Hilarious Neil Simon comedy, that is, if you can tune into 80-minutes of what-else-can-go-wrong laughs. Seems upscale Lemmon and wife Dennis have to get from Ohio to NYC to accept his big time new job. Okay, no problem; except, the flight is detoured to Boston; there's a wrong train to NY; they're mugged in the city; then there's no room at their hotel, and a rain half-drowns them, etc., etc., etc. Like a string of slippery pearls, it's one adversity after another, and a real tribute to both performers that the frustrations are made amusing rather than off-putting. One thing for sure-- the flick's no valentine to NYC. Happily, no one could do jangled nerves better than the comedic Lemmon, while Dennis offers perfectly measured support. Together, they bring off the challenge with artful flair. The rest of the cast appear only momentarily as our benighted twosome move from one frustration to the next. In many years of movie viewing, I've seen nothing like this daring storyline. All in all, it's tricky material done slickly and to the proverbial T. Meanwhile, I won't be going to NY any time soon, and if I do, I'll take a fat paper pad for all the names I'll have to sue to get there. Many thanks, Jack and Sandy.

First of all, Jack Lemmon's character is the most annoying passenger in an airliner. Asking stupid questions like..."" Is this flight going to be thirty minutes longer?"". And the stewardess (as they were called back then)" Says, "That's what the pilot just said, and he knows more than me". And what she really wanted to say was, ""No shit, you got ears?". I'm surprised his wife didn't tell him to shut up, and stop asking questions.Now, for all you history buffs, this was filmed in 1970. And we see an airliner being loaded at the rear exit. Now, the rear stairs are what DB Cooper used in his robbery. And they were built into the airliner. All gone now due to weight.And, in the old days, you could film aboard a real airliner in flight. So, just for the 70s filming, 5 stars. Not a favorite, again, because the talking would drive you nuts.

Sandy Dennis and Jack Lemmon play two mid-western Americans who come to the Big Apple when Lemmon has a job interview with a prestigious agency. It's not enough that their plane is re-routed to Boston because of a fog-in, but the train they're on has no food to sell them and once they do arrive in New York, their reservation at the Waldorf has been canceled. Con-artists rob them; A man in a cloak takes Lemmon's watch willingly without even demanding it; Spanish-speaking visitors to Central Park accuse Lemmon of being a child molester; They end up in the limousine of a foreign ambassador who is the victim of a protest; Lemmon chips his tooth on the prize in cracker jacks and just about goes deaf when an exploding man hole misses his head by an inch. So don't think you'll hear Dennis or Lemmon humming the wispy tune that plays over the opening credits. All they want to do is get out of Manhattan as fast as possible, and I don't mean to the Bronx or Staten Island too.This hysteria comes from the delightfully demented mind of the usual New York cheerleader Neil Simon who wrote about "Sweet Charity", gave us newlyweds prancing around "Barefoot in the Park", and lamented the life of a "Prisoner on 5th Avenue". Those were all Broadway shows that eventually ended up as films, and this film went straight to the screen without a stop where Seventh Avenue meets Broadway. This means you get a lot of great location footage of New York during the age of Aquarius and get to see visitors to one of the world's greatest tourist attractions being taken advantage of for being, as Roz Russell sang in "Wonderful Town" about her own people far from New York, "Babbity, Provincial!".Unlike the later Steve Martin remake (and his similar comedy "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"), Lemmon and Dennis simply accept things as they happen, her occasional "Oh my God!" being more like "Here we go again!" rather than "Can you believe this crap?" Yes, Lemmon may threaten to sue every cop, hotel manager or bus driver who gives him a hard time, but its out of sudden frustration, and it is identifiable for any naive tourist or business visitor who had to get a bit tough when the city around them started moving faster than they could keep up with. New Yorkers, as kind as they can be to tourists and business visitors, on occasion like to see the darker side of what its like for outsiders to come to the city, and the results are hysterically funny. It may not be funny as you go through the situations that Dennis and Lemmon go through, but you can tell that in 30 years, their characters would go down memory lane and laugh when the other one said to them, "Remember when..."

American director Arthur Hiller's "The Out of Towners" can rightly be hailed as a perfect film for the entire family with its primary focus on the quintessential "American Dream". It is a common knowledge that an American person is identified solely through American dreams. Through the making of this film, Arthur Hiller and his writing partner Neil Simon deftly show all the pressure and stress which an American couple handle in order to land on time for a job interview in New York City, a grand metropolis which remains a city of dreams for many people. New York City has been filmed in a very subtle manner that nobody can remain aloof from its charms. Those who are new to New York City would take immense pleasure in watching the magnetic quality of the city especially the portions which were shot around Central Park and surrounding areas. The film also touches upon various ethical issues as all big cities have their unique ethical mechanisms with which its inhabitants like to identify. This may not be evident to somebody who is not familiar with them. This aspect has also been handled reasonably well in "The Out of Towners" as viewers learn that it is difficult to trust complete strangers in a big city. Lastly, one is aware of the maxim that too much planning goes bust at the last moment. It is conveyed to viewers through actors Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis who shine as a perfect yet whimsical American couple.