At The Movie

Neil Simon, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon talk about their latest
collaboration
"The Odd Couple II."

T

hirty years later, Oscar
Madison and Felix Ungar
are back on the screen in
Neil Simon's The Odd Cou-
ple II. But even though this is the first
time Walter Matthau and Jack Lem-
mon have revisited their indelible film
roles, Oscar and Felix have never really
left the public imagination.
"It's probably the most popular of
all the plays_ that I have done," said
Neil Simon in Los Angeles, noting
that he receives royalties from all over
the world for performances of The
Odd Couple.
"It just works so well," he added. "I
mean, it's such a universal idea: the
fact that two people living together
can't get along."
The Odd Couple, for which Simon
won his first Tony Award in 1965, was
only his fourth Broadway play, and
was inspired by a real-life situation
close to home.
"My brother Danny got divorced
and his best friend Roy got divorced," '
explained Simon, "and so both of them
decided, 'Let's only live in one apart-
ment so we only have to pay one rent.'
"Then it got as bad as Danny say-
ing, 'Why don't I cook instead of us
going out on double dates which are
costing a fortune?' And I thought,
`This is hilarious, this is a play.'
"Ultimately," said the 70-year-old
writer, "that idea became secondary to
the idea of two people of opposite
types trying to live together, because
neither Danny nor Roy are an Oscar
and Felix. They get along very well
actually, but still the premise, the
germ of it, was there to open up and
make a play."
For The Odd Couple II, Neil Simon
puts the long-separated Oscar Madi-
son (Walter Matthau) and Felix Ungar
(Jack Lemmon) on a collision course.
Oscar's son is marrying Felix's daugh-
ter, and the two former roommates
meet at the Los Angeles airport so
they can drive to the wedding. Need-

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1998

106

less to say, their journey turns
into an extended comic mis-
adventure, exacerbated by the
fact that neither Oscar nor
Felix has changed much per-
sonality-wise since their last
encounter.
Walter Matthau, 77, and
Jack Lemmon, 73, are hardly
the opposites they play so
convincingly onscreen. The
Odd Couple H is the 10th
film these longtime friends
have made together (the first
was Billy Wilder's wickedly
funny The Fortune Cookie in
1966, which won Matthau
an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor).
While they both obviously
enjoy working together —
most recently on Grumpy Old
Men (1993), its sequel

Right: Jack Lemmon, Neil
Simon and Walter Matthau
collaborate on "The Odd Cou-
ple H."

Below: Felix (Jack Lemmon)
and Oscar (Walter Matthau)
once again go head to head.

Photo by Marsha Blackbu rn

SERENA DONADONI
Special to The Jewish News

Grumpier Old Men
(1995), and Out to Sea
o
— each
;L - . approached The Odd
1 : Couple II differently.
"I took it actually as
a new proposition,"
said Matthau, who
revisited Oscar almost
as if he were a new
character. (Matthau
originated the role of
Oscar in the 1965
play, opposite Art Car-
ney as Felix, and won a
Tony for his perfor-
mance.)
But for Lemmon, it
was the familiarity of
the role that was the
key. "It was like putting
on a pair of old slippers
that I'd worn once
before," he said.
They also have dif-
fering views on their
best "collaboration."
"Lemmon was in my
kid's picture," said
Walter Matthau about
The Grass Harp
(1996), which Charles
Matthau directed, "and
even though it was a
tiny part, he was marvelous in that.
He doesn't know how good he was in
that. Then there was a picture he
directed called Kotch (1971), which I
liked very much."
"I think this is the best collabora-
tion of all of the stuff that Walter and
I have done," said Lemmon of The
Odd Couple II, "and I think that this
particular script that Neil wrote is
superior to the original play. Whether
it's a classic or not, I think this is a
better one. It's funnier and it's more
touching, to me."
The Odd Couple II appears not long
after a successful Broadway revival of
Simon's original play, starring Jack
Klugman as Oscar and Tony Randall
Serena Donadoni is a Detroit-based
freelance writer.

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