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     The Odd Couple
1968  NR  COMEDY  1h 45min
CAST— Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herb Edelman, Monica Evans, Carole Shelley
MUSIC— Neal Hefti  DIRECTOR— Gene Saks  BASED ON— The Odd Couple (play), by Neal Simon

     A charming, heart-moving tale of domestic life, of coping with trying adversities in the face of despair. But there’s a catch: This charming domestic life consists of two divorced men living in an apartment, two total opposites in every sense of the word. And the face of despair is actually two-faced, being that they each tear into each other at the drop of a hat. As it goes, Felix is reeling from his recent separation from his wife, so his pal Oscar invites him to stay in his spacious apartment. And it’s all downhill from there. Felix, an obsessive-compulsive neat-freak, can’t stand the utterly foul way that Oscar lives. There develops an arrangement between the two, a relationship oddly mirroring a marriage, and therein lies the funny. It’s terrific to see life’s little realistic touches thrown in (“marital” spats over Oscar being home late, Felix’s dry meatloaf, etc.) and you begin to wonder who wears the real pants here. Later developed into three television series.
OUR RATING— ***
FOLLOWED BY— The Odd Couple II (1998)