Curtain Calls

By JAY COCKS

THE SUNSHINE BOYS

Directed by HERBERT ROSS Screenplay by NEIL SIMON

The Sunshine Boys, maybe vaudeville's most famous comedy team, have been officially split up for eleven years. Willy Clark (Walter Matthau) ascribes the mutual animosity to "artistic differences." Self-preservation might be closer to the mark.

Clark claims his ex-partner Al Lewis (George Burns) is tops as a comic: "As an actor no one could touch him. As a human being, no one would want to." On his part, Lewis claims that Clark "always took the jokes too seriously." From the observable evidence, there is considerable justice to all charges. There is not a single thing about Clark that could be considered lovable; tolerable would be stretching things a bit. Auditioning for a potato chip commercial, Clark insults the director and the product. Then he calls up Ben (Richard Benjamin), his nephew as well as his agent, to rail about not getting the job.

But for posterity and residual affection as well as his 10% commission, Ben persists in trying to get his Uncle Willy to team up with Al Lewis just one last time. Lewis is really no easier to take than Clark. He is just a little quieter about it. At the first rehearsal the partners spar a little (Clark: "I heard your blood doesn't circulate." Lewis: "It circulates--not everywhere, but it circulates."), then get right down to the acrimony at hand. Clark tries to modify their most famous sketch. Lewis starts to act in all the ways Clark loved to hate: he spits and sprays on his way to a punch line; to make a point or a joke, he jabs his partner in the chest, using his finger like an inverted exclamation mark. Is this reunion really worth it?

The answer, all the way round, is not really. Neil Simon has adapted the movie from his play, and it is business pretty much as usual. Director Herbert Ross (Funny Lady) has managed the proceedings reasonably well, which means making the movie look as little as possible like an open-air Broadway performance. Simon has a palpable fondness for his two antagonists, but he has attempted nothing distinctive in the script. So if his virtues remain constant --smooth craft, mild amusement--so do his failings. His work all seems replaceable, interchangeable, like those inexpensive lighters that work every time and are not meant to last. Immediate results are enough: when they burn out, just throw them away and get another.

Walter Matthau, decked out in some excellent old-duffer makeup by Dick Smith (of The Godfather), is at some pains to be cute while he is at his most irascible. His portrait of Willy is too selfconscious, too deliberately insinuating. But George Burns, rasping and lively-eyed, makes a fine Al. Burns, 79, has always been the foremost purveyor of the sideways insult that comes in low and inside before it hits the mark. He has added just for the occasion a diabolical ingenuousness, which can raise hackles and laughter in equal, generous measure.

Jay Cocks

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