Good Neighbor Sam
| Good Neighbor Sam | |
|---|---|
 1964 Theatrical Poster |
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| Directed by | David Swift |
| Produced by | David Swift |
| Written by | Jack Finney (novel) Everett Greenbaum James Fritzell |
| Starring | Jack Lemmon Romy Schneider Dorothy Provine Mike Connors Edward G. Robinson |
| Music by | Frank De Vol |
| Cinematography | Burnett Guffey |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 22, 1964 |
| Running time | 130 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Good Neighbor Sam is a 1964 American comedy movie co-written and directed by David Swift and starring Jack Lemmon, Dorothy Provine and Romy Schneider.
It was based on the novel by Jack Finney. The screenplay was the motion picture debut of James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, who had written many American television situation comedies[citation needed] including Mr. Peepers (created by David Swift). Greenbaum also created the mobile sculpture featured in the film.[1]
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[edit] Plot
Lemmon plays Sam Bissell, a hard-working advertising executive, with two young daughters and a loving wife, Min (Dorothy Provine).
An extremely important client, Simon Nurdlinger (Edward G. Robinson), is considering taking his business elsewhere when he believes there are no "family men" working at Sam's company. Sam's boss, Mr. Burke (Edward Andrews), introduces the client to Sam. The client is delighted by Sam and agrees to do business with him and the company. Sam feels his career is now on the way up and he goes home to celebrate with his wife. There, he meets his wife's longtime friend and their new next-door neighbor, Janet (Romy Schneider), and they all have dinner together to celebrate his promotion and Janet's new home.
Janet, a beautiful French woman, is recently divorced from her husband Howard (Mike Connors) and is happier than ever. She has also come into a large inheritance from her grandfather, which carries the stipulation that she must still be married to Howard in order to receive the inheritance. State law dictates that a divorce is not final until a year from final settlement. Since only six months have passed, Janet decides to hide the divorce from her cousins Irene (Anne Seymour) and Jack (Charles Lane) who stand to inherit if Janet is disqualified.
With Howard unavailable, Sam is pressed to impersonate him when Irene and Jack arrive for a visit. Having never met Howard, Irene and Jack seem convinced but begin watching the couple, requiring that Janet and Sam (with Min's complicity) continue the charade for several days. When caught by Mr. Burke and Mr. Nurdlinger, Sam and Janet are then forced into a double charade in which Janet pretends to be Min. The situation begins to unravel when Irene and Jack hire a private investigator to keep watch on Sam and Janet, and Howard re-enters the picture.
[edit] Cast
- Jack Lemmon as Sam Bissell
- Romy Schneider as Janet Lagerlof
- Dorothy Provine as Minerva Bissell
- Mike Connors as Howard Ebbets (as Michael Connors)
- Edward Andrews as Mr. Burke
- Louis Nye as Reinhold Shiffner, detective
- Robert Q. Lewis as Earl, neighbor
- Edward G. Robinson as Simon Nurdlinger
- Anne Seymour as Irene Krump
- Charles Lane as Jack Bailey
- Joyce Jameson as Elsie, the hotel hooker
- Barbara Bouchet as Receptionist
- Kym Karath as Denise Bissell
- Richard Hale as Mr Bernier
- Linda Watkins as Edna
- Bernie Kopell as Richard Taragon, Photographer
- Bess Flowers as Mrs. Burke (uncredited)
- David Swift as Hertz Commercial Director (uncredited)
[edit] Trivia
- This was the last film by contract that Jack Lemmon did for Columbia Pictures (he was to be loaned back to Columbia a few years later for one final film). He had been a Columbia player throughout the 1950s. The studio was the first to sign Lemmon to a contract when he was starting out as an actor in 1953.
- The name of the advertising firm for which Sam Bissell (Lemmon) works, Burke & Hare, is clearly a reference to William Burke and William Hare, two Irish laborers living in 18th century Edinburgh, Scotland who became notorious as history's most famous "body snatchers." Until they were discovered by the British authorities, they killed at least 15 travelers and then sold their corpses to medical schools for dissection.
- Although the movie takes place in the Bay Area, much of Good Neighbor Sam was filmed in Los Angeles. The interiors of Sam and Janet's homes and the backyards were actually sets inside sound stages at Columbia Studios. Background street scenes using back-projection were also done at the studio. Some notable Los Angeles landmarks that can be seen in the film include the Bradbury Building with its ornate cast iron railings and cage elevators, the Pacific Mutual Building on West 6th Street where Edward G. Robinson's character Simon gets out of the limo to enter the building, and Pershing Square in a scene showing the altered billboard of Sam and Janet on the roof top of the Philharmonic Building.
- An ongoing gag was to poke fun at Hertz Rent a Car advertisements of the 1960s. Characters in the film had to walk through a recording studio in the advertising firm where Sam Bissell worked, seemingly at the precise moment that a Hertz commercial was being recorded.
- Another ongoing theme was periodic introduction of Bissell's Rube Goldberg contraptions, both as metaphors for escapism and creativism stifled by corporate culture, and as reminders of the complicated machinery in life that achieves little, if nothing.
- The phrase "in the middle of the night" is used 8 times, starting 57 minutes into the movie.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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