{"id":826,"date":"2011-07-26T16:13:54","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T20:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/?p=826"},"modified":"2011-07-27T21:16:47","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T01:16:47","slug":"day-twenty-seven-buddy-buddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/?p=826","title":{"rendered":"Day Twenty Seven: Buddy Buddy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Buddy<\/a>Billy Wilder’s twenty-seventh movie, Buddy Buddy<\/em><\/a>, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, was released in 1981. Billy was 75 years old.<\/p>\n

With Buddy Buddy<\/em>, Billy Wilder’s directorial career ended not with a whimper, but with a wretch.<\/p>\n

Buddy Buddy<\/em> is the story of a hitman (Matthau) trying to do one last job before retiring. A distraught man (Lemmon) — whose wife (Prentiss) is fooling around with the head (Kinski) of a sex clinic — continues to inadvertently cross paths with the hit man, disrupting his schedule, confounding his concentration, and making a mess of his life.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to make a movie about a hit man and have it be a comedy. Grosse Pointe Blank<\/em><\/a> pulled it off, but that’s because of John Cusack and Dan Akroyd. Plus, there’s an actual story (and quite a few laughs) in Grosse Pointe Blank<\/em>. But there are neither in Buddy Buddy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Principle Cast:<\/strong>
\nVictor Clooney…………………………………………….Jack Lemmon (1925\u20132001)
\nTrabucco……………………………………………………Walter Matthau (1920\u20132000)
\nCelia Clooney………………………………………………Paula Prentiss (1938- )
\nDr. Hugo Zuckerbrot……………………………………Klaus Kinski (1926-1991)<\/p>\n

Buddy Buddy<\/em> was written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, and based on the story and play by Francis Veber.<\/p>\n

My wife said this after watching Buddy Buddy<\/em>: “My opinion of Billy Wilder has changed.”<\/p>\n

She did not refer only to the mirthless Lemmon-Matthau film, but to every movie since The Apartment<\/em> (with the possible, slight, exceptions of Irma la Douce<\/em> and The Fortune Cookie<\/em>). And she’s right. Billy Wilder’s output after the Oscar-winning The Apartment<\/em> was increasingly sloppy. It’s almost like a different man created the post-1960 movies, somebody who got really cynical. Or bitter. The heart<\/i> that was part of a film like The Apartment<\/i> was missing in everything following it. <\/p>\n

What a sad way to spend the last 20 years of one’s career (roughly 1961-1981), making one bad movie after another.<\/p>\n

Still, this is Billy Wilder who, next to Preston Sturges and Werner Herzog, is my favorite director.<\/p>\n

So I’ll cut him some slack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Wilder’s twenty-seventh movie, Buddy Buddy, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, was released in 1981. Billy was 75 years old. With Buddy Buddy, Billy Wilder’s directorial career ended not with a whimper, but with a wretch. Buddy Buddy is the story of a hitman (Matthau) trying to do one last job before retiring. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[191,34,192,195,133,194,193,164],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions\/848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.27dayswithbillywilderandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}