Buddy Buddy

In his later years as a director, Billy Wilder made a lot of very adult films...filled with cursing and nudity. Part of this might have been because films in the 1970s and 80s were much more adult than the movies Wilder had been making in his heydays. Part of it, more likely, was that the aging Wilder felt that to be relavant he needed to be much more adult. All I know is that often the films he made during this era seemed very gratuitous...and even by today's standards, the language in "Buddy Buddy" is pretty adult. Now this is NOT to say I disliked the film...in fact, I think it's one of the best from this phase of Wilder's career.

Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon star in this film and, surprisingly, Matthau plays a hitman! As for Lemmon, he plays a guy who is rather reminiscent of Felix Unger from "The Odd Couple"!

A mob trial is about to begin...and two of the three mob witnesses have been killed by a top assassin (Matthau). However, problems occur when he tries to off number three...as the neurotic Victor comes into his life. And, again and again, Victor accidentally ruins the killer's chances at making the hit.

As I mention above, the film is very adult at times...with some rough language and a subplot involving a weird sex clinic. But the weirdness of the film really appealed to me...it certainly WAS creative and original! And, fortunately, it's also darkly comical.

Although "Buddy Buddy" is yet to be regarded as a modern movie classic, no other films have made me realize the art of comedy such as this one. Walther Matthau is hillarious in his portrayal of Trabucco the assassin who is constantly being interrupted from doing his dirty deeds, by an even more astonishing and suicidal! Jack Lemmon. Director Billy Wilder has captured moments on tape that we all seem to relate to one way or another. Together with german actor Klaus Kinski, who more often played deeper roles than this, Lemmon and Matthau gives a performance one would normally find on a broadway theatre.

Jack Lemmon and and Walter Matthaw directed by Billy Wilder and teaming up again as a deranged husband and a professional hitman . As Lemmon is a clumsy would-be suicide who decides to end it all in a hotel due to his separated wife : Paula Prentiss . While Walter Matthaw is a hit man who rents the room next door and whose mission goes wrong . As this professional murderer has a well ordered-arrangement to knock off a state's witness , but Lemmon filling of his contract difficult , being interrupted by his suicide attempts.

A failed attempt at re-run The Odd Couple by coupling Walter Matthaw and Jack Lemmon as , respectively, a hired killer man and a jilted husband unluckly enough to have an adjoining hotel room . The results are less than comical but do provoke a few smiles and brief hilarious stuations . The great starring duo being well accompanied by a decent support cast , such as Paula Prentiss , Klaus Kinski , and Dana Elcar . Adding an atmospheric cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr , as well as a thrilling musical score by Lalo Schifrin in his usual of the Seventies .

Here Billy Wilder teams up again with his usual screenwriter , regular collaborator I A L Diamond who got dizzy heights from Sabrina and The Apartment to this inferior film compared to their masterpieces . Being Billy Wilder's last film feature , throughout a long career getting a lot of successes both , as writer and director , as he made the following prestigious flicks : "Double indemnity" , "Fortune Cookie" , "Lost Weekend" , "Spirit of St Louis" , "Love in the Afternoon" , "Some like hot" , "Sunset Boulevard" , "Witness for prosecution" , "Stalag 17" , "Seven Year Itch" , "One Two Three" , "Irma La Douce" , "Apartment" , "Fedora" , "The Private life of Sherlock Holmes" , among others. The yarn will appeal to Walter Matthaw and Jack Lemmon fans .

We all watch films for different reasons. In 1981, it was a new film by film great Billy Wilder with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau after 1974's "The Front Page". But for me it was a new occasion to see the elusive Paula Prentiss on the big screen. She returned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio where she made her first motion pictures, under different conditions, for the studio had been sold in the 1970s. An adaptation of Francis Veber's play "L'emmerdeur", previously made in France by Edouard Molinaro, the resulting screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is as offensive as a sexist joke, but that's no news in Wilder's movies. The film has a fast pace and funny moments, mostly sustained on the verbal interplay between Lemmon and Matthau as two misogynists typical of Wilder's cinema. Prentiss plays Celia Clooney, a TV reporter who has abandoned husband Lemmon for Klaus Kinski, a sexologist who runs a clinic to improve people's sexual life. Lemmon goes after Celia, but he gets into trouble and gun-play when he meets Trabucco, a hit man (Matthau). All men in this film are so dumb that it seems almost logical that by the film's end Celia has run away with another woman (the receptionist at Kinski's clinic, played by Wilder regular Joan Shawlee). After the indifferent reception to what was to be Wilder's last film and joke on male sexual fantasies, Prentiss retired from films.

P. S. I just saw it again today (wow, 41 years since its release), and I found it very funny. And looney too! With many dialogues, characters and situations that I missed the first time.

Jack Lemmon has a penchant for playing the suicidal guy after a bad break up. He did that in The Odd Couple as Felix Ungar and he's at it again here in Buddy Buddy.

Walter Matthau, on the other hand, is not a slob in this film, he's quite the opposite. Matthau plays Trabucco, an all business, very skilled hitman working for the mob. He's targeting his last hit from a hotel room across the street from the courthouse when his work is interrupted by the suicidal and neurotic Victor Clooney (Lemmon).

Buddy Buddy provided a few chuckles, mostly from Matthau. Lemmon is more of a ham but I'm not a big fan of the Abbott and Costello type comedy. You probably know the type:

"Why are my pants down?"

"For your shot."

"What shot?"

"The one the doctor gave you."

"What doctor?" and so on.

So, the laughs were light, but it was a delightful movie anyway.