Good Neighbor Sam (1964)

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

No need to recap the zany plot. The 2-hours plus comes across more as a comedy of moments than a successful whole. The first part is the best. Lemmon was a perfect actor for white-collar comedy, and those moments when his addled Sam struggles with his ad-agency job amount to a perfect fit. The trouble is the screenplay stretches the clever premise into segments of varying quality. At the same time, it appears director Swift hasn't much feel for comedy that could perhaps finesse the bumpy parts. Then too, I get an impression the stretching was done to promote TV's Connors and Provine, along with French actress Schneider. The two girls are quite charming in their roles. Still, it's really up to Lemmon to furnish the links of amusement, but not all play to his strengths, especially the frantic chase scene. I'm still chuckling, however, over Sam's sleep habits, the ad that can't put anyone in the driver's seat, and a vacuum cleaner with an eye at the top. And , oh yes, that sudden shower door scene every guy longs for. Good also to see veteran trouper Ed Robinson picking up a payday. Anyway, the movie's very much in the upbeat suburban style of the 1950's. Unfortunately, its 1964 release date is swimming against the emerging dark undercurrents of Vietnam. So it probably soon went into cultural eclipse. Nonetheless, the flick's still a chance to catch one our best comedic talents in action. It may not be among his best, but does have its moments.

Jack Lemmon was groomed at Columbia and what a run Lemmon had... working as co star to glamor girls Rita Hayworth, Doris Day and Kim Novak in a series of great films. Jack Lemmon was also loaned out to WB for his Oscar winning Mr. Roberts working with Henry Fonda, William Powell and directed by John Ford, and loaned out to UA for Billy Wilder's comedic masterpiece Some Like It Hot with the peerless Marilyn Monroe, and Joe E Brown. (All four: Wilder, Monroe, Brown and Lemmon ought to have won Oscars).Good Neighbor Sam was one of if not the last film Jack Lemmon made at Columbia Pictures, and it is a riotous film co starring Romy Schneider, Mike Connors, Edward G Robinson and the dazzling Dorothy Provine (on loan from Ms Provine's studio Warner Bros). Dorothy Provine should have been a major movie star.David Swift who directed Pollyanna with Jane Wyman, a film that made Hayley Mills a star and other fine films such as Mr. Lemmon's Under The Yum Yum Tree directs here and creates a lot of fun. The cast is superb.This is a laugh out loud funny film, and one of Jack Lemmon's true gems.

Jack Lemmon stars as the all-American clean decent-living man with good family values. Or so his boss thinks so, when they get him to salvage an advertising account that is almost out the door, when Edward G. Robinson (who is always great) is insulted by their first slogan/gimmick for his product: Nerlander dairy products; more specifically, his eggs.But what they don't know is that his wife's best friend has moved next door to Jack and his wife. One thing leads to another and a case of mistaken identity is afoot. The neighbor has inherited some money, but she needs Jack's help in getting it, due to a clause. That's where "Good Neighbor Sam" comes in.It seems light-hearted, fun, and entertaining enough, but once complications set in and things go awry, it goes way off base and the last 30 minutes or so are more exhausting than funny. And, they leave several plots and/or questions left unanswered and unresolved with its abrupt ending.You will recognize one of the "fun girls" from "The Andy Griffith Show" in the last twenty minutes in a memorable bit.("Oh, Bernie!") All in all, if you don't want to think for well over two hours, then sit back and enjoy Jack Lemmon and his neighbors. But, just remember, when you do a favor for someone, anything might happen.

"Good Neighbor Sam" (1964) 131 minutes (2:11) comedy starring Jack Lemmon *(Possible Spoilers)*Recently ordered the VHS from Amazon and watched it for the first time since I was ...uh, much younger. Still "cute" and amusing in a 1964 kind of way. Has some great moments, but also could be tightened up considerably by today's standards. A wide variety of sound stage, backlot and real city streets were used in the filming, so the production values are very "stagey" in some scenes. Yet it feels like the director tried to break it up with different camera angles in several scenes of the same location. An awful lot of "rear projection" shots for traffic scenes, though; and yet-- a series of comedic vignettes throughout the movie actually call attention to the "R.P." as if on purpose! Some of the action scenes are exaggerated through the use of accelerated camera speed. Such shots may remind you of "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."Story and plot? Actually, quite good for it's day. I'd call it "sophisticated slapstick." Sure there are a few holes in the plot, but it's a comedy, not a biblical epic! I'd say for 1964 this was probably very, very good. (And, hey! Martinis are "in" all over again in 2003! ;-)Jack Lemmon plays a bored ad man, a lowly creative type in the - literal - bowels of the ad agency building where he works. The fates intervene to place him, quite suddenly, in the limelight as the new head of the agency's most important new account. But merry mix-ups ensue to confuse Lemmon's co-workers and his home life -- where hebecomes forced to assume the identity of his new French neighbor's husband! There's much more to it than that, of course, and once the plot drivers are set up, the story plays out in what today might seem a predictable fashion but what was probably fairly original in 1964.I enjoyed the attempts at injecting reality into the mix by getting out of the sound stage. Watch for scenes showing stylized bits of life behind the scenes at a big-city ad agency with important accounts; cars whizzing through the streets of a pre-"Bullitt" San Francisco; and the prototypical display of "California Suburbia" for Sam's own neighborhood. (Everyone seems to drive brand new cars there -- easy to pick out if you know your 1963-64 model cars. Although here I may be showing my age. ;-) It is an odd sort of feeling, in fact, to note some of the detail in the sets, set dressings and the wardrobe and fashions: if this were a "period" film shot today, I'd say they did their homework very well. But it was contemporary, "present day" story telling in 1964! Watch as well for "product placement." There's a surprising amount for way back in '64. Some of it is integral to the story; much is not.And it is simply amazing how many faces you will recognize... a veritable who's who of b-line and character actors like Louis Nye, Robert Q. Lewis and even Mike Connors-- ol' "Mannix" himself! Plus, the venerable Edward G. Robinson plays way against his usual type in his role as the important new ad agency client everyone sucks up to. But this is Lemmon's star vehicle, and he's in tip-top form here. It's "Ensign Pulver" AFTER the war! Overall, this is one of those movies about which the old folks say, "they just don't make 'em like that any more!"-DJQ 5/16/03