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The Odd Couple
(1968)
In director Gene Saks' version of scriptwriter Neil
Simon's comedic 1965 Broadway hit, the basis for a TV-sitcom series
in 1970 (with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman) and a sequel The
Odd Couple II (1998) with the original two actors:
- the continuing contrast of two opposing, completely
incompatible - and separated male friends (both having serious
marital issues with wives Blanche and Frances)
- during his weekly poker game, ultra-slobbish, unkempt
sportswriter Oscar Madison's (Walter Matthau) offer to share food
from his refrigerator now broken for two weeks - spoiled and rotten
brown and green sandwiches: ("I got brown sandwiches and green
sandwiches. Which one do you want?" "What's the green?" "It's
either very new cheese or very old meat"); they were warned
that Oscar's refrigerator had been out-of-order for two weeks
- during the poker game, the compulsive, prissy, hypochondriacal,
neat and tidy, know-it-all photographer Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon)
arrived late (he just split with his wife) and retreated to a locked
bathroom where the players wondered what he might do to himself:
use poison, razor blades or poison, commit suicide by jumping out
the window, cut his wrists, or "flush himself into the East
River"; Oscar was speechless: "What do you say to a man
who's crying in your bathroom?"; after consoling Felix about
his break-up, it was decided that Felix would move into his friend
Oscar's Manhattan apartment
- the scene of Felix's "emergency" phone call
to Oscar who was attending a Mets ball-game at Shea Stadium - to
warn him: "Don't eat any frankfurters at the ballgame today.
I decided to make franks and beans for dinner tonight"; at the
same time, Oscar had turned his back to take the call and missed "a
triple play" - his fellow sportscaster rubbed it in further: "The
Mets did it! The greatest fielding play I ever saw, and you missed
it, Oscar! You missed it!"
- the scene of Oscar's goading of an angered Felix to
hurl a coffee cup into the wall, but then wondering why he hesitated:
Oscar: "You felt like throwing the cup. Why didn't you throw
it?"
Felix: "Because I would still be angry and I would have a broken
cup"; Oscar kept urging: "Stop controlling yourself, Felix!
Relax! Get drunk! Get angry! Come on! Break the lousy cup!" but
when Felix tossed the cup, he injured his arm (he was suffering for
bursitis)
- the scene of compulsive and neurotic neat-freak Felix
vacuuming, when Oscar deliberately entered the living room, unplugged
the vacuum, and deliberately dirtied up the room - to exasperate
Felix
Opposing Views on Cleanliness
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Neat-Freak Felix Vacuuming the Apartment
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Oscar Deliberately Messing Up the Living Room
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- the restaurant/coffee-shop scene where Felix loudly
demonstrated to Oscar his honking technique to clear his habitual
sinus problems; he also complained about his allergies: ("I'm
allergic to foods and pillows and curtains and perfumes...I was impossible
to live with"), and then described what he was doing: "I'm
trying to clear up my ears. You create a pressure inside your head.
It opens up the eustachian tubes"; when he had finally cleared
his head and irritated all of the other restaurant customers, he
added: " I think I strained my throat"
- the classic scene of their intense fight when Oscar
made explicit demands: "If you want to live here, I don't want
to see ya, I don't want to hear ya, I don't want to smell your cooking,
all right? Now kindly remove that spaghetti from my poker table";
Felix impertinently laughed back: "It's not spaghetti, it's
linguini"; now furious, Oscar threw the linguini at the kitchen
wall and made a mess: "Now it's garbage" - and challenged
Felix to try cleaning it up:
"You touch one strand of that linguini, and I'm going to punch
you right in your sinuses"
- in the next scene, a major confrontational sequence,
Oscar was asked what made him go off "the deep end"; he
presented a laundry list of problems to Felix, and his interpretation
of the note he found from Felix on his pillow: ("I can tell
you exactly what it is. It's the cooking, the cleaning, the crying.
It's the talking in your sleep. It's those moose calls that open
your ears at 2:00 o'clock in the morning. I can't take it anymore,
Felix. I'm crackin' up. Everything you do irritates me, and when
you're not here, the things I know you're gonna do when you come
in irritate me. You leave me little notes on my pillow. I've told
you 158 times I cannot stand little notes on my pillow. 'We are all
out of cornflakes. F.U.' Took me three hours to figure out that F.U.
was Felix Ungar")
- Felix had also reached his boiling point and told
Oscar what he really thought; after thanking Oscar for taking him
in, Felix added one additional sentence: "You are also one of
the biggest slobs in the world...Totally unreliable, undependable,
and irresponsible...That's it, you've been told off. How do you like
that?"; Oscar retaliated with his own issues after three weeks:
"For six months, I've lived alone in this apartment, all alone
in eight big rooms. I was dejected, despondent, and disgusted, and
then you moved in, my closest and dearest friend. And after three weeks
of close personal contact, I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. (his
voice began to waver) Do me a favor, will you, Felix? Move into the
kitchen. Live with your pots, your pans, your ladles, your meat thermometers.
When you want to come out, just ring a bell, and I'll run into the
bedroom. I'm asking you nicely, Felix, as a friend. Stay out of my
way"; Felix reminded Oscar not to dirty up the bathroom floor,
causing Oscar to crack; he began chasing after Felix, and threatening
him: "This is the day I'm gonna kill ya!"; Oscar ordered
Felix to move out: "I want you to pack your things and get out!"
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Poker Game: Oscar's Choice Between Brown and Green Sandwiches
Overhearing Felix Crying in the Bathroom
Oscar's Missed "Triple Play" at the Ball Game
During Phone Call with Felix
Oscar: "Break the lousy cup!"
Felix Loudly Clearing His Sinuses
Staring Each Other Down After Oscar Heaved Felix's Linguini
at Kitchen Wall
Oscar Going Off "the Deep End"
Major Confrontation: Oscar's "Nervous Breakdown" -
And Demand That Felix Move Out
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