S/D: Walter Matthau

I really wanna see Bigger Than Life, but I've never seen it in a video store.

What an actor.

Destroy: "Grumpy Old Men"

I second The Front Page, there's also a Dean Martin movie where WM plays a Polish gangster.
S: The Fortune Cookie--I think it's a Billy Wilder job, and it costars Lemmon.
D: Manhattan Suite

http://crushedbyinertia.blogspot.com/2005/02/charley-varrick.html

(The BAM cinematheque here is running a 4-film series: Shelley Winters vs the Water.)

hell yes

It's really strange to see his dramatic pre-stardom parts where he's just a cog in the plot, like A Face in the Crowd and Bigger than Life. Or Fail-Safe, where he's the Teller/Strangelove figure!!

Denzel is playing his role in the Pelham 123 remake. :p

(Travolta as Robert Shaw)

Megaton destroy: The Sunshine Boys. Maybe the worst performance ever nominated for an Oscar. Worse than Begnini.

No one's mentioned The Laughing Policeman? I like that one.

Eric, your position on TSB is as well known as your hatred of Irene Dunne and Sidney Poitier. Ask me knock-knock-knock.

Oh nuts, I didn't mention it because I think I may have started a thread about it after I watched, but MEGA-S: The Laughing Policeman.
-- Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, March 22, 2006 2:32 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

oooooops.

No, he doesn't post anymore

Was oops male???

so is Charley Varrick worth renting?

hell, yes.

charley varrick is amazing. i can't believe dr. morbz even likes it. it's so entertaining. laughing policeman fucking rules too.

hmm CV sounds interesting - out on DVD...?

I am going to rent the Laughing Policeman this weekend. Or maybe buy it.

yes scott, it's entertaining. NOT amazing, except maybe for Sheree North's scenes.

The book is great.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b0/Dennis_the_menace.jpg/200px-Dennis_the_menace.jpg

watching hopscotch for the first time

not enough mention of the odd couple, morbs on charley varrick makes it sound like a must-see

Hopscotch is rather painful -- a square trying to recreate Charade, with Glenda Jackson, the least frivolous actress who ever lived.

Charley Varrick is great!

QT definitely took notes on that one

this is tonally... weird. wordplay is witty, but Matthau & Jackson are p. unconvincing, and there are a lot of bizarre interstitial b-roll shots of vehicles i.e. "hovercraft" "seaplane" "truck on back road" that disrupt the flow of the narrative. we're told repeatedly how likeable WM is, but he's kind of inert except for about three spasmodic gleeful moments.

Odd Couple is fantastically good.

yes

it's incredible.

& i nearly died laughing at his section of "california suite".

saw A New Leaf recently, pretty good

decided to watch Charley Varrick tonight. Good stuff. Def some homage to it in No Country for Old Men, no?

I don't know about you, but there is something really resonant about their times in the Bad News Bears and Matthau's Buttermaker is a big part of why it works. I think he captures the lovable loser in that movie in a way that is pretty similar to Jeff Bridges as The Dude in the Big Lebowski. Buttermaker cleans pools for a living and puts his divorced ex-girlfriend's daughter on his little league team.

that'd be it then

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_msb7eQA-RFY/SXVAZDrwhHI/AAAAAAAAAwM/boJipY_A2JI/s640/walter-matthau-taking-of-pelham-one-two-three-obamicon.gif

http://s.mlkshk.com/r/XRO3

jeez, smoking keeps you thin huh

I saw an interview where he talked about playing Iago in a live-TV Othello!

It's amazing how much Charley Varrick there is in Breaking Bad.

Laughing Policeman (most recently seen Matthau) is great, love seamy 70s San Francisco. Sullen noirish hard-boiled Matthau is a treat. (Slapping Crosby!)

No one's mentioned Cactus Flower, fun. Goldie Hawn especially great.

(NB the Cathy Lee Crosby slapping is cringey LOL.)

That picture was shot while on location for Cactus Flower!

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is probably my favourite action film ever. Except for a couple of shrill performances--Dick O'Neill, who plays Correll, and the Puerto Rican woman on the train who has to scream and scream again--I think it's close to flawless. They're more than made up for by Matthau, Shaw (HOF villain), and everyone else. Took notice this time of how prominent, but in a no-big-deal-way, African-American characters are--love how Julius Harris (Daniels) kind of rolls his eyes at Matthau's "I thought you'd be...shorter." Another freeze-frame ending, one of the best.

the score's pretty rad too

his JFK scene on the plane is great.

The Dissolve is dissecting Pelham 1 2 3 this week:

http://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/871-new-york-plays-itself-in-the-taking-of-pelham-one-/

http://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/872-the-lost-new-york-of-the-taking-of-pelham-one-two-/

Hopscotch now on Criterion

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4830-walter-matthau-sings-and-other-delights-of-hopscotch

Glenn Kenny calling WM's work in Varrick and Pelham "uninspired" is clearly bananas.

That's a good overview of Neame's career.

XP

Huh?

Matthau did not give up serious roles after that. Indeed, his work as an exceptionally resourceful criminal in Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick, as a glum cop putting together a seemingly impossible case in Stuart Rosenberg’s The Laughing Policeman, and as a transit police officer matching wits with an implacable terrorist robbery crew in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three—pictures made pretty much one after the other in the early seventies—is uniformly inspired.

well, either i misread that or a typo was quickly fixed. sorry.

He's pretty good in A Face In the Crowd where he's playing a bit of a nerd journalist who delivers the great end speech.

the role of Oscar Madison made Matthau a star at age 45, after almost 20 years on stage, screen and TV, so we should thank Neil Simon for that.

I posted a minor Walter Matthau meme on Twitter and ever since then the occasional Matthau picture in my replies has made the place tolerable.

Is Pete 'n' Tillie worth watching? It's on TV in a couple of hours. I usually get something from even the most old-fashioned early-'70s films, but I've got a bad feeling--looks like it takes two funny people and gives them the Academy Award treatment.

There's finally a Charley Varrick Blu-Ray in the US! I had to overpay for a Japanese Blu a few years ago, and it looks like this one comes with a bunch of interesting extras. Amazon link