I can't believe there are only a few posts on this entire message board about the Sunshine Boys. This may be the funniest comedy of all time yet people can't stop talking about Grumpy Old Men which pales in comparison. This movie is so quotable and has such great dialogue and acting I'm amazed that there are only a handful of fans out there.
shareI couldn't agree more. This is a wonderful movie and one of Neil Simon's best. Since I am doing some trumpeting here let me state that while everyone talks about how great Burns and Matthau were I always thought Richard Benjamin deserved more recognition for this movie. He won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor but then the studio decided to place Burns in that category instead of Best Actor and Benjamin got aced out.
"I'm not answering the phone - it's him. It's his ring."
One word - "Enterrrrrrr"
share"K is funny. Alka-Selzter, cupcake, cucumber. M is not funny"
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It was on TV here, late, two nights ago and I stayed up and nearly watched the whole thing. Really funny.
sharei may be the only dissenting voice here but i really didn't laugh once throughout the whole film. i thought it was a tragic cacophony of failed jokes demonstrating both an unfortunate sense of uselessness that tends to accompany old age and a normal feeling of aggression towards oneself and others (friends, co-workers) that accompanies constant comparison of oneself to the fading "limelight" that one still desires. matthau's continual attempts to sabotage his own career are, i think, a good example of this. i thought of chaplin's "limelight" many times throughout the film.
if you can see it as comedy all the more power to you. i guess one can chalk it up to the fact that different generations are going to get different things from this truly enjoyable film.
Yeah, I have to disagree with you on that point. Walter Matthau turned in one of the most brilliant performances of his career. He is absolutely mesmerizing in the role. George Burns was also amazing. I laughed so hard through the entire movie. They were all amazing. Such a brilliantly written movie. If you loved this check out the original "Out of Towners."
shareI totally agree with you about Matthau's underrated performance... simply magnificent. I really liked this movie 9/10. I also LOVE "The Out Of Towners" - Lemon and Dennis were fantastic together - a total 10/10. "Guhwooge! Oh my Gahhhhd!"
Ted in Gilbert, AZ
The Sunshine Boys is great, but I loathe The Out of Towners. Jack Lemmon, who I usually like, was acting like such an idiot that it was almost sickening, and Sandy Dennis just made me want to shoot my TV. I much prefer the remake with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn.
HMOs--we like to save lives... but we don't get all freaky about it.
Agree with kidcharlemagne about The Out of Towners. I can't stand Sandy Dennis. She ruined Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, also. She makes me nauseous.
shareOh man, I can't believe you didn't laugh! "What's the matter con you?" I laughed at almost everything that came out of Matthau's mouth. He was such a pain in the a$$ throughout the entire movie it was a riot. "Who would want your shoes, I get important mail"
It was all the little and understated things that just cracked me up. I think I'll have to watch it again tonight :-)
The quotes that others have mentioned (and more) I thought were funny as well, but I agree with Tyson. Matthau's character's overwhelming bitterness made the movie depressing and sad.
share**Matthau's character's overwhelming bitterness made the movie depressing and sad.**
But that's what made it so funny! I don't think he really was bitter, he was just being a pain in the a$s who seemed to get a perverse pleasure in hassling everybody but he wasn't really mean spirited. It was just a put on. He was a good hearted guy and you can see right through his act. He wanted to make it seem like he was angry all the time but like his nephew said, he loved playing with the kids and telling them stories etc.
It's too bad you felt that way, I love this movie :-)
I once read Neil Simon's first autobiography. (I believe it's called "Act One," because it covers the first half of his life and career. He wrote two. I could be wrong about the title.) He recalled an incident that happened years before he wrote "The Sunshine Boys" as a play. When they were much younger, he and his brother, Danny (also a comedy writer), were hired to write some jokes for an aging vaudevillian comedian who dreamed of making a comeback. The old man lived in a seedy hotel filled with dusty memorobillia celebrating his former triumphs. He was bitter and stubborn just like Willie Clark. It WAS sad and pathetic. Most (if not all), great comedies have an underlying element of pathos and I feel he captured the perfect blend in this piece.
shareWhenever I'm really depressed (which happens more often as middle-age crises increase), I watch a double feature of THE ODD COUPLE and THE SUNSHINE BOYS. My spirits are ALWAYS lifted and real life doesn't seem as despairing as it did before viewing. Sometimes, if I can't sleep, I'll made it a triple feature by adding PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM.
shareI agree with you. What a character! One bit I liked - Burns: "Are you having chest pains?" Matthau: "No, but I'm expecting."
It's also a very New York film. Jewish characters and cast but you don't have to be Jewish, as I'm not, to enjoy it. Well done. Another part I loved: Matthau feigning sleep/weakness when Burns enters his room near the end after just having fought his nephew to get out of bed to appear independent. Matthau: "You're so far away, come closer." or something like that.
I agree with you, but only in part. I find the humor achingly, laugh-out-loud, hilarious. But what makes it a great movie are the feelings that you described that lie just beneath the jokes. The performances are fantastic, hilarious and tragic...it's one of the really great comedies.
shareWalter Matthau was only 55 years old when he made The Sunshine Boys. George Burns was almost 80. This means Matthau was playing a character that could have been as old as his own father in the film. Despite his makeup (which was perfectly minimal) Matthau turns in one of the truly great age-defying performances of all-time. This wasn't the first time he had played elderly before. He was nominated for another Best Actor Academy Award in 1971 for the Jack Lemmon directed film, Kotch. Going back to The Sunshine Boys, keep in mind this came out a year before Matthau's signature role in The Bad News Bears (1976) if that gives you any indication as to how old he really was when he played Willy Clark.
Herbert Ross has always been a vastly underrated film director. Yet he was responsible for such classics as: Play It Again, Sam (1972), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), The Turning Point (1977), The Goodbye Girl (1977), California Suite (1978), Nijinsky (1980), Pennies from Heaven (1981) just to name a few. The Sunshine Boys is a classic. Whether some of the actual jokes in the film are dated or not, it's the comic timing (an art form that has become almost completely LOST in this day and age) and the chemistry of the stars (including the perennially underrated Richard Benjamin) that makes the film one of the best Hollywood comedies ever made.
To compare it to Chaplin, I think is a cheap shot. While I note the similarities between it and a showbiz film like Limelight, I think this type of thing is like apples and oranges. It's like comparing Fellini's Amarcord to Allen's Radio Days. Both films are essentially about the same subject -- remembrance of childhood days past -- but they are each uniquely special with their own moments of pure magic. As far as "different generations" finding The Sunshine Boys funny, I am under the age of 35 and I think I first saw this movie when I was ten or eleven years old. While most of the gags went over my head at that age, the film sparkles with just as much wit and chemistry as it did when I saw it in my youth.
I think the film announces what it is from the marvelous opening credit sequence. If you want to see some of these REAL vaudeville acts in sound, you should pick up Warner's The Jazz Singer (Three-Disc Deluxe Edition) DVD. It includes over twenty shorts featuring actual vaudeville entertainers doing their original acts of the day. It's one of the last testaments we have of a truly great and lost art form. In a way, so is The Sunshine Boys.
Mammal glands? Mullet? Um-m-believable?
my vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur13767631/ratings
Loved that!
shareI saw this movie during its theatrical release in 1975 and found it to be one of the funniest movies I ever saw. I wrote a comment on it for this website. This movie was vastly superior to the GRUMPY OLD MEN movies because it was written by Neil Simon and you can't get better than that...and then you have a flawless starring performance by Walter Matthau. The scene where he's auditioning for the potato chip commercial puts me on the floor every time.
shareThe jokes are marvellous, but the moment where Matthau's performance touches genius, for me, is in Willy's old club, just after he has agreed that Ben can go and talk to Al. Just as the scene ends, he tenderly strokes the back of an old comedian. It's a completely unexpected moment of tenderness, but believable and moving.
shareGood catch, peterkessler. Another view of Willy's gentler side is in the deli. He walks in happily and gently greeting the old staff, perhaps because there like the Friars Club Willy is still recognized as a legend (the deli still has a sandwich named for him.)
The two get a table already occupied on the other side by the lone diner. No one says hello. At one point, Ben warns him against eating a pickle. "I'll spit out the sodium," Willy retorts, and then catches the eye of the other diner. Willy gives him a wry grin and a hint of a wink.
He's a tough old bird, but that moment shows he still enjoys an audience.
Also, his gentle manner with Al's daughter while fighting with her Dad is a funny contrast that shows Willy's not all bad. Okay, he forgets her name, but that's par for the course with Willy.
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I saw the film on TCM awhile back (probably during Oscar season). Burns was fine in his role but Matthau really got on my nerves as Willie Clark. If I was his nephew, I'd just tell him to go *beep* himself.
shareSurprised to see such a low rating here, but I guess when you consider that today comedy means gross jokes and an easy sight gag, one can understand how this film gets shorted.
The dialog in SB is priceless and Matthau is brilliant. The jokes are memorable and the pathos touching and real. Richard Benjamin delivered a very admirable understated performance as well.
I never thought much of George Burns' performance one way or the other, and would have loved to see Jack Benny in the role.
~LjM
Put your pants on, Spartacus!
This is my nephew, if he were your agent you wouldn't be working...
shareI certainly found this way more funny than Grumpy Old Men, which I think is vastly overrated. It doesn't surprise me that this movie is rather overlooked though. I never heard about it until I saw it was on my local TCM channel and decided to check it out (luckily) because of the cast en the good rating on IMDB.
shareI just saw this movie and have to admit it's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, it's also paced really well. The acting between Burns and Matthau is incredible.
shareI agree. The Sunshine Boys is way funnier then Grumpy Old Men.
I'll always wonder what it would have been like with Benny & Skelton...
I just saw it,and it was very funny. I always liked Walter Matthau and George Burns movies. I am going to buy it on Amazon,
''Don't worry,Be Happy''
Definitely one of the funniest movies ever, but didn’t make it to classic status despite several Oscar nominations and one notable win for 80-year-old George Burns. It’s pretty much a forgotten film today, possibly because of limited availability over the years on home video.
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