484. THE GENIUS OF COMEDY ON FILM: THE ODD COUPLE

Peter Josyph

Gene Saks’s adaptation of Neil Simon’s greatest play, THE ODD COUPLE, has a premise that Shakespeare would have loved. Jack Lemmon stars as the impeccably neat Felix Unger, whose separation from his wife has him so distraught that his incurably untidy friend, sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau), invites him to share his apartment, a gesture that proves catastrophically ill-advised. Simon’s screenplay won the Writers Guild Award for Best Comedy, and it was nominated for an Oscar (no pun intended), while Matthau, Lemmon, and the film itself were all nominated for Golden Globes.

1:00 – 3:30 p.m.                                                                                                                               1 Session

Thursday, August 14                                                                                                                        Fee:  $50

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Peter Josyph works concurrently as a writer, painter, actor, photographer, and filmmaker. He has published 12 books, including five on Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy, and a series of fictions about Henri Matisse; his paintings have exhibited around the world, and his films include: Shakespeare in New York; A Few Things Basquiat Did in School; Hell; Bardtalk; No Standing in St. Petersburg; Acting McCarthy: The Making of Billy Bob Thornton’s All the Pretty Horses; and the award-winning Liberty Street: Alive at Ground Zero.