For the most part, the film versions of Neil Simon's plays are successful, but there have been a few disappointments and this one is the biggest. After "Barefoot in the Park", "The Odd Couple" and "Plaza Suite", there was high hopes for the film version of this play, and outside of its star Alan Arkin as a typical neurotic New Yorker and Sally Kellerman as the first of three attempted flings (reminding me more of Brenda Vaccaro or Lainie Kazan than Margaret J. Houlihan from "M*A"S"H") who sharply tells him that she can't smoke water after asking for a cigarette during a coughing spell. Kellerman is deliciously critical and controlling of everything, qualities I normally don't find appealing, but Kellerman's delivery of each of her lines is delicious.
I wish I could say the same in appeal for Paula Prentice and Renee Taylor who are the second and third flings (attempted at least), probably ready to make Kellerman's character all the more desirable. Arkin, playing a lot older than his actual age, is very funny walking through the streets making observations, his insecurities overwhelming, and certainly not the red hot lover that he's trying to be. Prentiss, whose character seems sane when he first meets her outside Central Park, ultimately turned into a screeching mess that I just wanted him to push over the balcony, and Taylor's character really serves no purpose, especially in being there to help him wrap up the conflict of Arkin"s desires.
There's nothing wrong with a film version of a play seeming like a film version of a play, but there needs to be better camera work down there is here, definitely a deficiency of director Gene Saks. I saw this film years ago in my early twenties long before getting to know New York, and it's definitely meant for people who know New York. I did not like the film then at all, and many years later, that dislike has turned to a moderate ambivalence. This just ranks as a play that probably just should have stayed on the stage, although I don't think it has been revived since it's original production.
I wish I could say the same in appeal for Paula Prentice and Renee Taylor who are the second and third flings (attempted at least), probably ready to make Kellerman's character all the more desirable. Arkin, playing a lot older than his actual age, is very funny walking through the streets making observations, his insecurities overwhelming, and certainly not the red hot lover that he's trying to be. Prentiss, whose character seems sane when he first meets her outside Central Park, ultimately turned into a screeching mess that I just wanted him to push over the balcony, and Taylor's character really serves no purpose, especially in being there to help him wrap up the conflict of Arkin"s desires.
There's nothing wrong with a film version of a play seeming like a film version of a play, but there needs to be better camera work down there is here, definitely a deficiency of director Gene Saks. I saw this film years ago in my early twenties long before getting to know New York, and it's definitely meant for people who know New York. I did not like the film then at all, and many years later, that dislike has turned to a moderate ambivalence. This just ranks as a play that probably just should have stayed on the stage, although I don't think it has been revived since it's original production.