Odd Couple of things

My sister's son and his wife were recently transferred from PA to South Carolina, and they leave this weekend.  The job is good, so it isn't all bad.  Naturally my sister will miss them dearly, but she will be able to visit and they will also come back here for visits, so they will see each other monthly (more or less).  That got me thinking about a line in the classic 1968 comedy, The Odd Couple.

In that movie, Jack Lemmon, as Felix Unger, was entertaining the Coo-Coo Pigeon sisters.  He was telling them about his marriage break up and his children.  He mentions how much he will miss them...but he will get to see them every weekend, and for a month in the summer, and take them to school every day, and pick them up, etc.  One of the sisters says, "Well, when is it that you will miss them?"

That was Monica Evans as Cecily Pigeon.  Evans was the only person in The Odd Couple to play in the Broadway production, the movie and the TV show.  She did a few other roles in voice overs and on TV, but she was only in two other movies.  A look at the Internet Broadway Database shows that she was only in two plays.  (Disclaimer: I can't say that the Internet Movie or Broadway Databases are accurate and up to date, but they are still good resources.)

The waitress was played by Iris Adrian, an actress who appeared in close to 160 roles.  She worked with Jerry Lewis, the Marx Brothers, Elvis Presley and many others in quite a career from 1928 to 1986.  Just think of someone named Sugar or Honey.

I mentioned Bill Baldwin in my Rocky post a few days ago.  He was in The Odd Couple as one of the sports announcers.  Type casting again.

My favorite characters in The Odd Couple were the card playing friends, played by Herb Edelman, John Fiedler, David Sheiner, and Larry Haines.  All of them can be seen in many other films and on TV, although none were big stars.  Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were the stars here, and they surrounded themselves with bit actors and actresses who made this a classic that will be enjoyed forever.

A Philadelphia Story

I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, so I am quite familiar with the entire Delaware Valley surrounding the city.  I always like seeing movies and TV shows that are shot in the area, so let's look at Rocky from 1976. 

Is it a classic film?  What makes a classic film?  Rocky won three Oscars, including Best Picture, and was nominated for seven more.  It won 15 other awards in the industry, including Best Foreign Language Film by the Japanese Academy.  It also had a great cast and it made Sylvester Stallone a star.  I think it may qualify.

Of course, it would never win for location accuracy.  Anyone familiar with Philly would know that Rocky could never have made that early morning run as shown in the film.  He was all over the city!  But it did show a lot of neighborhoods.  And no, I never tried to run up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In one of the sequels to Rocky, the city dedicates a statue at the museum to him.  In real life, the Art Museum didn't want the statue.  It wasn't really art, you know.  It was moved to one of the sports stadiums called the Spectrum, where the fights were supposed to take place.  The Spectrum is now scheduled for demolition, and the Rocky statue is back at the Art Museum...this time at the bottom of the steps.

As far as bit actors go, Rocky is full of them.  Stallone, up until 1976 and Rocky, was a bit actor.  This movie shot him up to being a superstar  Talia Shire had a much better resume, having already made The Godfather and Godfather II. 

My favorite actor in this film is Burgess Meredith. He outclassed everyone else and is definitely not a bit player.  I have always considered Burt Young to be a bit actor, but he keeps showing up in films and on TV, sometimes in starring roles.  Let's call him a character actor. 

• Bill Baldwin (not Alec's brother) played a fight announcer.  He has 131 credits on IMDb, mostly as announcers or news casters.  A type casted career.
• Stallone's younger brother Frank, had two parts in this film.  He was a street singer and a timekeeper. 
• You can also catch Michael Dorn from "Star Trek" as a bodyguard.  He should have used his Klingon makeup and nobody would mess with him!

Most of the rest of the bit players and extras are not noteworthy, but some have quite a few roles in their list.  Just for fun, look here for a list of the films of Lloyd Kauffman, who played a drunk.  I am not sure I would want to list many of his movies on my resume!