Buddy Buddy (1981) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Trabucco (Walter Matthau) is a hit-man for the mob who shows up at a motel across from a court house where a man is set to testify. The job is quite simple as he just has to kill the man as he enters the court house. The only problem is that Victor Clooney (Jack Lemmon) is in the next hotel room and his constant suicide attempts are getting int he way of Trabucco doing his job.It's kind of weird that BUDDY BUDDY would somewhat become a forgotten film. I mean, it wasn't a hit at the box office when it was first released even though it did get Matthau and Lemmon into the same film again. It also had Billy Wilder back in the director's chair for what would turn out to be the last time. You'd think with those three legends the film would be better known but in America it never even got an official DVD or Blu-ray release as of me writing this. It's hard to believe with the talent involved that this movie has pretty much disappeared.The reviews back in 1981 were pretty bad and many people have called this the worst film that Wilder ever made but I think that's being a bit too harsh. If you're looking for a comedy classic then you're certainly not going to find that here and I'd argue that it's perhaps the weakest of all the Matthau-Lemmon teamings and yes that includes the films they'd do later in life. I think the biggest problem with BUDDY BUDDY is the fact that the story itself really isn't all that fresh or original and the film certainly doesn't have enough laughs considering the talent on board.With that said, there's still a lot to enjoy here including the two comedy giants. I thought the duo was basically a re-working of their roles in THE ODD COUPLE. If you've seen that film then you'll remember that the Lemmon character was suicidal and they've pretty much taken that and turned it into a full movie. I must admit that I thought both actors were good in their roles and there's no question that they work well off of one another. The two of them certainly manage to get a good number of laughs and they make the film worth watching. I will say that Klaus Kinski is pretty much wasted in his role.The screenplay, co-written by Wilder, isn't the greatest as there just aren't enough laughs to make the film work as a whole. I'd also say that the final thirty-minutes if when the film really runs out of gas as the laughs really dry up. With all of that being said, it's still a bit confusing as to why BUDDY BUDDY has pretty much disappeared. It's not a classic or even a good movie but it's certainly worth watching.

Jack Lemmon does some very funny over-playing as a suicidal man in a southern California hotel who makes friends with his neighbor, a grouchy hit-man on the verge of retiring after one last job, but the picture is botch. American remake of the 1973 French-Italian black comedy "L'emmerdeu" ("A Pain in the Ass") re-teams Lemmon and co-star Walter Matthau with director and co-writer Billy Wilder, but results aren't even sporadically funny. Wilder's witless script (with writing pal I.A.L. Diamond) is a wet noodle: there's no snap, just caustic flapping and nagging. This is also one of worst-looking major studio films of the 1980s, with lemon meringue color and cheap process shots. Matthau, constantly opening-closing-and-reopening his suitcase, looks terrible throughout; with his hair dyed too black and the color of his skin a sickly white pallor, he resembles a waxwork figure. Lemmon sticks close to his proved formula--his nervous/neurotic Lemmon-isms--and survives the morass, but everyone else in the cast has been prodded to play these gross jokes to the hilt. It's a pushy, ugly piece of work. *1/2 from ****

Billy Wilder's last film is not a classic, but it's still highly enjoyable. Is it as funny as SOME LIKE IT HOT or as wicked as THE APARTMENT? No, but what is? A remake of the French film A PAIN IN THE A..., Walter Matthau is a hit man who has the misfortune of checking into a hotel room next to wacky suicidal Jack Lemmon. Lemmon goes from trying to kill himself to driving Matthau absolutely crazy. There no laugh out loud sequences, but Matthau & Lemmon are priceless. Matthau, with his affected Brooklynese, is hilarious. And who can beat any film that features not only Matthau & Lemmon, but Klaus Kinski and Paula Prentiss as well?!? A wonderfully entertaining film and a real bounce back for Wilder after his inert version of THE FRONT PAGE and his cryptic SUNSET BLVD-like FEDORA.

We all watch films for different reasons. In 1981, it was a new film by film great Billy Wilder with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau after 1974's "The Front Page". But for me it was a new occasion to see the elusive Paula Prentiss on the big screen. She returned to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio where she made her first motion pictures, under different conditions, for the studio had been sold in the 1970s. An adaptation of Francis Veber's play "L'emmerdeur", previously made in France by Edouard Molinaro, the resulting screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is as offensive as a sexist joke, but that's no news in Wilder's movies. The film has a fast pace and funny moments, mostly sustained on the verbal interplay between Lemmon and Matthau as two misogynists typical of Wilder's cinema. Prentiss plays Celia Clooney, a TV reporter who has abandoned husband Lemmon for Klaus Kinski, a sexologist who runs a clinic to improve people's sexual life. Lemmon goes after Celia, but he gets into trouble and gun-play when he meets Trabucco, a hit man (Matthau). All men in this film are so dumb that it seems almost logical that by the film's end Celia has run away with another woman (the receptionist at Kinski's clinic, played by Wilder regular Joan Shawlee). After the indifferent reception to what was to be Wilder's last film and joke on male sexual fantasies, Prentiss retired from films.