The Out of Towners

Directed by Arthur Hiller, The Out of Towners follows Jack Lemmon’s George and Sandy Dennis’ Gwen as they travel to New York City for business and are immediately (and consistently) beset by a whole host of problems and indignities. It’s a fairly straight-forward premise that’s employed to somewhat repetitive yet mostly engaging effect by Hiller, as the filmmaker, armed with Neil Simon’s funny screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced comedy that benefits substantially from the efforts of its two stars – with both Lemmon and Dennis turning in superlative work that effectively smooths over the periodic bumps within the narrative. (The eclectic periphery cast, which includes Anne Meara and Paul Dooley, does an effective job of providing color around the margins, as well.) The episodic storyline paves the way for a fairly hit-and-miss midsection that is, for the most part, more hit than miss, and it helps, certainly, that Hiller has effectively packed the proceedings with a number of laugh-out-loud funny mishaps and sequences (eg after cracking his tooth on a candy, George spends the rest of the movie whistling when he speaks). By the time the note-perfect conclusion rolls around, The Out of Towners has cemented its place as a perpetually watchable endeavor that admittedly could’ve used more heart (ie imagine Planes, Trains & Automobiles stripped of the sentimentality and you have The Out of Towners).

*** out of ****