No point in going there. What we got was perfect.

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much snazzier.
Season's greetings!

It would have been very different under Billy Wilder, perhaps not as crappy as this one. What a terrible disappointment this was for me. The Fortune Cookie is a masterpiece, but The Odd Couple was excruciating to watch that's how badly directed it was, although the play itself may be weak, I don't know. In any case, horribly directed movie here.

The problem I have with "The Odd Couple" is that Lemmon's realistic performance makes the character melancholy instead of funny.

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I would agree with you on that except in one case: "The Front Page." I thought that was the best Lemmon/Matthau movie of them all.

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What if Billy Wilder had directed this?
I understand he wanted to direct it real bad but they got Gene Saks instead. - nelson95
I don't know about the "getting" of Gene Saks, but Saks did direct the Broadway play. Not having seen that production, which starred Walter Matthau and Art Carney as Felix, nor not knowing about how it was staged, I don't know whether Saks made any significant changes for the film version.
"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca

I respectfully disagree. The Fortune Cookie and The Seven Year Itch are both hysterically funny, in my humble opinion. I think Matthau even won an Academy Award for The Fortune Cookie, and Tom Ewell is comedy gold in the Seven Year Itch. But to each his own, that's what these message boards are for, to discuss and sometimes disagree over movies.
As for The Odd Couple, Gene Saks did a fine job with the movie. I watched it again recently and especially the early scene at the poker table, where the guys are convinced Felix is suicidal, is brilliantly acted and directed. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Billy Wilder would have made a great version of the movie too.

It wasn't a remake of 'His Girl Friday', it was a different version of the play 'The Front Page' from which 'His Girl Friday' was also adapted; actually, Wilder's version was closer to the original play (the character Lemmon played in Wilder's version was a man in the original play, but switched to a woman in the Hawks version).
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You're rightit was a remake of "His Girl Friday" but all the write-ups I've seen on "The Front Page" have been really goodcan't recall a single bad one. I also have that movie in video and I still enjoy watching it from time to time.

Isnt The Front Page a remake of that Howard Hawks movie, His Girl Friday? Anyway, Ive actually seen it, but so long ago - and only in parts - that I forgot. Maybe Ill watch it again sometime (didnt it get a rather lousy critical reception, though?.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

I don't know that I agree with that. He directed "The Front Page" which also starred Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and that was really good! In fact, of all the Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau movies I thought that was the bestit's certainly my personal favorite!

It would have been awful & idiotically unfunny just as all other Wilder "comedies" The Fortune Cookie, One Two Three and Seven Year Itch. Only Some Like It Hot is largely tolerable due to its more adventurous nature. The guy made great dramas and even OK semi-comedies like The Apartment, but had no talent for comedy whatsoever.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Yeah, a good murder in the middle of everything would have given it that special Wilder insouciance, like Double Indemnity, Stalag 17, He did ok better than ok with a Sherlock Holmes movie in 1970 to extend a great legacy.

its a shame as i'm sure he could of used his experience of writing the double indemnity screenplay with Raymond Chandler to great effect (they both drove each other mad)

The OP has one thing incorrect. Wilder was never dying to make this movie. The studio was dying to get Wilder to do the film. Wilder turned them down because he refused to direct anything that he and I.A.L. Diamond had not written themselves. He felt they would have changed so much of Simon's original script that everything that made the play so good would have disappeared. Plus, with Simon then a very hot prospect and Wilder getting up in age, Wilder did not want to rock the boat and have a rocky relationship with Simon. It was important to Wilder to keep working as long as he could but he had not had a hit in almost 8 years (since The Apartment) and he was concerned he had lost his footing in Hollywood.

Interesting point! Gene Saks did a very good job and
The Odd Couple
is more or less a perfect film (Lemmon and Matthau's best, in my opinion) but I think with Billy Wilder, it would have been a truly excellent choice for director. I'm sure he may have added his own ideas here and there (including the screenplay) that may have changed it but I'm thinking maybe he would have been a slightly better choice. The writers would probably have been Wilder, Izzy Diamond and of course Neil Simon. What a script that would have been!
But as I say, Gene Saks directed this very well and the script was brilliant anyway.
'We are all out of cornflakes, FU' It took me 3 hours to realise that FU was Felix Unger!
Marilyn Monroe: I don't want to be rich. I just want to be wonderful.

I love this film the way it is, however Billy Wilder is my favourite film maker. So who knows.
Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt!

Wilder and his writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond, would have also written the screenplay, so various scenes would have changed.
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."

It would be EVEN BETTER.
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