La strana coppia

"The Odd Couple" is one of those movies that far surpasses its reputation. People all know it, they hum the theme song, they complain of living with a sloppy "Oscar" or a fastidious "Felix"...but they're under-selling the film without knowing it. This isn't just about a neat guy living with a sloppy guy; it's a portrait of two friends helping each other through the agony of divorce. It's also damn funny from start to finish, but it's the kind of comedy that arises from realistic, stressful, and just plain awful situations. So, some viewers have actually found the film to be a bit uncomfortable, but I think its verisimilitude is its strength. Besides, Matthau's bulldog face just cracks me up! My favorite comedy, by a country mile.

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.

Buddy comedies always come down to two things: actors and their scripts. "The Odd Couple" works because it has two endearing characters and an often hilarious and always down-to-earth script, making it one of the best odd couple films of all time -- inspiring but not surpassing movies that share its genre, such as John Hughes' "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (1987) and Martin Brest's "Midnight Run" (1988). And, in some ways, even Barry Levinson's "Rain Man" (1988), a more dramatic buddy comedy that nevertheless takes a lot of pointers from this one.

Plots always help buddy comedies, of course, but it really depends on whether the two actors -- when confined to a solitary confinement -- can interact and make the audience laugh. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, two legendary screen comedians, can do just that. Their comedic chemistry in this film has often been mimicked by other rip-offs, such as "Grumpy Old Men." But this remains their ultimate combined-effort comedy.

This is the type of movie that is often referenced as the pinnacle buddy movie. Sure, it may not be the best, but it did inspire the entire odd couple genre, and I would definitely place it in the top five buddy comedies list if I ever made such a thing.

Felix (Jack Lemmon) has just been left by his wife, and so he goes to live with long-time poker pal Oscar (Walter Matthau), a grumpy and filthy slob who is the exact opposite of Felix, an uptight orderly man with a fetish for cleaning. In fact, he does just that in Oscar's apartment, which drives Oscar to the point of ultimate frustration. If these guys can't get along much longer, they'll just have to move along and forget their friendship. But things don't always turn out the way they appear.

Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" is full of inspired lunacy. It has some truly hilarious moments with great gags and interaction between its two lead stars, whose screen chemistry is undeniable -- there's a reason Hollywood paired Lemmon and Matthau together an uncountable number of times.

The film is lacking the humanity and sorrow of its characters that shines through in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"; there are few -- if any -- moments where the characters become so frustrated with each other that they blow up and then realize that they're not exactly how they thought. Remember the scene in the motel when Neal Page (Steve Martin) lashed out against Del Griffith (John Candy)? But after the comedy tirade ended, and as we laughed, the film took an unexpected turn when it revealed the Del character's utter hurt inside. Then we stopped laughing and we started crying.

That's lacking in "The Odd Couple," making it inferior to Hughes' comedy masterpiece, but it's a clever little film that inspired it all. Perhaps the best gag in the entire movie is one that was quite controversial at the time: Oscar finds a note next to his bed from Felix that says they're out of cereal, and the last two letters of the note are, "F U." Of course, the two letters "F U" are Felix Ungar's initials, but as Oscar implies, just imagine what he thought it meant when he first read the note.

I love comedies where you lock down a small number of people -- preferably a pair of opposites -- in a room and let their characters take over. I like when the dialogue is rich and funny and so very real. I guess I just like subtle character comedies -- overblown special effects comedies aren't always favorites of mine. "Dumb and Dumber" is one of my favorite buddy comedies, and it's not because it's crude or silly but because I like the pairing of its two stars, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, and I like the situations they get into.

"The Odd Couple" (based on the stage play by Simon) is the odd comedy that puts a smile on your face and delights the viewer. It's a fun movie, a great comedy, one of the finest and arguably the most acknowledged buddy film of all time. I saw it years ago and I've been laughing ever since. And despite its inferiority to some of the other buddy films that followed in its path, "The Odd Couple" is a delightful character comedy that will inspire similar comedies for years to come. Lord knows it already has.

5/5.

I simply can't get over how brilliant the pairing of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon is. It's like the movie doesn't even need additional characters because you can never get tired of the dialog between these two.

Lemmon had already been in several well-known films like Mr. Roberts and The Apartment and Matthau was fresh off his Oscar win for The Fortune Cookie (another Billy Wilder film also with Lemmon). That particular movie wasn't as great as this one because the story couldn't sustain such a long running time (I think it was almost 2 hours). However, this goes by at a brisk hour and a half, even though the introduction of the events leading up to Lemmon ending up at Matthau's apartment is a tad long (so was this sentence). That's a minor quibble though and for the rest of the running time you have a marvelous time.

I have already written a comment about how the follow-up to this film sucked and I won't go deeper into that. The reason why this is such a joy is probably that the movie was made just as the innocence of American movies was beginning to fade fast into oblivion. There are some sexual references but they are dealt with in such an innocent way that you couldn't even get a "Well, I never..." out of the most prudish person out there. It is kind of fun to see a movie from a long lost era and that was probably why the sequel didn't work because you had Matthau and Lemmon say quite a few f-words and that just doesn't fit them.

Of course, now they are both gone and you can just be happy that you still can enjoy them in a marvelous film like this. I think the only male actor in this film who is still alive is John Fiedler. Edelman died recently. So there you have it. Simply one of the best comedies and films ever.

Add: I have just learned recently that John Fiedler has died so to all the fans of him I am deeply sorry. I didn't mean any disrespect and I will try to be more careful of what I am blah blah blahing next time.

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.