Word: matthau
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...Halpern clan is a family of cartoon monsters. Vulgar, egomaniacal Mama (Ruth Gordon) is a compulsive shopper with delusions of solvency. Masochistic Papa (Walter Matthau) is a corner-cutting shoe manufacturer who is going bankrupt in a paroxysm of anguish and gallows humor. Son Bernie (Anthony Holland) is a leaky, self-expressing drip, the kind that leaves a brown stain in a washbowl. At play's end, simple-witted Bernie is out in the once pristine West shilling with a tom-tom for some once noble Indians who are now corrupt enough to con the tourists with their fabricated...
Father Halpern (Walter Matthau) is a shoe manufacturer who bungles the business devices that everyone else succeeds with (like exploiting tax loopholes and war scares). He is not the Little Man, but a small-scale tax self-consciously. His wife (Ruth Gorevader; not poor, just going bankrupt don) is a silly woman whose mother-love is gauged in terms of what she can buy her son, whose purpose in life is to get bargains, and whose problems are valued at the going Psychiatric rates. "Me," their son Berney, still wants to "find himself" at twenty-six. He hopes...
...audiences have shown little inclination to take criticism in the past, and without newspaper critics to tell them to take it (and like it), they might, pardon the expression, rebel. Matters are not helped by Miss Gordon, who exaggerates Rona Halpern beyond the demands of farce, and of Walter Matthau who does nothing but impose a televised quality on the Halpern living room. As Berney, however, Anthony Holland ekes out all the sympathy possible and Lily Darvas is similarly good as the grandmother whom the Halperns briefly tolerate, then ship off to an old-age home...
...most of the others. Written by Jack Rose and directed by Daniel Mann, Action is not the merriest oatsmobile that ever came down the track, but Dean and Lana make a surprisingly smooth entry; Paul Ford is hilarious as a birdbrained, spaniel-eyed, llama-lipped pony player; and Walter Matthau has his moments as the big hairball who runs the syndicate-among them the deathless moment when, with a casual flick of his manicured fingers, he announces superbly: "Give dis genulman eighteen tousan' dolluhs fum petty cash." The whole cast obviously enjoyed making the picture, and most spectators will...
...sheriff (Walter Matthau) who heads the manhunt is not stupid, but a humane and humorous man who admires his adversary's gallantry at the same time that he pities his folly. Matthau is an actor of magnetic presence and great comic flair. In this film he looks like a young Robert Benchley and sounds almost as amusing. In a role that calls for him to be someone, rather than to act something, Kirk Douglas is totally and movingly convincing. Philip Lathrop's camera work has harsh dramatic clarity and Jerry Goldsmith's score just the right mixture...