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This Guy Never Seemed to Get a Bad Review

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
28 replies | jump to latest

I liked Walter Matthau as an unlikely movie star. He worked up "the hard way" as a character actor in movies and TV in the fifties and early sixties.

Also in the early sixties, Matthau was a funny , deadpan presence as a character actor -- even in dramas like Lonely At the Brave and thrillers like Charade and Mirage.

Mirage(1965) was his last movie AS a character actor; his next one, The Fortune Cookie of 1966, won him an Oscar(Supporting) and made him a star; and then The Odd Couple in 1968, made him close to a superstar. He got a cool one million for Hello Dolly the next year and then spent the 70's as a sought-after star(moreso, I might add than his frequent partner Jack Lemmon.)

I loved joining Walter Matthau on the journey from character guy to star(a goal he set for himself and achieved, besides his looks.) But in reading up reviews of many of his 70's movies -- A New Leaf, Pete n' Tillie, Charley Varrick, The Laughing Policeman, Pelham 123, The Bad News Bears -- its like he NEVER got a bad review. He was perhaps too old and rumpled to reach Nicholson/Pacino/DeNiro status - - and hardly had the looks of Redford or Beatty -- but the critics just loved him. "Another sterling performance," "the movie is good because Matthau is in it," "his great charisma," etc.

He managed to be in enough hits through the 70's to survive; as his career tapered off in the 80's, he shifted to TV movies and then got that late career save with his buddy Lemmon as the grumpy old men. He was well reviewed in those, too -- though some critics felt the old guy wasn't meant to win Sophia Loren(as he did in one of those movies.)

No, "prime Matthau" is roughly the years 1962 to 1981; a good run as an unlikely star -- and gathering great reviews, if no more Oscars.

[–] [email protected] (5486) 5 years ago

I got a copy of "The Odd Couple"...finally. I've always loved that movie! It reminded me all over again what a great talent Walter Matthau was. Every bit of dialogue he utters is comedy gold.

"I don't think two single men living in an eight room apartment should have a cleaner house than my MOTHER!"

"You haven't been this angry since I dropped my cigar in your pancake batter."

He was my favorite part of "The Taking of Pelham, 1,2,3".

He never made jokes or appeared to be trying to be funny. He just was.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I got a copy of "The Odd Couple"...finally. I've always loved that movie! It reminded me all over again what a great talent Walter Matthau was. Every bit of dialogue he utters is comedy gold.

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I think I've read that while Jack Lemmon got one million to play Felix, Matthau only got $350,000 to play Oscar. But alas for Lemmon, his persnickety neurotic character in The Odd Couple became his "type" and in the seventies, audiences went with Matthau's more manly and relateable laid back manner. And yet Matthau remained loyal to Lemmon(who fought for Matthau to get a better part than Lemmon in The Fortune Cookie), starring in Kotch for director Lemmon and teaming up for a few more movies(always with alphabetical casting, Lemmon first.)

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"I don't think two single men living in an eight room apartment should have a cleaner house than my MOTHER!"

"You haven't been this angry since I dropped my cigar in your pancake batter."

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"We're all out of groceries" and it took me three hours to figure out that "FU" meant Felix Unger!"

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He was my favorite part of "The Taking of Pelham, 1,2,3".

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Real, tense...funny. And in nice contrast to Robert Shaw's ice-cold villain. Interesting: they only know each other by their great voices untll the very end.

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He never made jokes or appeared to be trying to be funny. He just was.

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He said 'I don't say funny things. I say things funny." On a more serious note, he said that given his lack of looks, he had to develop "presence and timing" to become a good actor.

[–] [email protected] (5486) 5 years ago

I believe the note read, "We're out of corn flakes. F.U." I just watched it a few weeks ago and it made me hungry for corn flakes. I went out and bought two boxes. LOL

So many people have said how they laughed at that line. I laughed too, but for the wrong reason. I saw the movie for the first time on TV when I was about twenty or so. I thought Oscar was admitting to being SO frustrated by Felix writing "F.U." He had no idea what that meant and it took him a long time to figure out that it was Felix's initials. I'd never heard the expression "F.U." I didn't know what it meant until years later. (I had a very sheltered childhood! ha)

Every time I watch "The Odd Couple" I laugh at something different. This time it was Oscar's frustration when Felix's cleaning and cooking broke up the poker game early. He told Felix he'd appreciate him not cleaning up yet because he wasn't finished dirtying up. He threw stuff, walked on the sofa and wiped his shoes on the curtains.

Walter Matthau was lucky in NOT having matinee idol looks. He didn't rely on his looks but rather his talent. I actually though he was homely/cute. He was attractive because of his personality and wit.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I believe the note read, "We're out of corn flakes. F.U."

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Oops -- that's right. And "corn flakes" makes it funnier. Neil Simon.

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I just watched it a few weeks ago and it made me hungry for corn flakes. I went out and bought two boxes. LOL

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I think it is true that talk of particular foods on screen makes you hungry for them. Years ago I saw an old movie on TV called "Come Blow Your Horn" and older brother Frank Sinatra told younger brother Tony Bill to "keep out of my fig newtons." Made me hungry for fig newtons! Bought some...

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So many people have said how they laughed at that line. I laughed too, but for the wrong reason. I saw the movie for the first time on TV when I was about twenty or so. I thought Oscar was admitting to being SO frustrated by Felix writing "F.U." He had no idea what that meant and it took him a long time to figure out that it was Felix's initials. I'd never heard the expression "F.U." I didn't know what it meant until years later. (I had a very sheltered childhood! ha)

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Thus do we all get educated by the movies! I saw The Odd Couple first run in a theater, and that line got big laughs. The biggest laughs in the theater were early on, when Felix does that "sniffing-snuffing" exercise in a restaurant to Oscar's embarrassment. Lemmon gets to make the funny sounds and faces; MATTHAU gets the laughs by just sitting there in growing exasperation as the whole restaurant looks upon them, with Matthau very quietly saying "What are you doing. Stop that...." Matthau's Oscar is rather the beleaguered "hero" of the film as Lemmon kinda ruins his life, nowhere worse than when Lemmon calls sportswriter Matthau at a game and makes Matthau miss a triple play on the field. You can FEEL Matthau's exasperation.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Every time I watch "The Odd Couple" I laugh at something different. This time it was Oscar's frustration when Felix's cleaning and cooking broke up the poker game early. He told Felix he'd appreciate him not cleaning up yet because he wasn't finished dirtying up. He threw stuff, walked on the sofa and wiped his shoes on the curtains.

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Ha. Yes, things turn slowly into a "war" between Matthau and Lemmon(mainly after Lemmon ruins their double date with the British sisters.) Its slow burn hilarious. I liked the bit where Matthau put his foot on the vacuum cleaner cord and released it as Lemmon pulled hard (unseen sounds of Lemmon crashing in the kitchen.)

The Odd Couple was a big, huge hit in the very troubled American summer of 1968. I think people flocked to it for solace from the assassinations, the riots, Vietnam the general sense of doom. It was "disproportionate" in how big it hit and it made Matthau a very big star(Lemmon got to be a star for awhile more too, but not as big as Matthau.)

I got the soundtrack album of The Odd Couple that summer. The album alternated cues from Neal Hefti's great score(with the famous title song, both with and without singing) -- with vocal comedy bits FROM the movie. That's where I LEARNED the "all out of corn flakes" line and Matthau's "there's something wonderful going on in that kitchen!" bit(he actually honors Lemmon at that point; hoping that Lemmon's cooking skills will land them the British sisters.) Also "I got green sandwiches and brown sandwiches" and "that's not a spoon, that's a ladle!"
These bits played like a Bill Cosby album or a Bob Newhart album. A corollary to the movie.

Of all the lines, I think I use "there's something WONDERFUL going on in that kitchen!" the most today. Its my little compliment to any cook, with a slight sarcasm attached.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Walter Matthau was lucky in NOT having matinee idol looks. He didn't rely on his looks but rather his talent.

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Yes, unlike very handsome men who got their star build-up quickly -- I'm thinking Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, William Holden -- Matthau had to prove himself for years as a supporting player -- and to hone his voice and presence so we came to like him on screen. Its a classic character actor trick: we were always happy to see Matthau enter a movie where he wasn't the star(say, Charade) and sad to see him leave it.

Speaking of Tony Curtis...Matthau and Curtis took some acting classes together in NYC as poor youths. Curtis hit big first as a movie star. In 1964, Matthau was the very funny support to "handsome Tony Curtis" in Goodbye Charlie. A mere 16 years later, Matthau was the star of "Little Miss Marker"(and getting Julie Andrews as a romantic partner)...and Tony Curtis was now MATTHAU's support! That's how the years changed in Hollywood. Curtis reportedly valued getting the part and greeted the surprised Matthau with "Friend of my youth!"

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I actually though he was homely/cute. He was attractive because of his personality and wit.

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With the right lighting and camera angles, Matthau was "kinda cute." He could also project "calm" -- ladies like that. He benefitted greatly from the fluffy, long, dry hair of the 70's, he had a good head of hair on that face. And he was TALL. That helped keep him a star. But yes...he WAS attractive because of his personality and wit and I think that made him an inspiration to men out there: you don't have to look like Tony Curtis to matter, you can still get women, etc.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I still remember reading a poll from around 1973 that put Walter Matthau on a list of "favorite star of women" --along with hunks Paul Newman, Steve McQueen , and Warren Beatty. Matthau somehow "had it," too.

However, Matthau was smart. In the 70's, he took quite a few parts with no romantic partner -- The Bad News Bears, Taking of Pelham 123, The Sunshine Boys. And when he WAS paired with a woman, often she was "mature" -- Elaine May, Carol Burnett, Glenda Jackson.

Indeed, Matthau and Jackson in "House Calls"(1978) rather purposely gave off a Spencer Tracy and Kate Hepburn vibe...sex was discussed but not shown, they were a verbal team as much as a romantic team.

And that's another thing. Given that Matthau DID become a star, he was following in the footsteps not of Clark Gable or Cary Grant...but of Spencer Tracy. And Wallace Beery. And even at times, WC Fields.

[–] telegonus (727) 4 years ago

Good job on Matthau, EC. He was a fascinating guy and he gave great interviews (see him on Dick Cavett's show, the PBS version, not the late night one on PBS,--he was sublime--very funny and very smart; and he did both effortlessly, like he just happened to be in the neighborhood and dropped by for a visit). Matthau was good in a couple of Hitchcock half-hours. He didn't seem to be truly "acting" in either; he just was.

For all his cool and confidence, it couldn't have been easy for Matthau. I think of Ed Asner, who was somewhat of a small screen, warmer and fuzzier version of the same type, though I don't think I've ever seen him in a truly romantic role. You could always see Asner,--a fine actor in his own right--rather huffing and puffing along. He had real talent, and I've seen him him underplay (see The Untouchables episode The Night They Shot Santa Claus).

If Matthau had (sort of) the stage to himself (in films, I mean), was able to hold the spotlight without ham, it's that his technique was like Brando and Clift had never existed. This is what sets him apart from, among others, Rod Steiger. Not that Matthau was aiming to compere with Rod, just sayin'; at the star level Matthau could just plain own the screen, while Steiger appeared to be often striving, and striving mightily, to exorcise his personal demons.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Hello, telegonus!

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He was a fascinating guy and he gave great interviews (see him on Dick Cavett's show, the PBS version, not the late night one on PBS,--he was sublime--very funny and very smart;

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I'll track that down. I'd say that Matthau and Michael Caine were among my favorite movie star talk show guests of the time. They were just naturally funny, smart guys. Indeed, once Caine lost his "Alfie" heartthrob looks, he rather joined Matthau as an A-list movie star in not-quite A-list movies, getting by on sheer star charisma.

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and he did both effortlessly, like he just happened to be in the neighborhood and dropped by for a visit). Matthau was good in a couple of Hitchcock half-hours. He didn't seem to be truly "acting" in either; he just was.

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He just was. Hard to do. Matthau called himself "the Ukranian Cary Grant" and both men shared some of the same calm timing. THEY just were. And even if Cary had the overall looks. Matthau got Ingrid Bergman too(Cactus Flower...a few decades past Notorious, but what the heck.)

I've seen at least two Matthau Hitchcock half hours. In one, he is -- interestingly enough -- a brutal , crooked speed trap town cop who beats up innocent men pulled over...and then drags them before a crooked small town judge.(He's caught at the end.) In another, Matthau played a gangster. Matthau acknowledged that he played a lot of bad guys in the beginning -- his tallness helped and he could "sell" the ability to beat other men up. He generally got rid of that persona in later movies, but there are a couple of late movies where he believeably roughs men up(The Laughing Policeman, Taking of 123, Casey's Shadow.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And this: right at the end of Hitchcock's career, Walter Matthau gave his tacit agreement that he would play the villain in a Hitchcock movie to be called "The Short Night"(well, that was the book title, I think the title would have changed.) But Hitch got too old and sick to make the film. Still...damn, we lost Walter Matthau as a "charming Hitchocck villain."

And this: at the infamous 1979 AFI Lifetime Acheivement Award ceremony for Alfred Hitchcock -- Hitch died only a year later and didn't look too good -- Hitch is flanked by wife Alma, Cary Grant, and James Stewart, but up behind him is...Walter Matthau!

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

For all his cool and confidence, it couldn't have been easy for Matthau.

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No, I don't think it was. It was a long, hard slog of about ten years of supporting roles and TV work before he finally hit stardom with The Fortune Cookie in 1966.

And he had some "false starts" along the way. Billy Wilder wanted Matthau for The Seven Year Itch in 1955! It could have made him a star a decade early. But Fox felt Matthau had no name and let Tom Ewell repeat his Broadway role.

Matthau can be found in the classic "A Face in a Crowd" as early as 1957. But it was still too early. He had to keep grinding.

Indeed, upthread I pegged Matthau's best years as "1962 through 1981," but I guess I must note that he was working from at least 1955 on. And he made "The Survivors" with Robin Williams in 1983. Stardom for Matthau kind of ended with "The Survivors" -- until Grumpy Old Men saved him. It was a LONG career.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I think of Ed Asner, who was somewhat of a small screen, warmer and fuzzier version of the same type, though I don't think I've ever seen him in a truly romantic role. You could always see Asner,--a fine actor in his own right--rather huffing and puffing along. He had real talent, and I've seen him him underplay (see The Untouchables episode The Night They Shot Santa Claus).

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Well, Asner ends up with Martin Balsam, Jack Warden, Jack Klugman(hey, why wasn't ASNER in 12 Angry Men) as a fine character actor who never quite had what it takes to find stardom. Walter Matthau did, and even HE probably didn't quite get why he got it and those others didn't. His flair for comedy, I suppose. His tallness. His ablity to believably segue into serious roles(Charley Varrick, The Laughing Policeman, Pelham 123.)

And the right part in the right big hit: Matthau called the film of "The Odd Couple" -- "my plutonium" -- the element that shot him to the top.

And of course, Ed Asner had that boon/bane of acting: a famous TV character to play : Lou Grant. Its hard for TV stars to break loose from their famous character and make it in movies. Folks from Jackie Gleason to Richard Boone to Alan Alda to James Gandolfini had some issues "moving up."

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

If Matthau had (sort of) the stage to himself (in films, I mean), was able to hold the spotlight without ham, it's that his technique was like Brando and Clift had never existed.

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Growing up watching movie stars, it was interesting to break out the "method men" from the more relaxed "natural guys." Brando, Clift and Dean were pretty heavy going -- Dean especially. Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, William Holden...they seemed to have a better sense of relaxation. And Matthau aligned himself with them.

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This is what sets him apart from, among others, Rod Steiger. Not that Matthau was aiming to compere with Rod, just sayin'; at the star level Matthau could just plain own the screen, while Steiger appeared to be often striving, and striving mightily, to exorcise his personal demons.

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Rod Steiger is one of my favorites when the "ham high beam" is on. Yelling, hitting all his lines "high and low" for emphasis. He wad kind of the "anti-Matthau" in high strung angst. But FUNNY angst(Dean and Clift, not so much; though Brando could do this.)

Rod Steiger (deservedly) won the Best Actor Oscar for "In the Heat of the Night"(as a very conflicted Southern Sheriff dealing with northern detective Poitier; he gets to say "OH YEAH!" a lot) and then had the shortest leading man career on record. About three or four movies and then...back to the character ranks for Rod ("I just wasn't much liked by the ladies," he said, "and so I couldn't be a leading man.")

Way near the end of his career(and his life) Rod Steiger joined the cast of Tim Burton's all-star joke movie "Mars Attacks!" and stole the show as a mad dog general dedicated to Killing All Martians. Paired on screen with President Jack Nicholson, Steiger competed toe-to-toe with his fellow Best Actor winner; they were funny together, but Steiger was hilarious on his own(saying things like "What the hell was THAT? when Martians ATE the nuclear weapon shot at them.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And this one: right after "In the Heat of the Night" as a good guy, Steiger played a bad guy in "No Way to Treat a Lady" in which he was an NYC strangler pitted against cop George Segal and sexy Lee Remick. Its SORT of a Hitchcock movie, though it plays for gritty realism a lot.

Anyway, Steiger's mad strangler is a Broadway producer and master-of-disguise who kills his female victims in a variety of guises: Irish priest, Bronx cop, gay hairdresser...woman. Its somewhat of a precursor to Frenzy, but a bit less stylish and a bit more fun.

And : on YouTube , you can find Frank Gorshin doing a pretty funny version of Brando as Batman and Steiger as Robin, with Steiger's Robin threatening to quit the team and sell all the Bat equipment: "The Batmobile, the Bat Boat, the Bat PLANE...EVERYTHING goes!" Well imagine Steiger saying it.

End Rod Steiger digression. But the truth of the matter is, Matthau lasted at the top longer than Steiger-- even as both men weren't exactly matinee idols -- because he maintained a "cool" persona and (crucially) kept getting cast AS a star , thus getting the hits necessary to STAY a star. For quite a good stretch.

[–] telegonus (727) 4 years ago

I think that Rod Steiger had one big "disability" as a star actor, and I don't mean his hamming (that could work in his favor). John Simon, a critic I greatly respect even as I often disagree with him, pinpointed Steiger's "problem" back when he was at the top of his game as a major Hollywood player, middle to late Sixties: Steiger was basically an unlikable screen presence. One just couldn't warm up to him. He had massive talent, zero charm; and I don't mean Hollywood charm. The real life kind. Even as one could be greatly impressed by his skill, his passion, his mastery of his craft, he just wasn't the sort of guy one would want to kick back and have a beer with (or, depending on one's interests, discuss art and literature, politics, philosophy, anything; and yet at the top of his game he could be riveting, master class, but likable? Nah!).

Yet I found him drop dead hilarious in The Loved One. The funniest guy in a movie featuring a lot of funny players, even comedians. Yet Steiger stole the movie, and this couldn't have helped the picture's actual star, Robert Morse, whose charisma doesn't seem to leave the theater.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I think that Rod Steiger had one big "disability" as a star actor, and I don't mean his hamming (that could work in his favor).

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Oh, I think the hamming worked very much in his favor. Same with Late Period Jack Nicholson and Late Period Al Pacino. And my personal fave Richard Boone. And Robert Preston a few times. What we get with "ham" is a certain entertaining flamboyance that is its own reward. I suppose more handsome men like McQueen and Eastwood and Redford and Pitt benefitted from "quiet cool" but these other guys had to "punch up their act."

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John Simon, a critic I greatly respect even as I often disagree with him, pinpointed Steiger's "problem" back when he was at the top of his game as a major Hollywood player, middle to late Sixties: Steiger was basically an unlikable screen presence. One just couldn't warm up to him. He had massive talent, zero charm; and I don't mean Hollywood charm. The real life kind. Even as one could be greatly impressed by his skill, his passion, his mastery of his craft, he just wasn't the sort of guy one would want to kick back and have a beer with (or, depending on one's interests, discuss art and literature, politics, philosophy, anything; and yet at the top of his game he could be riveting, master class, but likable? Nah!).

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Well, Steiger accounted it to "not being liked by the ladies"(as a fantasy sex object -- McQueen and Eastwood WERE), but if you're not likeable, you're not even going to get "The Bad News Bears."(Yikes...try to imagine Steiger with a bunch of kids in the that movie. No can do.)

Steiger was up for Patton, and he could have done that.(Unlikeable.) He played Napoleon in "Waterloo" and helped kill off Kubrick''s planned Nicholson Napoleon project. But he was never going to get "accessible" warm roles. Nope. Soon he played a lot of villains.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Yet I found him drop dead hilarious in The Loved One. The funniest guy in a movie featuring a lot of funny players, even comedians.

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Ah yes..."Mr. Joyboy" the undertaker. Its a "gay comic" role back when those were OK to do. Some have written that Rod Steiger was the Norman Bates of Robert Bloch's novel Psycho -- and gave us HIS Norman in Mr. Joyboy. But its broader than that here.

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Yet Steiger stole the movie, and this couldn't have helped the picture's actual star, Robert Morse, whose charisma doesn't seem to leave the theater.

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I just didn't "get" Robert Morse in his heyday. He had "How to Succeed in Business" as his Broadway/movie calling card -- but the movie showed him up as a rather smarmy mugger. He actually did a role with Walter Matthau in 1967 -- "A Guide for the Married Man" -- where Morse is the (villainous) maritial cheater trying to convince Matthau to cheat on HIS wife. I suppose Morse got THAT role because the guy is such a cad and nobody else wanted it.

BTW, "Married Man"(which couldn't be made OR shown today -- all the wives are saps to their cheating men in a series of all-star sketches) is the kind of movie Walter Matthau got after The Fortune Cookie and before The Odd Couple. It like the roles Harrison Ford got between Star Wars and Indiana Jones. A "wobbly" period for Matthau and Ford before they became TRUE stars.

Happy ending for Robert Morse: the over-cute mugging comedy star of the 60's became a tweedy, wise old man on "Mad Men" -- he was quite good and eccentric in the part.

[–] telegonus (727) 4 years ago

To be fair to studio execs, Ed Asner wasn't even a minor name player in the late Fifties, big screen or little. He came to prominence at around the same age Martin Balsam did, and as he was about ten years younger than Balsam it was ten years later. He had some good, showy guest starring roles on TV shows, mainstream stuff like The Fugitive, but it was the 1969 movie of Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus that got people talkin' Jack Klugman.

This is likely what made his casting as The Odd Couple's Oscar inevitable. As younger folk than us like to put it, the dude was comin' up. That series was as much a save for The actor Klugman played "against", as it were, Tony Randall, as it was for Klugman. But thirteen, fourteen years earlier, in Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, he likely wouldn't even have got an audition. (Randall was better known, and a Hollywood veteran, yet he was also fifty and going nowhere but maybe road companies of The Impossible Years, maybe guest shots on Marcus Welby or, if lucky, Columbo.)

As to Jack Warden: strictly a character guy, not leading man material. Excellent when well cast. but let me tell ya', he was an all man man's man. Nor could be play far outside his range. I remember watching him play, and give his best shot at it, a Hemingwayesque writer, on a Sixties anthology series, and while he wasn't laugh out loud funny in that serious role, he was way off his marks, and I felt bad for him (and quite frankly myself), as his miscasting largely killed the episode.

Poor Martin Balsam, who actually had a fine career, but not a starring one. In the big scheme of things, and in the language of the heartless guys who ran Hollywood back then (and likely still do), Balsam was a loser. They mostly cast him as losers, sometimes engagingly eccentric, yet he almost never played big shot, and when he did, as the ship's doctor in The Bedford Incident, he was wussified by his boss, Capt. Richard Widmark. Balsam got typecast early.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

To be fair to studio execs, Ed Asner wasn't even a minor name player in the late Fifties, big screen or little. He came to prominence at around the same age Martin Balsam did, and as he was about ten years younger than Balsam it was ten years later.

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Aha. So Asner would have been too young for 12 Angry Men in 1957, and not really known even from TV roles(the 11 guys other than star Fonda all had a lot of TV under their belts.)

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Jack Klugman:

He had some good, showy guest starring roles on TV shows, mainstream stuff like The Fugitive, but it was the 1969 movie of Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus that got people talkin' Jack Klugman.

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Klugman would have "late breaking" TV stardom in The Odd Couple and as Quincy the medical detective. He was indeed a workhorse until then. And less suave than Martin Balsam and less macho than Jack Warden. Somehow his last name didn't help: Klugman. Rhymes with "slug man." Or am I wrong? Is it KLOOG-man? This is like the Deborah Kerr pronounciation problem.

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This is likely what made his casting as The Odd Couple's Oscar inevitable. As younger folk than us like to put it, the dude was comin' up. That series was as much a save for The actor Klugman played "against", as it were, Tony Randall, as it was for Klugman. But thirteen, fourteen years earlier, in Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men, he likely wouldn't even have got an audition. (Randall was better known, and a Hollywood veteran, yet he was also fifty and going nowhere but maybe road companies of The Impossible Years, maybe guest shots on Marcus Welby or, if lucky, Columbo.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I've had people tell me that they MUCH prefer Klugman to Matthau as Oscar Madison. I don't get in fights about it, but I think it is pretty clear than Matthau had some sort of "star power" than Klugman didn't have. The voice perhaps was the main difference there --Matthau had a star voice. A bit better looking. Taller. But also -- the "luck" of being in a series of major movies(Lonely are the Brave, Charade, Mirage...The Fortune Cookie) so that Matthau could "arrive" as a major movie star in The Odd Couple.

Its rather the theme of the new Tarantino movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" -- how a combo of star power AND sheer luck can make some men into movie stars while others remain stuck in TV shows (except modernly, actors can make more on TV than in movies, if the series hits.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

As to Jack Warden: strictly a character guy, not leading man material. Excellent when well cast. but let me tell ya', he was an all man man's man.

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Warden had been a boxer, and could play "brawny" with the best of them. In the so-so Western "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing"(1973) he's an outlaw hombre whom other men fear because he can kill them with his bare hands. He kills one man that way and ALMOST kills Burt Reynolds that way -- even Reynolds has to call for someone to shoot Warden to help him.

But this: in the comedy "Used Cars" Warden played twin brothers. One -- the villain --is a brawny bruiser. But the other -- the good guy -- is frail and wheezing from a bad heart. Its a nice study in acting.

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Nor could be play far outside his range. I remember watching him play, and give his best shot at it, a Hemingwayesque writer, on a Sixties anthology series, and while he wasn't laugh out loud funny in that serious role, he was way off his marks, and I felt bad for him (and quite frankly myself), as his miscasting largely killed the episode.

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Hmm. Well, I liked Warden elsewhere. By the time he and Martin Balsam appeared together in "All the President's Men"(1976), Balsam looked pretty old and tired and paunchy,but Warden looked strapping and robust, still. He got great roles with Warren Beatty in "Shampoo" and "Heaven Can Wait" around this time. He "lasted."

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Poor Martin Balsam, who actually had a fine career, but not a starring one.

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Well, we're on a Walter Matthau board, but you KNOW the role that I(and a certain-aged part of the world) will always remember Balsam for is as Hitchcock's fall guy, the detective Arbogast in Psycho(1960.) Balsam would never talk to interviewers about that role(he hated it being his "only" known role) but clearly it launched him as a KEY character guy in the sixties(Breakfast at Tiffany's was next) and to an Oscar(A Thousand Clowns.)

Interesting about Arbogast. Its "a role for character guys." Take your pick -- but the casting has to be right. Matthau was perhaps the right level of player in 1960 to play Arbogast --but too tall, formidable, and LIKEABLE for such a bloody death. Ed Asner had Balsam's baldness and shortness and stockiness..but in a more "tough" manner. Arbogast needed to be "take-able" -- Asner was too tough for that. In short, Balsam was the right casting for Arbogast, and Arbogast made him a character star for two more decades. (Balsam in 1960 as Arbogast was also as handsome and trim as he would ever be; but he kept his great voice forever.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

In the big scheme of things, and in the language of the heartless guys who ran Hollywood back then (and likely still do), Balsam was a loser.

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Ouch. But probably true, isn't it? He gets killed a lot -- in Al Capone, Psycho, Seven Days in May....

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They mostly cast him as losers, sometimes engagingly eccentric, yet he almost never played big shot, and when he did, as the ship's doctor in The Bedford Incident, he was wussified by his boss, Capt. Richard Widmark. Balsam got typecast early.

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I remember that scene in The Bedford Incident. Sub captain Widmark contends to Balsam that a "submarine doctor" is a pretty lowly position. Another ouch.

Good news: Balsam played a Western town Mayor in 1970's The Good Guys and Bad Guys (a comedy Western starring Robert Mitchum and George Kennedy) who actually gets to score with busty Tina Louise(Ginger from Gilligan's Island.) Its a "political power" thing. I always figured that Balsam did that role for free...

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Well, we're on a Walter Matthau board,

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But it occurs to me that comparing Matthau to peers of his time like Balsam, Klugman , Warden, Asner, and even Tony Randall demonstrates how HARD it is to achieve over-the-title stardom in Hollywood. That's one out of six.

[–] telegonus (727) 4 years ago

Truly, EC. Charles Bronson pulled it off, too, but he was always physically formidable even as he wasn't tall, You cam see it in his turn as a plain clothes cop in a Hitchcock ventriloquist dummy half-hour with Claude Rains.

Some well known actor, and it might have actually been Jack Klugman, who roomed with Bronson when both were coming up, said that despite his image, in the grand scheme of things, Charlie Bronson a was neat and tidy guy, far more the Felix than the Oscar of the two! For some reason I can buy that: Bronson was a guy who had to do it all himself. He was raised in such a poor environment that he needed to learn to do everything on his own, including sewing and ironing.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Charles Bronson pulled it off, too, but he was always physically formidable even as he wasn't tall,

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Bronson is, indeed, a Matthau-esque example of an actor putting in a long time as "support"(The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen....The Sandpiper?!) and finally going all the way to stardom.

Physically, Bronson did it with a taut muscleman physique, but he also went the Eastwood route and became a star in Europe first -- starting by taking the role Eastwood turned down in "Once Upon A Time in the West" for Leone. You can also find Bronson with Anthony Perkins in a European thriller called "Someone Behind the Door" centered on a "Mr. MacGuffin" that nobody ever meets.

As with Eastwood, Hollywood brought Bronson back to the states and put him in movies, but they always felt a bit "B": The Valachi Papers, Breakout, Hard Times, The Mechanic, Mr. Majestyk, etc. Bronson rather lucked into how the 70's had a lot of cheap, gritty action pictures. Stuff that Quentin Taratino loved.

And then there was Death Wish, just as cheapjack as Bronson's other films, but with a great subject: vigilantism. The film opened with just about the worst sexual assault scene I've ever seen(Bronson's wife and daughter are raped and/or killed) but the movie nastily shows that Bronson NEVER gets those bad guys; he kills a bunch of OTHER bad guys instead.

For all of the violence of his movies, Bronson projected some things "against the grain" -- that weirdly soft voice(not whispery like Eastwood -- SOFT), a certain gentleness, and that weird "not-full" moustache that looked bad and good on him at the same time.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Male movie stars came up two ways in the 60's: the pretty boys weren't stars overnight but they got CAST right away, and a lot: Beatty, Redford, Newman, McQueen, Connery.

Then we had a clutch of supporting actors who seemed to have to wait until middle-age to have the gravitas and looks to graduate to stardom: Matthau, Lee Marvin, George C. Scott, Gene Hackman, Charles Bronson...and(briefly) Rod Steiger.

I think personally I gravited to the "character stars" -- I could relate to them better than to the pretty boys with the six pack stomachs. But the pretty boys were great fantasy figures, too.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

bump