Save the Tiger

This was definitely a tour-de-force performance for Jack Lemmon.

I believe the strength of this film is that his performance allows it to strike a multi-generational cord with viewers...a key theme of the movie is the way the world has changed since they way we remembered it when we were younger, which I think is a pang that all of us get, no matter what age. The world always seems darker and more complicated now and concept that needs no real transposition between eras.

Harry Stoner is a man of his times...swing bands, baseball, and World War II. His life is still influenced by all three, but only in quick flashes of fond memories or flashbacks of a beach in Italy. Lemmon gives us a character that does what he has to do in order to maintain what he has worked for, and that rationalizes that which may or may not be quite on the up-and-up.

Jack Gilford is excellent as his partner in Capri Casuals, representing a voice of conscience that is not quite as blind to circumstance as Jack's character, and there are several other good performances in the film. Jack Lemmon stands out, as he does in most films, and richly deserved the Academy Award for this one.

Jack Lemmon will always be remembered for his comic performances. However, he could have been just as great as a dramatic actor. Save the Tiger and his tour-de-force performance in it more than proves that.

He plays Harry Stoner, owner of an heavily indebted ladies designer clothes manufacturing company. The film covers just 2-3 days of his life and we get a pretty good idea of his sad existence in the urban jungle and what he has become - no longer a good, decent person fighting for the right cause. There are references to Stoner's war record and patriotism throughout the film. The fact that the US was fighting the very unpopular Vietnam war could have influenced the themes of this film.

There is little in the way of plot but there is a rich characterization made deeper by the crises in Stoner's life and Lemmon's excellent depiction of a man who is cracking at the seams. My favorite scenes were the ones in the car with the hippie girl towards the beginning of the film and the question she asked him and Lemmon's comic reaction....

The wife is out of town, the kids are in bed, it's just me and the dog.....Save the Tiger came on AMC. I remember going to the theater in 1973, at age 18 and seeing this movie. I was impressed by Jack Lemmon's performance back then. Seeing it now, at age 44....Wow! Jack was my father back then, now I'm my father. I think save the Tiger was the first movie I ever saw that didn't have a happy ending. Except for some dated parts, it is still a very powerful movie about the harshness of life. In real life, well dressed men and women spend every day trying to continue while burdened with almost impossible problems on their back. And we do what we have to do to get by. Little honor in that, but it's real life. Save the Tiger reminded me to be a little nicer to the next grump I meet, I may not know what is hiding behind the nice suit. Laurie Heineman as Myra the hippy chick excited me then and now and is still that fantasy oasis every aging, harried man dreams of to escape the world of his own making.

This superb drama offers middle-aged longing, lost dreams, success, despair, and superb acting by Jack Lemmon (won the Oscar) and Jack Gilford (nominated for supporting). BUT: this film is not for everybody. A serious drama about middle-aged loss, struggle, and fading dreams won't grab every one. It's too slow for some viewers, and too realistic for some others.

Harry Stoner (Lemmon) is as an LA businessman who seeks an arsonist to burn him out so he can collect the insurance and rebuild his failing business. His aging partner Phil Greene (Jack Gilford) opposes this, but realizes at his age (close to 65) he may never find another job. Both men are decent but jaded, and troubled by the lost innocence (or false innocence) of their youth in Brooklyn. Harry is also troubled by post-traumatic stress flashbacks from his lost comrades at Anzio in World War II, while Phil is troubled by going along with a crime that means losing his integrity. Both men appear to be Jewish, and may feel added burdens that come with having beaten anti-Semitic discrimination (or worse). There is the also longing for their boyhood in New York, before crime made cities less safe, and before the Dodgers (plus these two men) deserted Brooklyn for Los Angeles - which is not quite the sunny paradise that both probably hoped for. This film also came out in 1973, as Watergate, Vietnam, and the non-success of the Great Society all seemed to evidence a certain national decline.

Save the Tiger is like "Death of Salesman Goes To LA." There is fantasy, failure, and searing struggles for success. The two main characters are not so tragic as Willie Loman; yet they are not all that far removed, either.

Jack Lemmon's wonderful gift for portraying the every day man is fully at work here.

The film almost has a low budget, made-for-television feel and look. But it still delivers an engrossing story of people under stress.