Mike Nichols (1931-2014) initially earned his gilded reputation when he partnered with Elaine May (b.1932). first in the nightclub circuit and then on to Broadway in a series of fashionable satire sketches. Elaine May was herself to branch out into the cinema, as actress and ultimately director, with her impressive turn in 1971's A New Leaf, an acidly funny little fable concerning a most unprepossessing heiress (May) whom a penniless upper-class loafer (Walter Matthau) seeks to wed for her money.
In the theater, Nichols would direct two plays by the writer who in the early 1960's has dominated mainstream humor on Broadway and progressively in Hollywood alike - Neil Simon (b.1927) though, perhaps strangely, Nichols didn't direct any of Simon's works until the year 1988 with the autobiographical Biloxi Blues starring Matthew Broderick. Simon's name would rapidly become a byword for profitability and virtually all his plays had been converted into movies. Simon himself scripted adaptations of 1967's Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple (1968), 1974's The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Sunshine Boys (1975) and the subsequent California Suite in 1978, among others.
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| That's it pal, when we get back home it's that Tammy Wynette song for you! (The Out of Towners, 1970) |
Simon's creative prowess had little bounds and he wrote original screenplays for conventional situation comedies such as The Out of Towners (1970) which starred Jack Lemmon and the idiosyncratic Sandy Dennis, and for two ingenious lampoons of detective fiction - Murder by Death (1976) and The Cheap Detective (1978). Simon's work even in its hey-day could be seen as hollow and formulaic (as in Plaza Suite,1971) but he retained an uncanny instinct for giving the public precisely what it wanted.
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| Hey. I'm Peter Falk I specialize in being a Cheap Detective never mind the raincoat ever see Columbo's shoes? |
Simon's pre-Broadway apprenticeship was served as television writer and gagman, most notable for Sid Caesar's seminal Your Show of Shows, of which his fellow employees included no fewer than three other men who were to become key figures in cinema - Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Carl Reiner.
In the theater, Nichols would direct two plays by the writer who in the early 1960's has dominated mainstream humor on Broadway and progressively in Hollywood alike - Neil Simon (b.1927) though, perhaps strangely, Nichols didn't direct any of Simon's works until the year 1988 with the autobiographical Biloxi Blues starring Matthew Broderick. Simon's name would rapidly become a byword for profitability and virtually all his plays had been converted into movies. Simon himself scripted adaptations of 1967's Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple (1968), 1974's The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Sunshine Boys (1975) and the subsequent California Suite in 1978, among others.
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| That's it pal, when we get back home it's that Tammy Wynette song for you! (The Out of Towners, 1970) |
Simon's creative prowess had little bounds and he wrote original screenplays for conventional situation comedies such as The Out of Towners (1970) which starred Jack Lemmon and the idiosyncratic Sandy Dennis, and for two ingenious lampoons of detective fiction - Murder by Death (1976) and The Cheap Detective (1978). Simon's work even in its hey-day could be seen as hollow and formulaic (as in Plaza Suite,1971) but he retained an uncanny instinct for giving the public precisely what it wanted.
|
| Hey. I'm Peter Falk I specialize in being a Cheap Detective never mind the raincoat ever see Columbo's shoes? |
Simon's pre-Broadway apprenticeship was served as television writer and gagman, most notable for Sid Caesar's seminal Your Show of Shows, of which his fellow employees included no fewer than three other men who were to become key figures in cinema - Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Carl Reiner.