Neil Simon came up with a new ODD COUPLE when he forced twice-dumped B’way dancer Marsha Mason & Off-Off-B’way actor (and legal subleter) Richard Dreyfuss into sharing a modest two-bedroom NYC apartment. And if the story & dialogue sport the tinny sound of playwright Simon cracking-wise, he’s able to keep it mostly in character since everyone in here is echt showbiz. That includes Mason’s wisenheimer-beyond-her-years 10-yr-old daughter, no doubt conceived on the Borsht Belt Circuit. No big surprises: Mason lets her guard down & learns to trust again (even if the guy is an actor); Dreyfuss learns how family trumps vocation (even acting!); no wonder the story wraps up half an hour before the film does. Still highly watchable and very well-played (especially by Dreyfuss) with savvy director Herbert Ross a huge step up from Simon plodders like Gene Saks & Arthur Hiller, always moving forward, even at the sentimental moments. 40+ years on, the main curiosity is noting how once outré elements like Dreyfuss’s organic health food mania or a campy-gay take on Shakespeare’s Richard III have now gone mainstream. It alters a lot of our responses . . . for the better.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL: When Richard (pause) Dreyfuss got announced as that year’s Oscar® winner, gasps could be heard as a different Richard, Richard Burton, was favored for EQUUS/’77. A situation memorably played a decade before by Stephen Boyd in THE OSCAR/’66 (a perennial nominee in any All-Time Worst Film contest) when his character, FRANK Fane, rises from his seat in anticipation only to hear FRANK followed with Sinatra. It's based on the true story of two different ‘Franks,’ directors Frank Capra (the guy who rose prematurely) and Frank Lloyd (the guy who won.) Initiated by presenter Will Rogers who called out ‘Come up and get it, Frank!' Yikes!
No comments:
Post a Comment