I've never seen this play performed except for that time in college when I directed a scene from it. I deliberately avoided this movie at the time so as not to color my direction any particular way. The way I see the play is a couple of old guys sitting around a resale shop talking about stealing a guy's coin collection, sort of fooling themselves into thinking they're even capable of such a thing. My ideal cast would be (undead) Lemmon and Matthau, but it could also work with some very young people who don't know better. The point is, the crime is that distant idea which is captivating, but an impossibility. It's like folks who dream about winning the lottery and imagine what they'd do with those vast riches, but know inside that it'll never happen.
This movie's mistake, in my eyes as a one-time director, is that it almost makes the crime plausible. Don, owner of the shop, and Teach, his talkative buddy, go through the plan of what to do when they get to the guy's house. How do they get inside? Go through a window the guy left open. What if there's no window? There's always something - kick in the door if you have to. Okay, where does the guy keep his coins? In his desk drawer. How do you know? C'mon, they have to be in there. If he's got a safe? Find the combination written down somewhere in the house. What if he didn't write it down? Everybody writes it down! How do we even know he's not home right now? They call the number and are shocked when someone actually answers. But they dialed the wrong number anyway. The long discussions these two have about the plan is a lot like some little kids having a play war in the backyard. No detail of the fantasy is too small and if things don't work out, you can always whip out an imaginary sword and gut your enemy, just like Teach plans to somehow find a safe combination hidden somewhere in a whole house.
This play always worked better as a sad little comedy to me. The movie's director, one Mr. Michael Corrente, has turned it into a real caper movie! That's too easy a choice to make, too on the nose, and it doesn't allow the audience to see the irony of these washed up crooks trying desperately to convince themselves that they've still got what it takes. I never saw these guys as taking the whole thing too seriously as an actual thing that they were going to do. I just see Lemmon and Matthau trying to entertain themselves with the notion that they're going to commit a crime together, like the old days. Maybe Teach thinks it's a real thing, but not Don. Don is just the one who plays along with Teach's wild fantasies. Not in this movie. Here Don is every bit as committed to the theft as Teach, and just as devastated when it looks impossible. I didn't laugh as much at this movie as I did at the play in my mind. This thing is just depressing.
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This movie's mistake, in my eyes as a one-time director, is that it almost makes the crime plausible. Don, owner of the shop, and Teach, his talkative buddy, go through the plan of what to do when they get to the guy's house. How do they get inside? Go through a window the guy left open. What if there's no window? There's always something - kick in the door if you have to. Okay, where does the guy keep his coins? In his desk drawer. How do you know? C'mon, they have to be in there. If he's got a safe? Find the combination written down somewhere in the house. What if he didn't write it down? Everybody writes it down! How do we even know he's not home right now? They call the number and are shocked when someone actually answers. But they dialed the wrong number anyway. The long discussions these two have about the plan is a lot like some little kids having a play war in the backyard. No detail of the fantasy is too small and if things don't work out, you can always whip out an imaginary sword and gut your enemy, just like Teach plans to somehow find a safe combination hidden somewhere in a whole house.
This play always worked better as a sad little comedy to me. The movie's director, one Mr. Michael Corrente, has turned it into a real caper movie! That's too easy a choice to make, too on the nose, and it doesn't allow the audience to see the irony of these washed up crooks trying desperately to convince themselves that they've still got what it takes. I never saw these guys as taking the whole thing too seriously as an actual thing that they were going to do. I just see Lemmon and Matthau trying to entertain themselves with the notion that they're going to commit a crime together, like the old days. Maybe Teach thinks it's a real thing, but not Don. Don is just the one who plays along with Teach's wild fantasies. Not in this movie. Here Don is every bit as committed to the theft as Teach, and just as devastated when it looks impossible. I didn't laugh as much at this movie as I did at the play in my mind. This thing is just depressing.
http://www.movieswithmark.com