

Save the Tiger is about lost illusions of youth and the things some of us have to do to merely keep treading water. Jack Lemmon is the head of a garment factory which has suffered some losses over the past few years and he and partner Jack Gilford see few options that will save them from bankruptcy or worse.

The best of these options is to start an arson fire in their factory and hope the insurance payoff will cancel their debts and afford a fresh start. Gilford is against it on moral principles, but Lemmon is a guy who can't afford morals at this stage as George Bernard Shaw once put it.

Still he looks back on his youth and the things and people that moved him back in the day and wonders how he got in the mess he's in. It's not supposed to be like this for people like him who've had ideals and tried to play by the rules.

In his facial expressions, his vocal intonations, in every move of his body and soul, Lemmon becomes Harry Stoner the latest convert to cynicism. It's what got Jack Lemmon his Second Academy Award, this time for Best Actor. Interesting that this very cynical film came out the year that a whole lot of Americans became very cynical as Watergate was unfolding before them.

Arson fire is a tricky business and Lemmon puts himself in the hands of Thayer David who I think gives his best screen portrayal here as the professional arsonist. Listening to him, as creepy as he sounds, he comes off as a man who knows his business. He even at one point offers to return the down payment given him when he explains that insurance will never pay off with all the fire regulation violations Lemmon and Gilford have in their place. It's a business with him and no fatalities must occur, otherwise it's a Law and Order episode.

Jack Lemmon was one of the best around, could do all kinds of comedy and drama with equal skill. Building on the characters he created for Billy Wilder, he's an older man now who's in no position to start from scratch again. Lemmon plays a character that all of us over 40 can definitely relate to.

Save the Tiger is a serious and thought provoking drama about choices each and every one of us could face some time in our lives. It's universality of theme will make it an enduring classic.

'Save the Tiger' deals with one mans struggle to keep his business afloat in the cut and thrust world of ladies casuals in the early seventies. (don't laugh) I only saw this movie from half way through but as soon as I set eyes on it I could tell it was something special. It's the kind of film that has an underlying tension and pace where you think that any second something really dramatic is going to happen but never actually does. In fact, just as something substantial was about to happen the film abruptly ended. But I cannot put this into perspective as I did not see the whole film. Of course the it was worth watching just for Lemmon's performance alone, who was as superb as always. A rare, gritty, quality, American drama.

"Save the Tiger" is a great movie, perhaps because its strongest moments come in rather conventional situations where the believable characters are realistically profane but never gratuitously vulgar, which is a common failing in today's films. Some might call this unpretentious realism "slow pacing," but I don't think there's anything "slow" about it unless your attention wavers with anything less engaging than several gruesome deaths or graphic sex scenes per hour. On the contrary, I find this interesting flick to be sophisticated and entertaining. Having seen it at a theater when it first came out, and then having watched a heavily censored TV version on numerous occasions since that time, I rented the new DVD and was once again blown away by the original, uncensored script.

The often biting interplay between pragmatic businessman, Harry Stoner (played by Jack Lemmon), and his more idealistic partner, Phil Greene (played by Jack Gilford) supplies among the film's most dramatic moments as they wrestle with a rather drastic solution designed to keep "Capri Casuals" afloat for another season. Equally effective is the gritty exchange between Stoner and a kinky Midwestern buyer who becomes adamant that he be supplied with a favored prostitute as a precondition for placing his usual generous order. Stoner's attempts to discourage him prove fruitless and only make him more determined to get what he wants. Facing this unexpected resistance, the client pleads, "I need these little diversions," explaining that his wife is, "a sick woman all scarred up from all those damn operations."

But the callgirl is all booked up for the day. "That's a very popular lady," Stoner explains. "Why didn't you call me from Cleveland?" "Harry," the client responds, beginning to lose his cool, "I don't make calls like that from Cleveland." When Stoner makes one last attempt to weasel out of pimp duty by bringing up the expense involved, the client finally blows his stack. "You rotten son of a bitch," he cries. "The whole goddamn thing is a write off! I throw my heart across your desk and you're giving me cost!" Suddenly, Phil pops into the office and things cool down immediately. This is good stuff.

As well, the tension boiling over between the old Jewish cutter and the pompous gay designer provide grist for some brief fireworks. Another high point is Stoner's interaction with a naive young hippie girl named Myra who hitches a ride with him down Sunset Blvd. She at first comes off as rather superficially and stereotypically drawn, but in time becomes more appealing, offering Harry non-judgmental affection with no strings attached and a temporary refuge from the pressures and stresses that are edging him ever closer to a nervous breakdown. In contrast, while he's obviously cracking up, the only attention he gets from his concerned yet emotionally distant wife is, "Go see Dr. Frankfurter." A guy in a white coat named "hotdog" is supposed to fix him right up? Gee, I don't think so. Why doesn't she try putting out a little more?

The scenes in the porno theater with the cool and efficient arsonist are also good, as is the one in which Stoner's bitter memories from WWII surface rather inconveniently while he's onstage, attempting to address the assembled buyers at the all-important fashion show. There, he suffers a disturbing hallucination in which audience members are suddenly replaced by his fallen comrades in Charlie Company who died at Anzio. His grip on "reality" takes a serious nosedive right in front of his potential clients. I suspect that scene is considered the best one by professional critics and members of the Academy, but ironically, it is my least favorite moment. In any case, Jack Lemmon has so many good scenes in this movie that it is difficult to single out any one of them as the best. In my most recent viewing, I got the biggest kick out of one of the early scenes, in which Lemmon imitates the windup and delivery of a great pitcher from the good old days, his fond memories of baseball and jazz being all that inspire him anymore.

When you want to see a good movie from the past, cue this one up. It never gets old.

As an audience grows older, their perception of life changes. When viewing a movie in your youth, you may not understand the tiny, subtle remarks, nor the innuendos. But as you reach mature milestones, suddenly those secret words, phrases and remarks make so much sense, you wonder why you didn't understand them the first time. That is the message in this film called " Save the Tiger." Although the initial message in the movie was to try and save an endangered species of Indian Tiger, the subliminal message was it could also apply to an American Original; an Idealist American businessman on the verge of extinction. Jack Lemmon plays Harry Stoner, a middle age clothing designer trying to save his faltering business. Despite having a winning fashion line which will yield a sizable profit, they can achieve their goal if they can meet their payroll. As a result, Stoner and his business partner Phil Greene (Jack Gilford, superb acting) may have to resort to criminal options to survive. Thus enters a professional arsonist named Charlie Robbins (Thayer David, is brilliant in this role) who for 10% of the insurance will make short work of an aging property and make it look like an accident. Phil wants nothing to do with the arson plan despite the fact he is already part of last year's fraudulent scheme. Added to his worries, is the fact that Stoner like so many other Veterans, cannot seem to lose the nightmarish visions of the war, where so many of his fellow soldiers died. Stoner fades in and out of reality often dreaming of a past where the highlight of a day was to see the 'Old Fashion Wind-up and pitch' of his youth. This is truly a Classic for anyone wishing to recall a younger segment of one's life which we all understood. ****

This film was trying too hard to be deep.

It's a collection of a diverse variety of one-dimensional characters and their philosophies on life, with Jack Lemmon's character in the middle of it, who is himself a fairly one-dimensional character. That is to say, his character is quirky, but it's still a savage pursuer of the American dream willing to do even the unethical and illegal to maintain his lavish lifestyle. However, his character is obsessed with World War II and loves big band music. Is quirky enough to be well-rounded?

His business partner believes in traditional moral decency and ethics, he interactions with an old artesan who finds meaning in his wife and his work, and he has a tryst with a free-spirited young woman who's very much a poster chylde for the 70s. It's almost like meeting the 3 different ghosts in A Christmas Carol.

Philosophically it's trying too hard to be deep but really comes out very safe and pedestrian. Yet the style is compelling enough. A few days in the life of a listless man. One might say he's on the precipice of disaster, but instead it feels like he's been floating near the bottom for along time. The scenery of 70s Los Angeles also makes this movie worth a watch.

Honourable Mentions: Bad Lieutenant (1992). This film is a very stylistically close to Save the Tiger. It's a few uncomfortable days of a policeman's life which has apparently been hovering near rock bottom for a while by this point.

Jack Lemmon won a best actor Academy Award as Harry Stoner, a middle-aged businessman whose business(a struggling apparel company) is severely in debt, with accounts being canceled, forcing Harry to degrade himself by pimping prostitutes for the salesmen. He finally agrees to see a professional arsonist, who will burn down the building so that he can collect the insurance money. The fact that it will also affect another business in the building is just too bad...besides, they're insured too, or so that's what Harry tells himself. He finds himself thinking about the past more, as he drifts into an affair with a young hippie girl.

Lemmon is excellent, but also the whole show in this otherwise dreary and hollow film, that just doesn't have much dramatic impact, and wallows in seediness too much. Ending is also unsatisfying, and inconclusive.

I first saw this movie as a young man on PBS in Boston,in the late seventies and was immediately struck by the power, honesty and conviction of Lemmon's portrayal, of the ultimate mid life crisis.

Little did I know, that thirty years later, I would be going through one of my own and would once again be drawn to, and struck by, the sincerity and integrity of Jack Lemmon's performance.

The film has it's critics, self indulgent, sentimental and simplistic are only some of comments made, but the film still has the power to make you question what you have done with your own life. It asks you how you got to where you are, and it makes you ask yourself if it was all worth it. It also questions/exposes the Great American Dream and asks, if that is not the be all and end all, then what is?

Harry Stoner is not a man you should feel sorry for, but Lemmon's interpretation forces you to question his ideals and your own, as you follow this crisis point in his life. In the end, whether you like the film or not, or agree with what it is trying to say, you can't deny Lemmon his Academy Award.

Not bad. Great depiction of the stress the average businessman in corporate America had to go through. I feel like this is my father's life on tape.

During the '50s and early '60s, the image of the "ideal" life (where everyone lived pretty no matter what) reigned supreme. "Save the Tiger" is like a barrel of salt in that image's wound. Middle-aged Harry Stoner (Jack Lemmon) has a top job, but he's clearly not happy; quite the contrary, he always seems like his blood pressure is through the roof, and like his composure is hanging by a thread.

I saw this right before I graduated from high school, and...well, it was pretty disturbing to think that what "Save the Tiger" portrays is my prospect for the future. But, that's life. Harry Stoner apparently knows this all too well.

About his surname, was that a reference to something? Harry clearly was not getting stoned or anything, although he did hang out with a hippie girl.

Jack Lemmon delivers an impassioned, Best Actor Oscar winning performance as Harry Stoner, a middle aged man out of step in the L.A. of the early to mid-1970s. He's awash in memories, both good and bad, and tries to shove ideas of morality aside while dealing with this mid-life crisis. A veteran of the garment industry, he realizes that his business is just not doing well, and has to make a tough decision regarding the deliberate torching of his building for insurance purposes.

The film itself is fairly good, and reasonably compelling, but ultimately, on the whole, it's not quite as interesting as its main character, and Lemmon just acts his heart out. He's well supported by Jack Gilford, as his business partner Phil, Laurie Heineman as a free-spirited hitchhiker who never seems to have a specific destination in mind, Norman Burton as a business associate, Patricia Smith as Harry's wife, William Hansen as aged employee Meyer, and especially busy 70s character actor Thayer David as a professional arsonist. Jack has some particularly fine scenes with Gilford and Heineman.

Your heart just goes out to this guy, a person who's just trying to get by and has to face some unpleasant facts about where his life has led him.

The film is written & produced by Steve Shagan, and directed by John G. Avildsen, and they approach this material with sensitivity and understanding. It's slowly paced, and may not resolve itself quite enough to suit some viewers, but it provides a decent story, complete with music by Marvin Hamlisch and cinematography by James Crabe. It's R rated, with some use of profanity and some use of sex, but it's not a "hard R" sort of film, so it will have fairly broad appeal.

Still, it will speak more eloquently to adults, when they've had a chance to look back at their own lives and wonder about their own choices made.

Seven out of 10.

Jack Lemmon gave an excellent Oscar winning performance in this film about a middle-aged man, Harry Stoner, facing a mid-life crisis. With his garment business going bad, Stoner (Lemmon) hires an arsonist to set the place on fire so that he can collect the insurance.

Jack Gilford, as his business partner, provided excellent support and received a supporting Oscar nomination. He lost to "The Paper Chase's" John Houseman.

This is a story of moral decay in the 1970s. Hookers with buying agents and Harry being seduced by a young hooker he picks up on the highway.

The film is depressing and sets us up for mood swings and somewhat of a conflicting ending.

Jack Lemmon was one of our great actors. His performances in Days Of Wine And Roses, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Missing (to name the first ones that come to mind) were all worthy of Best Actor nomination. His only win was for Save The Tiger, and that's a shame. He gets melancholy down to a science, but never brings it into balance with the driver in his character. He actually did a similar character much better toward the end of his career in the one-note Glengarry Glen Ross.

As for the movie, wonderful supporting work by Jack Gilford as Lemmon's partner and Thayer David as an arsonist, go for naught because the rest of the script is a muddled jumble of cliched vignettes, angst, neurotic nostalgia, and pointless moralizing. Worth seeing once as a time capsule into 1970's style experimental direction by Avildsen.