ScoobyWell
Great visuals, story delivers no surprises
BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
LilyDaleLady
And how many times has it been made and remade? I'm probably more familiar overall with the TV series version, with Jack Krugman and Tony Randall, which by necessity had to broaden the story and pump up the minor supporting characters. There's even 1-2 FEMALE versions.But the original has more lives than a cat -- several FILM versions, plus countless stage productions since the 1960s.I've never completely got what is supposedly so funny about it, except some universal battle between sloppy folks and neat freaks.Just caught some of it on late-night TV, and one thing -- nit picky, but it drove me nuts (my inner Felix Ungar?) -- is when Felix is cooking dinner for Oscar and two ditsy Pidgeon sisters.The whole thing is predicated on Oscar coming home "late" -- by about 30 minutes -- and Felix's meatloaf is "ruined". In fact, we see it later as a flaming charcoal briquette....why not turn the heat OFF?This is the kind of departure from reality that makes me crazy in films. Meatloaf is about the easiest, most relaxed food on earth. It keeps for HOURS -- even DAYS -- once cooked, you can eat it COLD (it's delicious -- try it some time!). You can cook it and reheat it, and if anything, the flavor is even better having mellowed.There is no way, not even for a nut like Felix, that a meatloaf would have to be served instantly or "go bad". For starters: after cooking, the meat must "rest" for 20 minutes or so.On top of that: when he goes shopping....and the whole premise is they are eating at home to "save money"...Felix goes to the butcher and orders FOUR POUNDS of freshly ground beef. Good lordy! Neil Simon clearly never cooked a meatloaf in his life, nor even bothered to look up a recipe! FOUR POUNDS! that would make enough meatloaf for a dozen people, with leftovers.Meatloaf is a classic Depression-era recipe intended to STRETCH a very small amount of ground meat - with fillers, bread crumbs, chopped veggies, beaten eggs, etc. -- so that a pound of meat or LESS could feed a family. A meatloaf that was "all beef" would be greasy, heavy and terrible.It makes no sense for two "broke bachelor's" trying to save money on a dinner date, to buy FOUR POUNDS of ground beef (even at 1967 prices). Even considering how eccentric Felix is - - how OCD -- the way he's cooking this, and acting like a meatloaf is a fragile soufflé, just makes zero sense.NOTE: as a broke young woman years ago, I used to be able to concoct a full sized -- and delicious! -- meatloaf from one scant HALF POUND of ground beef, bolstered with a lot of add-ins like bread crumbs and beaten egg, and a few secret ingredients. I will happily supply that recipe -- Lily"s Famous Meatloaf" on request to anyone interested!
MartinHafer
Neil Simon hit it out of the park with "The Odd Couple". It was a very successful Broadway play, a very popular film as well as a long- running (and often imitated) TV series. But for all you folks that are only familiar with the TV versions, the play and movie were very different. While they're all comedies, the play and film were very dark...little like the TV program. The TV show never would tackle issues like suicide and Oscar would never come to a point where he contemplates murdering Felix!!The film begins with Felix (Jack Lemmon) wandering about New York City is a daze. His wife, sick of his incredibly neurotic and irritating behavior has finally tossed him out...and Felix doesn't know what to do with himself. He eventually wanders over to the pig sty where Oscar lives and his poker buddies all just heard about what's happened with Felix...and they are worried he might harm himself. So Oscar asks Felix to stay with him. After all, Felix is a neat freak and Oscar a total slob...and perhaps they could help each other! Well, easier said than done, as Felix is so annoying that instead of helping Oscar, he might just help push Oscar over the edge! How's it all going to end? See the film.As I sad, this film is dark. In the TV show, no matter how angry Oscar got at Felix, you know that down deep they love each other. Here, however, you think that perhaps THIS Oscar (Walter Matthau) might just kill Felix! Overall, a very good film but one that will appeal to a different sort of audience than the TV show...a more adult one that doesn't mind exploring this dark side.
SmileysWorld
We all have differences with our friends,but those differences never become truly evident until we try to live with each other.Clashes will happen,sooner or later,and this point was never better illustrated than it is in this classic comedy.Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau always had great chemistry on screen,but never more so than they did here.Those who enjoyed the pair in the Grumpy Old Men films,will get a big kick out of seeing the two go at it in earlier days.It was the constant clashing that made them work as a team,if I dare use the term,because they were such great actors individually,that they probably wouldn't have preferred to be called such.Great comedy.
Ross622
Gene Saks' The Odd Couple (1968)is based on the 1965 Neil Simon play on Broadway but one difference between the play and the movie is that in the play Art Carney played as Felix Ungar ad then he was portrayed excellently by Jack Lemmon in the movie. The movie tells the story about a man named Felix Ungar (played by Jack Lemmon, as mentioned earlier in the review) who had just been divorced by his wife Frances and then gets emotional about and almost goes on a nervous breakdown and kills himself, meanwhile Oscar Madison (played by Walter Matthau)is playing poker in his 8 room apartment with friends Murray (Herb Edelman), Vinnie (John Fielder), Roy (David Steiner), and Speed (Larry Haines). One of the things that is funny in one of the beginning scenes is that When Felix shows up at Oscar's apartment Oscar and the others act as if nothing even happened before Felix walks in the door, any way after the poker game is over Oscar wants Felix to move in with him but after a few days (especially after the double date with Gwendolyn and Cecily.) Oscar for some reason gets ticked off at Felix when Felix didn't do anything wrong for Oscar to be mad. Then Felix gets kicked out of Oscar's apartment ans Oscar doesn't really care what happens to Felix because he thinks that Felix doesn't even worry about him." But in the end the movie had a good story as well as good performances, and especially a good amount of laughs.
