Neil Simon was long considered a God among playwrights of light American comedy. He wrote hit after hit for the Broadway stage, and many of them – Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, The Out-of –Towners and Plaza Suite were at least modest successes as movies as well. Simon worked repeatedly with film directors he knew (including Gene Saks and Arthur Hiller), and actors that he knew ( Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Herb Edelman among them). Simon’s formula for light comedy worked well.
As tastes changed, Simon’s comedies didn’t, so by the 1980s, he wasn’t quite the success that he’d been a decade before. Although his name was still big, movies like I Ought to Be in Pictures and The Slugger’s Wife showed that Simon was no longer an automatic success. Simon’s gags were seeming old.
But back in the late ‘60s, a Neil Simon comedy was on the cutting edge. And with The Odd Couple, Simon, director Gene Saks and actors Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau hit on something special. The wit was sharp, the direction sure-handed and the acting spot-on in this comedy about friends who become roommates despite the fact that they are opposites. Oscar Madison (Matthau) is a divorced sportswriter who lives in a comfortable Manhattan apartment much the way you’d expect your average college kid to live. He’s footloose, fancy-free, and not too concerned about keeping a tidy house or eating a balanced diet. His new roommate – Felix Unger (Lemmon) has just been tossed out by his wife – is precisely the opposite. He’s an obsessive neat-nick for whom everything must be just-so. These two are good friends, but it seems to be just a matter of time before Oscar drops Felix out the window.
The Odd Couple works because the humour is quick and witty and because the delivery is bang-on. Lemmon and Matthau have a fabulous chemistry – which is why they worked together on more than a dozen films (this was their second together) – that allows them to interact with the believable love-hate of real friends. The repartee is often hilarious.
Oscar can’t stand Felix’s obsessive tidiness, saying “I don’t think that two single men, living alone in an eight-room apartment, should have a cleaner house than my mother.”
He’s equally frustrated with Felix’s passive aggressiveness, telling his long-time friend, “Don’t pout. If you want to fight, we’ll fight. But don’t pout. Fighting, I win. Pouting, you win.”
As the two argue, Felix grabs a pair of scissors ominously and says, “You’re not going to hear another peep out of me.”
Oscar replies, “You’re not going to give me a haircut, are you?”
This prompts Felix to correct him: “I’m going to cut up some cabbage and greens and make coleslaw for tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to have coleslaw tomorrow. I just want to have some fun tonight,” shoots back Oscar.
Felix’s predictable reply: “Why don’t you like my coleslaw?”
And on it goes. Corny, not the least bit risqué, but really good fun.
