Jack Lemmon pretty much cornered the market when it came to playing twitchy, slightly neurotic, harassed office worker types struggling to maintain a grip on their sanity under the relentless onslaught of late 20th century city living.
Watching Lemmon's characters do battle with the impersonal, unmovable forces that defined and constrained his attempts to get ahead is always a pleasure, whether it's a comedy or a drama.
1975's THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE is a minor entry in this oeuvre but a nonetheless enjoyable one, at least for the first 45 - 50 minutes.
Lemmon's Mel Edison is the titular prisoner, confined by choice to his less-than-desirable 14th floor apartment at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 88th Street in Manhattan, after he gets canned from the job he's held for 22 years.
Beset by overwhelming feelings of inadequacy and failure, noisily partying air hostesses in the next door apartment, a sweltering heatwave, and intermittent utilities, Mel understandably feels the walls closing in on him. His long suffering wife Edna's (Anne Bancroft) efforts to reach out to him only cause him to withdraw further.
Mel's headlong plunge into a minor mental breakdown is classic Lemmon aided in no small part by a sharp, funny script by Neil Simon based on his own play. But the smart lines and nuanced performances slowly give way to shouting and stock situations. Mel's disfunctional siblings and Edna's increasingly shrill shrieking are New York Jewish straight out of Central Casting. Don't get me wrong, I love New York Jewish humour when it's done right, but here it becomes blunt and obvious.
As a result the second half of the film lost my attention and it took an awful long time to get to the story's pretty lame conclusion.
I give it a B+ for intention but a C- for execution.
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