Salvate la tigre

Lemmon won the Oscar for his Save the Tiger performance. He is complimented by Gilford as his partner. Lemmon is excellent as a troubled businessman at the breaking point because of financial troubles; it makes him decide to torch his warehouse so he can collect the insurance money.

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.

This is a well-crafted movie, directed in 1973 by John G Avildsen in a conventional, theatrical manner, harking back to social dramas of 10 or 20 years before, but reflecting the more uncertain '70s in its unresolved ending.

Jack Lemmon delivers a brilliant, Oscar-winning performance as Harry Stoner, a middle-aged man at the end of his tether, who confuses his personal midlife crisis, and the failure of his fashion business, with what he sees as the USA's moral decline in the post-war years. Obsessed with the lost cameraderie of his active service in the war, with the baseball and jazz giants of yesteryear, and with the slain and fallen idols of the 60s (Kennedy, King, Monroe etc), he sleepwalks into his own moral abyss of an arson plot, comforting himself that he is no worse than the times in which he lives.

Lemmon's character is countered by those of Phil Greene, his business partner, convincingly played by Jack Gilford, and Meyer (William Hansen), the firm's veteran, expert cutter and refugee from Nazism. Phil does not suffer Harry's sense of disillusion, because he is too down-to- earth to have experienced the illusion in the first place; Meyer, also, despite superficial discontent with the changing times, gains strength from his skill and family life.

For me, the main theme here is the familiar one of the lost American Dream, and the film brings to mind the final lines of the seminal exploration of that theme, the Great Gatsby - "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Harry's American Dream is not of a golden future, but of a golden past; it isn't lost, it simply never existed. But, that said, in this movie thematic analysis definitely takes second place to appreciation of Lemmon's bravura performance.

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....

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.