Lemmon Zest
The Newton-born actor gets a hometown festival this weekend – join me for a Saturday evening chat with his grown kids.
The West Newton Cinema, for which I'm an advisor and regular guest, will be hosting a tribute/film festival to Newton's own Jack Lemmon this weekend. The full schedule's at the theater's website, but Saturday night should be especially fun, as I'll be hosting a conversation with the actor's grown children Chris and Courtney Lemmon and granddaughter Sydney Lemmon. The 6:15 chat will be preceded by a 3:20 p.m. screening of 1960's "The Apartment" and a lobby reception featuring lemon cake and lemon martinis, and it will be followed by a screening of 1959's "Some Like It Hot," the film that broke Lemmon through as an above-the-title star. That's right, you get two ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Billy Wilder classics and a chance to hear tales of Jack from his own kids. Sunday at 1:00 p.m., the West Newton's screening of 1968's "The Odd Couple" will be introduced (via Zoom) by Chris Lemmon and Walter Matthau's son Charlie Matthau. Friday night starts the whole thing rolling with "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2), at which we will most assuredly not be serving lemon martinis.
If you know Newton, MA – a Boston suburb where high-achievement neurosis pairs with a big old bourgeois/blue-state chip on the shoulder – you'll appreciate how Jack Lemmon may be the perfect civic representation of the town to the greater popular culture. And in his best roles he knew it, finding the human flaws that undermine cheerful, insecure men. I wish the weekend had room for some of his late-life roles – I'm thinking of 1993's "Short Cuts," the 1997 TV remake of "12 Angry Men" and, of course, 1992's "Glengarry Glen Ross," in which C.C. Baxter from "The Apartment" has aged into Willy Loman from "Death of a Salesman" – but you can't really go wrong with three of the greatest comedies in movie history (O.K., "Odd Couple" is really just a filmed play, so sue me) and one of Lemmon's finest, most harrowing dramatic roles. Join us if you're in the area, and if you're not, feel free to watch the movies this weekend anyway.
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