Die Sunny-Boys

This is an amazing accomplishment for George Burns. He had not made a film for almost 40 years and had never really acted before, and yet he gave one of the most moving performances I have ever seen in a motion picture. He was the oldest performer to ever win an Academy Award for best supporting actor and I think it would behoove acting students to study his wonderful performance. Neil Simon is one of my favorite writers and I think this is his best work. Burns and Matthau make movie magic and it is a delight from start to finish to see these two old pros at work.

The Sunshine Boys is one of my favorite feel good movies. I first saw it when it as the Christmas attraction at Radio City Music Hall when it first came out and loved it ever since. I ended up seeing it 6 times in the theaters, and if it was playing today I'd go out to see it again.

Now a lot of the reviews here mentioned the wonderful performances of the leads. Matthau was brilliant, but had the misfortune of being nominated against Jack Nicholson's Oscar winning performance of Randall P. MacMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest. Burns did win, though Richard Benjiman deserved at least to be nominated as well. Even the smallest roles were played to perfection, like Fritz Feld auditioning for the potato chips commercial.

Which brings me to my reason for reviewing this film, the direction of the greatly underrated Herbert Ross. Ross who previously brought a two person play, "The Owl And The Pussycat" to the screen and made a full movie out of it, does it again. He opens the plays out without making them look like a photographic stage play. He fleashens out the story and the characters.

Here we're 20 minutes into the film before we get to the scene that opens the play, where Ben Clark comes to see his uncle and tell him about the comedy special. Though there are dialogue from the play during the first twenty minutes, the sequence itself is totally new. A few years ago I did see at the broadway revival of the play with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, which was wonderful. But I think that Ross and screenwriter, playwright Simon improved on it. It's just a wonderful film.

I remember originally seeing this film at Radio City Music Hall when it came out. I didn't really understand the humor back then, but this movie can make me laugh out loud.

With all due respect to George Burns (RIP), Walter Matthau really deserved the Oscar for this film. His performance is amazing--given the fact that he was 20 years younger than his character, Willie Clark. His mannerisms are first-rate. ("You know what kind of songs he wrote? Sh*t!" and when speaking to the Spanish-speaking guy at the front desk: "No! No! No enchilada!!") Absolutely hilarious!

Kudos to Richard Benjamin, who played straight man to Matthau.

I just wish this was on DVD, because my VHS recording is getting a bit old.

I had no interest in seeing the remake with Woody Allen, because in no way can it match the original.

Simon's carefully written dialogues are truly electrified by Matthau and Burns. You can literally hear the script crackle. There are few movies out there that can develop such a relationship between the actors and the script. For example, the famed reunion scene could have been a lot duller with less-quality actors involved. Matthau seems to had been born to play Willie Clark (of course, Oscar moreso in the Odd Couple), and with all of the little idiosyncracies and mannerisms that Matthau crams into the character (the line where he is arguing that he is with it since he lives in the city whereas Lewis lives in the country that Lewis is "out of touch" is the quintessential example of this) make this one of the best performances I've ever seen of any actor in any role, be it comedic or drama or whatever else. Period. Matthau and Burns work excellently together; the contrast they portray accentuates Simon's superb knack at creating comedic conflict. This movie is simply one of the ultimate "must-sees" and does demand a rightful prestigious place in the pages of film history.

in one of Neil Simon's best plays. Creaky, cranky ex-Vaudeville stars played by Walter Matthau and George Burns are teaming up for a TV comedy special. The problem is they haven't even SEEN each other in over a decade. Full of zippy one liners and inside showbiz jokes, this story flies along with a steady stream of humor. Good work also by Richard Benjamin as the harried nephew, Rosetta LeNoire as the nurse, and Howard Hesseman as the TV commercial director. Steve Allen and Phyllis Diller appear as themselves. Trivia note: The opening montage contains footage from Hollywood Revue of 1929 and shows Marie Dressler, Bessie Love, Polly Moran, Cliff Edwards, Charles King, Gus Edwards, and the singing Brox Sisters.