A Slice of Lemmon

A Jack Lemmon Summer Matinee Film Series

Wed., July 10-31, 2013 - 1:00
Library Auditorium

Hello Friends,

Summer has rolled around once again, and as I sit here composing this blog entry, the weather outside is hot and muggy. I know that the expression "dog days of summer" is normally used much later in the season, but I'm panting like a member of the canine family even now. I don't normally seek out the sun and heat during the summer. The hole in the ozone isn't getting any smaller, and I've always felt that it is not worth the effort to slather myself with sunscreen. For what? To then lie on a towel and sweat?

Why don't you join me in the cool comfort of the library's auditorium for my July film lecture series, saluting Jack Lemmon? I thought that I'd show a handful of Lemmon's comedic movies, even though we all know that he was a dramatic actor of distinction as well. But it's summer, after all. So I thought that I'd "serve up" something light and refreshing--namely, a slice of Lemmon.

We'll get to enjoy Jack's first feature film role, as a young filmmaker who takes a liking to dizzy blonde Judy Holliday, in It Should Happen to You. Directed by the esteemed George Cukor, the film looks at our culture's preoccupation with fame and celebrity. This movie opened in 1954--nearly a decade and a half before Andy Warhol spoke about everyone eventually getting their own fifteen minute of fame. Talk about being prescient!

Who doesn't love Some Like It Hot, the Billy Wilder-directed classic with Lemmon and Tony Curtis as two musicians in 1920's Chicago who disguise themselves as women to evade gangsters whose mob slaying they have witnessed. Here we have Lemmon the farceur on display, as his character gets caught up perhaps a bit too much in the pleasures of his masquerade. And the film has Marilyn Monroe at her breathless, jiggly best.

Wilder also directed The Apartment, with Lemmon playing the kind of role at which he would come to excel: the little man, lost in the sea of humanity, but trying desperately to carve out a niche for himself. Here, he's a small cog in the wheel at an insurance agency, who lends his apartment to his philandering bosses for their trysts. But is this the best way to climb the ladder to success, if it means compromising your self-respect? Shirley Maclaine co-stars.

We close the series with The Odd Couple, based on Neil Simon's successful Broadway play (and forerunner to the long-running Tony Randall-Jack Klugman TV series). One of several films that Lemmon made with Walter Matthau, it pairs the two as mismatched roommates, one a neurotic fussbudget, the other  a sloppy sportswriter. Lemmon's performance is filled with tics,wheezes, and just about anything else that could drive Matthau to distraction. And does. 

Come in from the stifling heat and join me for a good laugh this summer, watching an actor who stands as one of the exemplars of comedic acting. A chuckle, after all, is better than a sunburn.

Doug Swiszcz

Librarian and Film Enthusiast

Here's the schedule, at a glance:

July 10 - It Should Happen to You - 1954 - Black & white - 86 min. - not rated.

July 17 - Some Like It Hot - 1959 - Black & white - 120 min. - not rated.

July 24 - The Apartment - 1960 - Black & white - 125 min. - not rated.

July 31 - The Odd Couple - 1968 - Color - 105 min. - rated G.