S/D: Walter Matthau

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