The Sunshine Boys (1975)

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

"The Sunshine Boys" (1975) Only a few laughs; Once partners in Vaudeville, Now taxing to watch Two old men feud for what? I call this, "The Cloudy Boys". (Tanka (短歌 tan-kah) poems are short poems that are five lines long, with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format.) #Tanka #PoemReview

I have always liked Walter Matthau, so it was very disappointing to see him in this film, made up to look much older and overacting tremendously. George Burns was much better, with his usual deadpan delivery. I suppose that this was kind of a preview of Matthau in "Grumpy Old Men". Dealing with those in their dotage, with the hearing loss, and memory loss, etc. is quite tiresome, and watching it in this movie was also quite tiresome. It is too bad, but the funny lines were not all that funny. I expected more from a Neil Simon script. Richard Benjamin was okay as the nephew/agent, and the direction was done nicely. But I was impatient for the film to end, and that pretty much says it all.

An old vaudeville team of Willy Clark (Walter Matthau) and Al Lewis (George Burns) were one of the best known but they broke up hating each other. Over 20 years later they agree to get together for a TV special...but find out they STILL hate each other. Willy's nephew/agent (Richard Benjamin) tries to get them to work together.A big hit in its day and it won George Burns an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. I (somewhat) liked it. It was written by Neil Simon so its non-stop one-liners. Some of it was funny but making jokes of Willy and Al's senility was NOT. Also I never liked Matthau. I never thought he was a good actor and something about him just rubbed me the wrong way. Also his character here is so caustic you get sick of him quickly. All that aside this was fun. Burns is just great tossing off one-liners with ease and even Matthau was good matching him. Their verbal battles are the best sequences in the movie. Also Benjamin is very good as Willy's nephew trying to get the two of them to work with each other. For me it's worth seeing for Burns alone. This jump started his career in a big way and two years later he had ANOTHER hit with "Oh God". So, this is good. Just good--not great. Matthau's character really makes this hard to love. I give it a 7.

At first this looked like a boring comedy like The Odd Couple, but when I got into it it turned out to be a really funny film. Basically forgetful ex-comedians Willy Clark (Golden Globe winner, and Oscar and BAFTA nominated Walter Matthau) and Al Lewis (Oscar winning, and Golden Glove nominated George Burns) were a great comedy duo, and a brought back together to revive their hospital sketch for a TV show. Willy's nephew, Ben Clark (Golden Globe winning Richard Benjamin) is confident they can get together again with no hard feelings for each other, how wrong he is. They cannot get on all the time, they are both forgetful, especially during conversation, but they do it eventually. Also starring Lee Meredith as Nurse in Sketch (Miss McIntosh), Carol DeLuise as Mrs. Doris Green, Al's Daughter, Rosetta LeNoire as Odessa, Willy's nurse and Muppets from Space's F. Murray Abraham as Mechanic. I think the best line of the film is Burns mentioning that Matthau called him "a son of a bitch bastard". It was nominated the Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Screenplay, and it won the Golden Globe Best Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy, and it was nominated for Best Screenplay. Very good!