S/D: Walter Matthau

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