Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: The Sunshine Boys (1996)

Then I bought the dvd at the old Virgin Megastore remainder shop at Cheshire Oaks not even aware that Woody had made the film. Only now did I get around to watching it …

Now … largely because of the lurid cover and the few negative reviews I’d seen online. They were wrong. Despite its tv origins (the act break fade outs are still intact), this is very funny, charmingly acted film which is far better than it has any right to be. Neil Simon’s original theatrical version of The Sunshine Boys was produced on Broadway in 1972 and is the story of real life Vaudeville team Lewis and Clarke being reunited after ten acrimonious years to recreate one of their old acts for a history of comedy television show.

A film followed in 1975. Woody was asked to direct (at about the time of Love & Death?) but was more interested in playing Lewis and so it passed to Herbert Ross with Walter Matthau and George Burns in the title roles. Then, twenty years later this television version was made with Simon updating the script, re-characterising the figures as old television performers cast to appear in a kids film and adding zeitgeisty references to playing Nintendo (and such a shame that a scene of Woody playing said console machine couldn’t be accommodated).

Peter Falk replaces Walter Matthau as Clarke and Woody finally gets to play Lewis. It’s their chemistry which really makes the piece work. The weight of the story is with Falk’s absent-minded, cantankerous stop-out who may have one toe in dementia or putting on his dementedness or a bit of both. Allen has more of his marbles and a clearer understanding of the modern world with the exception of an obsession for trying to out bargain shopping channels.

Both actors are at the top of their game; Falk has more work to do – his is the more character based role as he stumbles around almost as though, as Lewis suggests, Clarke can’t quite believe the sixties are over. But Woody is a revelation. He’s funny, touching and seems very much at ease reading someone else’s words and giving them the requisite timing. At one point I began to map out a different career for him, where he’d alternated acting and directing more, perhaps turning up in a John Hughes film during 80s or in Pulp Fiction as Mr Wolf instead of Harvey Keitel.

Sarah Jessica Parker appears as Clarke’s niece. It’s tempting to wonder if she asked Woody if he’d seen Miami Rhapsody which was shot in the same year though, assuming they were shot in the same order as release, it must have been a bit strange appearing a faux Woody Allen film only to find herself acting with him not to much further down the line. She’s as good here, and certainly holds her own against the two wise-acres. But it’s a neat cast with with Michael McKean, Liev Schreiber, Edie Falco and Whoopi Goldberg in supporting roles, Liev very early in his film career.

Director John Erman has a long career in television, working Peyton Place and My Favourite Martian as well as The Empath episode of Star Trek in the 60s through to tv movies in the past couple of decades with the odd feature here and there including the infamous Bette Milder weepy Stella. Some of the reviews I’ve seen have suggested that The Sunshine Boys is flatly directed, but in fact Erman is just cleverly giving his actors room to work and the script space to breath unafraid of its theatre origins. The effect is akin to one of the old BBC Play of the Month or Performance slots which were about being faithful to the text rather than television trickery.