Victor la gaffe

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.

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.

For what turned out to be his final film, Billy Wilder decided to adapt the French black comedy L'Emmerdeur to America and he and his writing partner I.A.L. Diamond came up with Buddy Buddy.

As it turned out I saw this film back to back with Wilder's Kiss Me Stupid. In that one, a whole lot of talented actors couldn't raise it above mediocrity. But in watching Buddy Buddy I failed to see why this one was slammed as bad as it was. It's not anything close to what Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau did in The Fortune Cookie or even in the remake of The Front Page. Still Buddy Buddy does have its moments.

Of course the film does hinge on the incomparable chemistry between Lemmon and Matthau and they save the film essentially for Wilder. They are two total strangers whom chance throws together at a most inopportune moment.

Matthau is a professional hit-man who's been given the job of killing three stoolies who are to testify at a mob trial. He's got the first two and has a plan set for number three.

Then of course he meets Lemmon who is despondent over his wife leaving him for a fake sex therapist. He checks into the same hotel in the room next to Matthau who is readying his hit and tries to commit suicide.

For the rest of the film Matthau is forced to take an interest in this schnook's marital problems to keep from committing suicide and bringing a swarm of police to the hotel. Matthau and Lemmon get into some pretty funny situation as there seems to be no end in sight to what can go wrong with a well thought out plan.

Lemmon's wife is played by Paula Prentiss and their marriage seems very much modeled on the one Lemmon had in The Fortune Cookie. Things work out just about the same way for the unhappy couple.

Things kind of work out for Matthau too in a rather unbelievable way for which you will have to see Buddy Buddy. And while it's not like some of the great Wilder classics of the Fifties when Billy was at his creative best, it's far from the worst film he could have gone out on.

"Buddy Buddy", the final film of the genius that was Billy Wilder, is a decent comedy but not a worthy ending to his career. It's a remake of the French film "L'Emmerdeur", but I haven't seen it and am therefore incapable of comparison.

Someone pointed out that the movie looks a lot older than it is. I very much agree.

It is sad to see geniuses like Wilder and Diamond putting something as awkward as genital jokes into their script. Surprisingly, there is one clumsy slapstick moment. There are genuinely funny scenes and lines, too ("Father, you said the F word"), but they are a minority. Some attempts at creating humour fail terribly, as if made by amateurs (Lemmon chair-bound); most merely produce nods of acceptance.

Matthau is good and Lemmon is amusing as expected. However, Paula Prentiss's performance is really disturbing, intentionally or not, and Kinski's character is just annoying - and I mean written that way.

Overall the film, entitled here "Varsinaiset kumppanukset" ("Some Buddies"), isn't nearly as embarrassing as I'd expected; a mere shadow, nevertheless, it is of its director's previous masterpieces - if even that. But be not fooled: Wilder can't go bad (granted, I still have a lot to see). A few, pardon my French, comedy nuggets make this decent as an entertainment, and its two stars are okay. "Buddy Buddy", then, as a title... Meh.

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.