THE SUNSHINE BOYS: one last chance to get right back up there!

There's something about New York Jewish humour that gets me every time. I love the phrasing, the intonation and the delivery. And let's not forget the subject matter. From the fretting over the small stuff to the existential angst there's always something to obsess over or complain about.
Woody Allen and Jackie Mason are past masters of the art, and so are vaudeville veterans Willy Clark and Al Lewis.

You've never heard of Lewis and Clark? For forty three years they were The Sunshine Boys, treading the boards at theatres across the United States and becoming an important part of vaudeville history in the process.
They live on in the mid 70s as relics of an extinct art form; Lewis in comfortable retirement in the spare room at his daughter's house in suburban New Jersey, while Clark labors on, schlepping across Manhattan from one futile tv commercial audition to the next and refusing to accept that his time as an entertainer is up.
Then Clark's agent and nephew Ben (Richard Benjamin) lands them one last payday, recreating their famous 'Doctor sketch' for a big budget tv salute to America's entertainment heritage. The only problem is Lewis and Clark haven't spoken to each other in eleven years. Clark has never forgiven his partner for retiring when he wanted to continue with the act.
In the hands of Walter Matthau and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar winning George Burns and with an electrifying screenplay by Neil Simon THE SUNSHINE BOYS is comedy gold. 
Matthau as the cantankerous, resentful Clark is all sound and fury while Burns' Al Lewis is an oasis of absent-minded calm. But he's no pushover which only raises Clark's blood pressure further driving him into rages not befitting a senior citizen.
Despite the bad temper and the festering, decades-long resentment THE SUNSHINE BOYS really is a feel good movie. There is so much to enjoy in the performances of all three main characters and Simon's sparkling script that you're guaranteed to be left with a big smile on your face and a sense of having been thoroughly entertained.