Buddy Buddy

"Buddy Buddy," although not the best film ever, is definitely a comedy classic. It took me a while to find it, which surprised once I had finished watching. The chemistry between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau is amazing and it is as strong as ever in this film.

This is the film for everyone who has that one person in their lives that somehow manages to appear at all the wrong times and become more and more annoying with each visit. It's been said that we laugh because things are true, not because they're funny, and this film proves that. Sure, we've probably never met a suicidal television censor while trying to kill someone, but we can most likely all relate to how Walter Matthau feels always running into Jack Lemmon.

I tell everyone I know to watch this movie, and I've yet to hear anything bad about it. If you're in the mood for some good laughs and a classic comedy duo, then you must give "Buddy Buddy" a watching.

We all watch films for different reasons. In 1981, it was a new film by film great Billy Wilder with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau after 1974's "The Front Page". But for me it was a new occasion to see the elusive Paula Prentiss on the big screen. She returned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio where she made her first motion pictures, under different conditions, for the studio had been sold in the 1970s. An adaptation of Francis Veber's play "L'emmerdeur", previously made in France by Edouard Molinaro, the resulting screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is as offensive as a sexist joke, but that's no news in Wilder's movies. The film has a fast pace and funny moments, mostly sustained on the verbal interplay between Lemmon and Matthau as two misogynists typical of Wilder's cinema. Prentiss plays Celia Clooney, a TV reporter who has abandoned husband Lemmon for Klaus Kinski, a sexologist who runs a clinic to improve people's sexual life. Lemmon goes after Celia, but he gets into trouble and gun-play when he meets Trabucco, a hit man (Matthau). All men in this film are so dumb that it seems almost logical that by the film's end Celia has run away with another woman (the receptionist at Kinski's clinic, played by Wilder regular Joan Shawlee). After the indifferent reception to what was to be Wilder's last film and joke on male sexual fantasies, Prentiss retired from films.

P. S. I just saw it again today (wow, 41 years since its release), and I found it very funny. And looney too! With many dialogues, characters and situations that I missed the first time.

In his later years as a director, Billy Wilder made a lot of very adult films...filled with cursing and nudity. Part of this might have been because films in the 1970s and 80s were much more adult than the movies Wilder had been making in his heydays. Part of it, more likely, was that the aging Wilder felt that to be relavant he needed to be much more adult. All I know is that often the films he made during this era seemed very gratuitous...and even by today's standards, the language in "Buddy Buddy" is pretty adult. Now this is NOT to say I disliked the film...in fact, I think it's one of the best from this phase of Wilder's career.

Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon star in this film and, surprisingly, Matthau plays a hitman! As for Lemmon, he plays a guy who is rather reminiscent of Felix Unger from "The Odd Couple"!

A mob trial is about to begin...and two of the three mob witnesses have been killed by a top assassin (Matthau). However, problems occur when he tries to off number three...as the neurotic Victor comes into his life. And, again and again, Victor accidentally ruins the killer's chances at making the hit.

As I mention above, the film is very adult at times...with some rough language and a subplot involving a weird sex clinic. But the weirdness of the film really appealed to me...it certainly WAS creative and original! And, fortunately, it's also darkly comical.

Although "Buddy Buddy" is yet to be regarded as a modern movie classic, no other films have made me realize the art of comedy such as this one. Walther Matthau is hillarious in his portrayal of Trabucco the assassin who is constantly being interrupted from doing his dirty deeds, by an even more astonishing and suicidal! Jack Lemmon. Director Billy Wilder has captured moments on tape that we all seem to relate to one way or another. Together with german actor Klaus Kinski, who more often played deeper roles than this, Lemmon and Matthau gives a performance one would normally find on a broadway theatre.

I was lucky enough to find this movie posted on that famous video site, and sat down for what I thought was going to be a disaster. Billy Wilder's final film, as I've read and heard, was a disaster. Awful, a terrible end to the most brilliant of film careers. Well, after watching "Buddy Buddy" I find that I don't agree with that harsh assessment.

Jack Lemmon plays his usual role, the put on Everyman. But to say that in a negative light is wrong. He played that character so well, that it is a pleasure to see him do it again. This time, he is trying to win back his estranged wife of 12 years, who has left him for a sex clinic doctor.

Playing against type, is Walter Matthau playing a hit-man who has one last job to complete before retirement and a life of leisure on an island near Tahiti. As fate would have it, both men find themselves in the same hotel with much different objectives. Lemmon to end his life, and Matthau to end a mob snitches life, before he's able to testify in a big trial.

Needless to say, hijinks ensue, and in my opinion, some really funny scenes. I won't spoil it, but give Buddy Buddy a chance. Is it "The Odd Couple"? No. Is it worth a watch for some harmless entertainment? Absolutely.