The Out-of-Towners (1970)

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Sandy Dennis, and Billy Dee Williams
Grade: D

I’m good with never watching this again.

Summary

George (Lemmon) and Gwen Kellerman (Dennis) are on their way to New York because George has a huge interview for the Vice President of Sales in the New York division of his company. The interview is at 9AM the next morning. After they say goodbye to their kids, they begin their trek out of Ohio. George is noticeably nervous but passes it off as excitement, constantly telling Gwen herself to not be nervous. In the middle of the drive, they discuss the possibility of their lives changing for the better if George gets the job in New York, so George asks Gwen if she’s as happy as he is. Well, as long as he’s happy, she is happy. Upon arriving at the airport, George constantly reassures Gwen of how they will be able to adapt to the New York lifestyle. As they check-in their bags, he tells her to not eat anything on the plane because he has a reservation for 8:30PM at the high-end Four Seasons Restaurant, a restaurant he argues may be the best in the entire country. Following this, they get on the plane without issue. During the flight, George turns down the meal for himself and on Gwen’s behalf because he again insists, he doesn’t want the airline’s meal to spoil their appetite for his precious reservation. Later, they’re about to arrive five minutes early at Kennedy Airport, and George is all excited. He even takes Gwen to seats in another aisle to show her the skyline. They are told to fasten their seatbelts, so they stay in theses seats.

George takes this opportunity to tell Gwen the itinerary he came up with for the night. This includes their arrival, their check-in at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, dinner at the Four Seasons, a midnight dance at the Empire Room, and some lovemaking at night. Gwen is excited, but questions if it’s at all possible George doesn’t get the job. However, he assures her he’s already been approved and the interview the next day is just a formality.

Just then, the Captain speaks and says they’ve run into a traffic issue, with fifteen aircraft ahead of them in a holding pattern. Because of this, they’re forced to circle around New York for a bit until they get approved to land. The Captain guesses it should be about twenty-to-thirty minutes. The initial frustrations have now begun for George. He immediately asks the flight attendant for details, but she tells him the same thing the pilot does. She offers coffee and Gwen seems to want some, but George declines for the both of them. After thirty-five minutes, they start to notice fog. The Captain interrupts again, saying this previously unreported fog will force them to sit a bit longer. George tries to call for the flight attendant once more, but another passenger tries to get him to chill out, admitting that the last time this happened, he was circling on a flight for two-and-a-half hours. George is starting to get distressed because he assumes they’re going to miss their reservations, but Gwen says it’s fine and they can eat in their room when they get in. She asks if it’s cool to get a cup of coffee, so he relents and walks towards the flight attendant. He asks for one, but she can’t because they aren’t allowed to have the burners on before landing. They also can’t serve any other drinks during this timeframe because of federal regulations, something George isn’t in the mood to hear. As they argue, the plane encounters some turbulence, so he’s told to go back to his seat.

It’s now 8:40PM, and they’re still circling. The Captain interrupts to say the weather doesn’t look to be easing up, and Kennedy Airport will be closing for the night. The same applies to Newark, La Guardia, and Philadelphia. Because of this, their flight will be landing in Boston, Massachusetts instead.

At the Logan Airport in Boston, George gives Gwen the stubs to get their luggage, and he goes to see if there’s another flight leaving to get to New York. He finds out there aren’t any other flights going into New York, but taking a train is a possibility. He needs to check with South Station to find out. He overhears one man saying the last train to New York is currently at South Station, and it leaves in twenty minutes. George tries to grab Gwen to rush out of there, but she tells him they can’t find the bags. Following an argument with the useless dude who handles all the bags, with George promising to sue him (a recurring joke throughout the film), they head to Lost and Found at the man’s suggestion. This is where they speak to Lost and Found agent Clifford Robinson (Williams). He takes responsibility for what’s happened and offers to have them stay at a hotel in Boston and to take a flight the next morning at 7AM, but since the unsureness of the weather tomorrow, George refuses this option. Shouting his frustrations, he clutches his body in pain, with Gwen explaining to Robinson that George’s ulcer medication is in his bags. Regardless, George tells Robinson they will be at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and if they don’t get their bags by the morning, he promises to sue him too.

George and Gwen rush into a taxi to head to South Station, though the taxicab driver is confident they can only make it there in 15 minutes, not the 10 minutes George wanted. They get there, and they’re lucky enough to find out that the 10:20 to New York was held up. They have time to make it if they hurry. Following a dispute over the driver not having enough change for George’s $20 bill and George giving the driver his address so he can mail his change back once he gets it, they rush onto the train. However, there’s no one on it except someone who’s cleaning one of the cars. It turns out, the train they wanted was the one next to this one. It drives off as soon as they see it through the window. Defeated, George blames himself. As Gwen goes to the bathroom, a worker tells him there’s another chance to catch the train in Longview at the next station. A frantic George runs out and tries to get a female worker to get Gwen from the bathroom. To his surprise, she didn’t find the bathroom until he got there, and the worker pulled out some random woman instead. Not having enough time for this mess, he grabs Gwen, gets in the same taxi, and they head to Longview. When they leave, George confirms his address for the taxi driver to get the rest of his change from his $20 bill and vice versa.

Why he doesn’t just let this one go is beyond me.

Anyway, they finally make the train. It’s packed too because this situation with the New York flights redirecting everyone to Boston happens a lot. They head to the dining car to get some food but have to wait two hours. Once they are finally seated, the two find out that the dining car is out of mostly everything. Gwen is forced to settle with peanut butter on white bread, and George has to eat crackers and olives because he can’t eat the former. On top of this, Gwen lost her left eyelash. After they get off the train, they can’t get a taxi because the whole transit system went on strike. Thankfully, the Waldorf Astoria is only eight blocks from the station. Sadly, as soon as they walk outside, they run into a rainstorm. They decide to walk through it. After going the wrong way initially, they pass by a gigantic pile of garbage and Gwen breaks a heel on her shoe stepping on a bottle. Finally, they get to the Waldorf Astoria but are told that their room was for the 17th, and it’s technically now the 18th because it’s 3AM. They didn’t hold the room because they never messaged them ahead of time to explain their absence. George flips out on the desk clerk, so the guy goes and talks with the assistant manager. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single other room available. George takes down both workers’ names and addresses and promises to sue them as well.

A few minutes later, the front desk gets a call from Logan Airport. Clifford Robinson talks to George over the phone to tell him that his bags are still in Ohio. Somehow, they didn’t make the flight. They were the last to be sent through before the power failure, so the conveyer belt must have stopped before the bags were put on the plane. Either way, they’re being expedited and will be at their hotel by 8AM. Since the bags aren’t there at that exact moment, George promises to sue Robinson. Looking for another hotel to stay at overnight, the shady Murray (Graham Jarvis) overhears them talking and offers to take them to a hotel his friend owns, saying it’s not too far. George pays Murray, and he gives him the address. George is unsure whether he should trust Murray’s information though, so Murray takes it upon himself to walk them there. Unfortunately, Murray robs them at gunpoint once they walk down the block, taking George’s cash.

With no money, clothes, or a hotel to stay in, George and Gwen continue their quest to survive the night ahead of George’s interview in a few hours. However, New York City does its best to do them in.

My Thoughts:

The Out-of-Towners tries to make the disastrous occurrences of the everyday world realistic and funny. Well, it failed miserably on the latter. Not only is it unfunny, but it gets flat-out annoying because of our frustrating-to-watch protagonist couple in George and Gwen Kellerman.

I hated our main characters. If you want to know the main thing reason as to why the 1999 remake was better, it was this. As good as Jack Lemmon is at rattling off lines in an impressively fast and emotional manner, along with his conviction in his frustrations with every situation happening, there’s only one constant thought you have throughout the film, which is “Oh my God! Can you shut the fuck up?!”. The character of George is a nonstop complainer, can’t leave a single moment to silence, and gets angry at even the smallest of inconveniences. It makes sense to get mad at the bigger stuff like not getting the hotel room or being mugged, but George gets mad at ANYTHING that doesn’t go perfectly smooth. You know what? Don’t even leave the house. For anyone that travels, we know things don’t go according to plan, so a lot of the shit he complains about just comes off as whiny, especially early on in the film. Honestly, it makes sense why the character has an ulcer. George can’t stop stressing about every possible thing imaginable. You almost want him to not find his medicine, just so he can go to the hospital and stop talking for a while.

Early on in this gigantic misadventure, George reveals he went to New York four years prior. Pray tell, how does he suck this fucking much then?

Really, this is just the tip of the iceberg with George’s personality. His constant need for assurance or cutting off his wife to answer for her makes him unlikable within the first five minutes of the movie. You wait for that moment where he starts to ease up and the couple win us over because of what happens to them, but it never comes. He’s a dickhead from start to finish, with only a minute of screentime towards the end of the movie where we get a glimpse of George being somewhat of a normal person you could possibly stand being in the same room with. However, 98% of the movie, you kind of hope he gets shot. When those two guys attacked him in the park for no reason, I laughed. At that point, fuck ’em. You would think Sandy Dennis’s Gwen would be some sort of relief to George’s overbearingness, but she’s such a door mat to George in the relationship that she just becomes another annoying obstacle that we as the audience have to face. The whole movie, you’re waiting for her to finally have this moment where she tells George off for being one of the most insufferable, annoying people on the planet, but we never get it, despite how badly it’s needed to fix his personality. At most, there’s this one little argument where she gets mad at George because she accuses him of not thinking about their kids in the middle of all the action they are facing, but her anger in this moment is so misdirected, it makes her look even stupider and more unappealing as a personality than she already is.

Is this really the fucking time to bring this up Gwen? Why the fuck would George be thinking of their kids at this specific of a time, considering all they’ve been through? His shouting at her in this moment is completely warranted. Before this, in the span of a few hours, they’ve traveled different states, have been mugged twice, and were taken hostage in a hijacked police car. When he says he didn’t have time to think about the kids, he means it! They’ve only been removed from them for less than a day’s time! What the fuck is she complaining about? Is she really that worried about the kids when they’re completely safe in Ohio and blaming George for not having his priorities as mixed up as hers? Are you kidding me? Things get even more infuriating with Gwen when in the midst of all the trouble they’ve been involved in, and how they are on a timed schedule because George has this life-changing interview in less than an hour, she decides to take care of some unknown kid on a park bench. On top of that, she has the audacity to accuse George of not caring about this RANDOM child! Is this really of importance right now? Does she not understand how they travelled all the way here for one specific reason and they’re running out of time? Now, she wants to make him feel guilty when he needs her the most? God, she was ridiculous. He should have left her in the park. For a moment, I actually wanted to transport into the movie and into the character of George, just so I could yell at Gwen for being so fucking ridiculous at the worst time possible.

I haven’t seen a co-star be this frustratingly useless in quite some time.

Her whole demeanor is off putting. Right from the beginning, the two talk in the car on the way to the airport and George asks her if this potential move to New York is something she wants too. She responds like a puppy would if it could talk saying, “I want anything you want George!”. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she asked for a treat after she said this. It was very weird. She continues to offer nothing but stupid suggestions and only undermines George when he’s dealing with people who are screwing them in so many different situations, usually taking the opponent’s side. It’s not like I’m pleading for her to stick up for George because he sucks too, but her responses are so egregiously stupid or unnecessary at times, you wonder what her IQ truly is when watching the action unfold. For instance, why in the fuck did she tell Murray exactly where George’s wallet was when he was objectively handling the situation well? Are you fucking kidding me? Everything about her was awful. Once we see her personality is nothing more than what we are shown in the first five minutes, everything she ends up saying is a statement that pisses me off. You ever meet someone, and you can’t stand them to the point where if they do anything at all, it bothers you? This is the case with Gwen. At one point, she wants to complain that she can’t run too much because she has “weak ankles”. I audibly groaned. Grow the fuck up!

On top of that, her voice becomes insufferable, and I couldn’t stop staring at her teeth. If you told me she was raised by British wolves, I would not argue with you.

There are only three key moments worth noting. This is because they were amusing enough to show me how good this film could have been had it leaned more into absurdism and chaos rather than mostly expected travel issues. This was where they rode into a protest after getting a ride from a Cuban delegate George getting accused of being a pedophile for trying to steal money from the pockets of the aforementioned little boy, and the ending, which admittedly was a good one. Everything else consisted of predictable annoyances that were so realistic, they weren’t funny, and they never go far enough. They were just downright expected, which is unfortunate in a comedy like this because we’re expecting more. They even start to run out of ideas, with the couple being mugged twice. We start to think, “Really? This is all you got?”. The second mugging needed a follow-up too. There’s a man wearing a cape in the park, and Gwen just gives him George’s watch without him asking (offscreen)? This is really all we got out of that? We need to know more about a guy wearing a cape. I’m sorry, but this was just a missed opportunity. Then again, most of the movie as a whole is a missed opportunity. Yes, cops are unhelpful and don’t do anything in a timely manner. Yes, flights get screwed up all the time and luggage gets lost, but were any of these instances really that amusing? This whole thing just seemed like a showcase for Jack Lemmon to show off how mad he can get as an actor and how fast he can talk without flubbing any lines.

Going along with this, Lemmon’s acting was still magnificent. This is inarguable.

Anyway, you can only threaten to sue someone so many times before it stops being funny. Everything that happens to the couple is somewhat possible, but there is nothing in this screenplay that capitalizes on it to make it more entertaining. Screenwriter Neil Simon is picking the right circumstances, but he never asks, “How can I make this scene even more entertaining?”. There’s nothing to play off of. George just flips out. Then, him and Gwen move to the next scene to deal with another situation where they are wronged, just so he can flip out again. This is pretty much it.

If they did do anything right, it was the pacing. It moved very fast and fit the constant chaos the couple faced throughout the narrative. It was as if we spent the entire disastrous night with them to the point where we too feel exhausted by the closing credits. Plus, I really liked the manhole cover exploding and knocking out George’s hearing temporarily. Visually, it was pretty memorable. You have to admit, you don’t see this too often.

The decision the characters land on didn’t sit right with me either. If anything, the trials and tribulations they faced and survived should prove to them that they are much stronger than they give each other credit for. Realistically, it should have pushed them into the direction of pure happiness and internal strength with George succeeding. Honestly, the issue seems to partially be on George. His back isn’t against the wall regarding a job. The interview he is going on is a promotion within the same company, so the decision to move is entirely up to him. The remake is a lot better in this case because Steve Martin’s Henry is out of a job. The stakes are higher because he has no choice, only heightening the time wasted throughout the couple’s terrible night leading up to it. This forces him to go the extra mile to nail this interview, and it makes his wife that much more important because she’s his support system, as opposed to Gwen in this original film who just exists to unemotionally reassure him and be a constant nuisance, handling stress even worse than her husband.

For example, late in the film, she wants to give up entirely when they’re only about an hour away from the interview in the context of the movie. You really want to give up now? Though the events encountered here seemed to be a little more serious comparatively to the remake, George Kellerman needed to be a bit more desperate about the ultimate goal rather than the path to get there. Lost are the meaningful conversations and rekindling of the marriage that the remake does well. The original from 1970 focuses strictly on the chaos this unlikable couple covers on the way to an interview that the husband doesn’t even have to take.

*sighs*

Just add it all to the laundry list of things the remake does better.

Arthur Hiller’s The Out-of-Towners only has a handful of entertaining moments. Other than that, it will annoy you to death. The remake is much better, even though that film isn’t great either.