The Sunshine Boys (1975)

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The Sunshine Boys (1975)

5/10

Starring

Walter Matthau

George Burns

Richard Burns

Directed by Herbert Ross

The sunshine Boys is a movie that I expected to laugh hard due to the cast, but in the end I found myself scoffing at the screenplay instead and at times had to try hard not to doze off and also spent some time wondering why the movie had such a name.

The acting looked a little forced in my opinion, as the two leads were more annoying than they were meant to be and the others seemed more stupid than they were meant to be portrayed (some could argue that, what I see as bad is what made this movie the classic that it is today).

The Sunshine Boys boast of Walter Matthau (Odd Couple) and George Burns with Lee Meredith, but the sum of these actors didn’t make the movie any more likeable to me as mixing coffee with a bottle of soft drink would.

As this is meant to be a classic, I will agree that to me this is in the league of movies like Citizen Kane that I didn’t quite get why they were highly celebrated, although they are good and worth seeing, but they are not as great as they say.

The movie is about two comedians Al Lewis (George Burns) and Willy Clark (Walter Matthau) who after 43 years together parted ways and not on friendly terms, as Al wanted to retire from the stage and Willy wanted to continue.

11 years after, Willy has now become a struggling out of work actor and Al is happy living with his daughter.

Willy's nephew (Richard Benjamin), who is also Willy's agent was able to get a deal with ABC to have both actors work together on their famous doctor sketch, but as both actors didn't part on friendly terms and had a lot of unresolved issues, it seemed easier to climb Mount Everest than it was to make these two guys work together.

Regardless of my view, the movie got 4 Academy Award nominations and won one, Best Supporting Actor for George Burns, Matthau was also nominated for Best Actor. But out of the 4 Golden Globe nominations, the movie won 3 in the categories of Best Actor for Burns and Matthau, Best Supporting Actor for Benjamin and The Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy.

My final take on this movie is, if you ever catch it one night on TV and try to sit through it, don’t do so with much expectations.