Barnes & Noble

Bearing little resemblance to the TV sitcom that later diluted its memory, this small gem of a film represents the tasty darker side of playwright Neil Simon's often melodramatic work. The setup is almost mythic by now: Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon), dumped by his wife and borderline suicidal, is taken in by the warmhearted but slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau), and neuroses of the highest order ensue. Lemmon, American cinema’s first obsessive-compulsive antihero, serves as the perfect straight man to Matthau’s wisecracking guy’s guy, a vaguely domesticated, willfully devolved caveman. The dichotomy yields rampant domestic conflict and, better still, some deliciously delivered Matthau murder threats. Even amid regrets over his mistreatment of his roomie, Matthau fears Felix’s ghost returning to the apartment, "haunting and cleaning, haunting and cleaning." Nimble performances abound, including those of the four poker buddies, who click so well on screen you almost wish Simon had written them bigger roles. Still, it is Matthau and Lemmon who made cinema history here, forging a partnership that made this and all their subsequent movies -- from The Front Page to the Grumpy Old Men series -- must-sees. Matthew Grimm

All Movie Guide

Compulsive neatnik Felix Unger (Jack Lemmon) is thrown out of his house by his divorce-bound wife. He wanders aimlessly through the streets of New York, toying with the idea of suicide, before gravitating to the apartment of his best friend, incorrigibly sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau). Worried that Felix will try something desperate, Oscar, himself in the process of being divorced by his wife, invites Felix to move in with him. Within a few days, this mismatched pair is on the verge of mutual murder: Felix cannot abide Oscar's slovenliness, while Oscar is driven insane by Felix's obsession with cleanliness. A potentially passionate evening with Oscar's neighbors, the "coo-coo" Pigeon sisters (Monica Evans and Carole Shelley) is ruined when Felix, ruminating over his wife and children, reduces the two ladies to remorseful tears. Pushed to the brink, Oscar stalks around the apartment making as big a mess as possible. Comes the next week's poker game, and the previously vengeful Oscar is worried that Felix might have attempted to do away with himself again. Instead, a surprisingly self-confident Felix shows up to collect his belongings, then announces that he's temporarily moving upstairs with the toothsome Pigeon sisters! There's a laugh a second in this faithful movie adaptation of Neil Simon's hit Broadway play. A foolproof comic situation (allegedly based on a chapter in the life of Simon's brother Danny) is kept alive and healthy by some of the funniest dialogue ever written. The Odd Couple was later adapted into a long-running TV sitcom starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 097361423142
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
• Editions: Remastered, Subtitled, Slip Sleeve, Dubbed
• Time: 1:45:00
• Sales Rank: 2,285

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