Ainda Há Fogo Sob as Cinzas

Bittersweet film directed by Jack Lemmon features real-life pal Walter Matthau as an unwanted old codger in Southern California who befriends an unmarried, pregnant teenager. The film makes points on several topics (retirement homes, married life in suburbia, the value of the elderly), yet it doesn't use this material to build momentum--and since the film isn't a satire, the humor (often condescending or sarcastic) comes off as smirking. Matthau does a very fine job--he even convinces us he's a baby lover!--but his relationship with the troubled girl doesn't ring true (worse, Matthau's pinched, icy daughter-in-law is a one-note caricature and nearly unbearable). At one point, Kotch goes on a road trip by bus and sends back lots of postcards to his son, but director Lemmon doesn't use this segment to bolster the plot (it's too sitcom-y with that silly music, like a geriatric version of "Midnight Cowboy"). Lemmon is careful not to flood the movie with teary sentiment; he's generally gracious and attentive, and many of his details are wonderfully wry, but overall the picture feels rather fatigued.

I had not seen Kotch for a long time before viewing my VHS copy today and I was really moved with how good it was. Too bad Jack Lemmon never wanted to try directing again. Maybe had the film won an Oscar or two, he could have been persuaded to try.

I think I finally figured out who Walter Matthau modeled his Oscar nominated performance on, it's Casey Stengel. Casey without the double-talk, but the same non-stop garrulousness that I remember from my youth.

But Casey had his captive audience of baseball writers and fans. Poor Joseph Kotcher is a retired salesman who lives with his son and his family. Though he's an excellent babysitter for his young grandson, he's generally underfoot according to his daughter-in-law Felicia Farr. Son Charles Aidman gently persuades him he ought to move into a retirement home.

But Matthau is just a lonely old man, looking for someone to bond with. He finds someone quite unlikely in the person of Deborah Winters, the new babysitter who finds herself pregnant by her boyfriend Darrell Larson. She moves in with him and not in a retirement home and they have some interesting experiences.

Matthau lost the Best Actor Award to Gene Hackman and Kotch similarly lost as Best Picture to The French Connection. Still I think this one has stood the test of time a lot better.

Marvin Hamlisch and Johnny Mercer wrote the song Life Is What You Make It for Kotch and it lost for Best Song to the Theme from Shaft. That one was truly unfortunate.

Kotch is a picture about the person who's your grandfather, old and a bit crotchety and some times a pain in the posterior as Deborah Winters says. But he's also the one with enough life experience to come through in the clutch.

Come to think of it, one of the things that drove Deborah crazy was his insistence on a car with an old fashioned clutch as opposed to automatic transmission.

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were one of cinema's most notable teams. They co-starred in a number of comedies over the years, always entertaining audiences. But there was also a time that Lemmon stepped behind the camera. The result was "Kotch", based on a book by Katharine Topkins. Matthau plays an elderly man in the LA area who feels useless in the changing world. His son and daughter-in-law consider him a nuisance, but he would rather not spend the rest of his life in a retirement home. But his life takes a new turn when he hooks up with a young pregnant woman.

We're used to seeing Matthau play curmudgeons, but here his character gets a new outlook on life. There's a scene towards the end that's a shocker (let's just say that Walter Matthau is the last person whom you'd picture doing that). All in all, a good movie. Not a masterpiece, but I still recommend it.

When this movie first came out I was in college and must have taken 4 or 5 different dates to see it. This movie was a mini cult phenomenon on campus, at least where I was, so I have always been surprised that it didn't get more publicity and acclaim. I saw it so many times because I felt it was a very worthwhile and meaningful film as a view into aging, the way we take care of elderly people, especially when it might be inconvenient for us. It was a good look into the feelings and hang-ups of people interacting among themselves: a retired man feeling increasingliy irrelevant in the environment he is compelled to live in, his spineless and uncomprehending son who doesn't offer much support at all, and his post-natal depressive daughter-in-law who can't understand why she has to put up with this codger who complicates her alreay-more-complicated life.

The movie also has a lot to say about the power of the human spirit to cope with change and make the best of things that aren't always going the way we always want them to.

I would like to see it again after 30+ years, but I can't find it at the usual rental stores. Having thought about it, though, I will continue to seek.

I first saw this back in the late '70's on TV. We loved it in the family, great fun, heart and performances. Matthau's intrepid, smart if slightly 'out There' Kotch is a unique character, well acted, and always someone we root for. It's not much different from the roles he would go onto play in the 90s, but...done by a younger man.

Sometimes the makeup and haircoloring doesn't quite look convincing, but that's okay too. The performance is put across as much by body language and posture as anything else.

The car is a great added touch-the knocking engine and etc a counterpoint to Kotch's own creaky body.

I liked Ellen Geer as the crabby daughter too-was surprised that she wound up in 'Phenomenon' and several other flix(Patriot Games) that I have seen before. Never made the connection.

It is dated sure, but that is inevitable with films. It's worth yer time.

*** outta **** Nice job by Lemmon, too.