Jack Lemmon And Julie Andrews Didn't Have A Script For That's Life
Jack Lemmon was a marvelously resourceful actor, but far from a chameleon. When you cast Lemmon, you were committing to a range of nervy emotions that could be communicated via wildly variable intensities. He could be an aspirational working stiff eager for advancement in "The Apartment," an up-against-it garment magnate in "Save the Tiger" or a veteran real estate salesman desperate to reclaim his former closing glory in "Glengarry Glen Ross," but you didn't go to his movies to see him disappear in a role like you would Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando or Meryl Streep. You went to see Jack Lemmon. And while he made some stinkers, now that he's been gone for 21 years, you'd happily endure another "Out to Sea" just to see him be Jack Lemmon again.
Lemmon made it look so easy that it's not surprising to learn that he got his start as an actor by amusing his elementary school classmates. He had an off-the-cuff gift for entertaining people, but when you look back on his legendary career, you see that he worked with some of the best, most precise screenwriters in the history of the medium. Folks like Neil Simon and David Mamet left zero room for improvisation. They expected you to speak the lines as written. So while Lemmon's improvisational skill certainly aided him when it came to making unusual choices in a scene, he never got to fully flaunt his inventiveness – save for the time he made a comedy in Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews' house.
A high-wire act in the swanky confines of Malibu
After a hugely successful run of comedies throughout the 1970s and early '80s (including "10," "Victor/Victoria," and "The Pink Panther" series with Peter Sellers), Edwards found himself treading water with uninspired flicks like "The Man Who Loved Women," "Micki & Maude" and "A Fine Mess" (which unironically sold Ted Danson and Howie Mandel as the next great comedy duo à la Laurel and Hardy). Now in his sixties, the filmmaker felt the urge to explore the panic that sets in as one prepares for their stretch run to the grave. So he paired his longtime pal Lemmon with Andrews and asked them to riff a comedy dealing with this thorny theme. The result, "That's Life," is a mixed bag on the whole, but the stars are terrific.
In an interview with Ability Magazine's Chet Cooper (the last the star granted before his death in 2001), Lemmon discussed the challenges of making a film in this manner:
"There was no script, only an outline. We'd go into work and we would start improvising scenes in the morning, and then usually we'd start shooting just before or after lunch. By then we'd started to hone it down so the ad-libs became sort of permanent. Tough to pull off. You have to have a director that's very savvy about what will work and what won't work because there's so much overlapping."
Lemmon at his sweaty, fidgety best
Set in a tony Malibu neighborhood, the film's biggest obstacle is getting rank-and-file moviegoers to give a damn about rich white folks struggling to find meaning amid the extravagance of their lives. Andrews, who's awaiting the results of a biopsy, is by far the most relatable character, but Lemmon manages to earn our sympathies by fully committing to the fears and insecurities of a successful man who believes he's been a failure as a husband and a father. He gesticulates, he runs off at the mouth and, in one very effective scene, he weeps. It's classic Lemmon.
Edwards directed Lemmon to an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in 1962's harrowing "The Days of Wine and Roses," and it's a melancholy pleasure to see them, 24 years later, navigating the emotional trials of male menopause. There's a recklessness to Lemmon's performance here, possibly due to the uncertainty inflicted on him by his director. He'd mine this desperation to crushing effect six years later as Shelley "The Machine" Levene in James Foley's film of Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," but if you're a Lemmon fan, and who isn't, "That's Life" is worth a watch. It doesn't entirely work as a comedy, but the stars deliver and then some.