THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS (1970) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Director: Arhur Hiller Writer: Neil Simon Starring: Jack Lemmon, Sandy Dennis, Billy Dee Williams, Carlos Montalban, Anne Meara, Ron Carey
Films where everything possible goes wrong for the protagonists have to be carefully constructed, because it can either be really, really funny; moody; or just plain redundant. "The Out-of-Towners" luckily lands in the first spot, since it never stops being funny, especially with a great script by Neil Simon and two Oscar-winners in the leads (Lemmon for "Mister Roberts" and "Save the Tiger;" Dennis for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?").
Lemmon and Dennis are a slightly neurotic suburban couple with a family, a stationwagon, and him with a typical desk job. He, however, has had a chance to branch out, with an interview for a substantially better-paying job in the heart of Manhattan, which is a big step for a suburban family. Lemmon is so ecstatic that he has planned everything by hour. He's built everything up so much that it's bound to falter.
Things go nicely until they're up in the plane and find out the plane can't land because there has been a sudden transit strike. Then the plane is directed to Cincinatti, throwing the two off, and having them run all over Cincinatti looking for a train. This is only the beginning of their problems. By film's end, they will be robbed, rained on, witness a robbery, have to spend a night in Central Park, robbed again, be chased across a plain in Central Park by a cop on horseback, become near deaf for an hour, and anything else imaginable. The ending is predictable, yet somehow satisfying.
The thing that elevates this is the acting and the script. There are almost hundreds of speaking parts, since they go all over the place, and a couple cameos from people who would be somewhat noteworthy (the most being Lando himself, Billy Dee Williams, as a lost-and-found clerk, followed by Ricardo Montalban's brother, Carlos, who would star in Woody Allen's "Bananas"). And every step is just as hilarious if not more hilarious then the other. I frequently found myself laughing hysterically.
The acting is fantastic. I mean, Lemmon and Dennis, how could either of them not be fantastic? Dennis takes what would just be a throwaway part turned into a whiny part, and makes her likeable. And Lemmon, king of making whiners seem tolerable, is near perfect.
This isn't a great film, although it does show the underbelly of Manhattan (which, if you think about it, IS Manhattan), but if you really want to laugh hysterically at a film that never stops being funny, I reccomend you check this one out.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews