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| Silvestri |
The Odd Couple II: (Alan Silvestri) The 1968 movie
The Odd Couple solidified the on-screen chemistry of real-life
buddies Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and spawned a 1970 television
series. With the Lemmon and Matthau tandem experiencing a renaissance in
the 1990's thanks to the success of the
Grumpy Old Men franchise,
a long-dormant script by longtime screenwriter Neil Simon for a sequel
to
The Odd Couple was dusted off. His final venture for cinema
resulted in 1998's
The Odd Couple II, yielding one of the
greatest gaps between franchise films in the history of movies. After
battling each other as roommates in the original story, Oscar Madison
and Felix Ungar learn that their descendants are about to get married, a
plot twist owing everything to
Grumpy Old Men but convenient for
forcing the two cantankerous men back together once more. They travel to
Southern California from their respective homes for the wedding and meet
up at the airport, but from there everything goes wrong. They forget
where they are going, lose their luggage and wedding gifts, have to pee
all the time, and get involved with odd characters that cause them to
become arrested repeatedly along their unlikely journey. The movie
doesn't shy away from showing the two men getting incarcerated for every
dumb reason possible, including sweeps of Latino immigrants, but being
immediately exonerated and released. Needless to say, the cops are
eventually tired of encountering them, and so were audiences, sadly.
Although everything ends up just fine in the story's close (who could
have guessed that the two men would wind up living together again?),
The Odd Couple II represented the end of the line for the pair
after its total failure at the box office. The catchy, Grammy nominated
theme by Neal Hefti for the 1968 movie was so popular that it carried
over into the 1970 television series, and it was always destined to
return for the 1998 sequel as well. Tasked with making that generational
transition a reality was veteran composer Alan Silvestri, who was in the
midst of a period in his career when he really excelled at exactly these
kinds of light romantic comedies, including the two
Grumpy Old
Men movies.
Silvestri is in top genre form for
The Odd Couple
II, using his typical full orchestra but without the prominent piano
usage normal to such entries. Added to that ensemble for the rural
California setting and Mexicans are castanets, shakers, harmonica, and
trumpets. There's slight militaristic humor from snare and trumpet in
"Roadside Battle" for the geezer confrontation, and a double snare hit
in "Bus Seige," the work's only challenging cue with dissonance, is a
funny connection to Silvestri action. Outside of its comedic pitstops,
this music is a blend of tidy orchestral drama and the retro-informed
jazz for the Hefti material. The franchise Hefti theme occupies all of
"Main Theme" in its original form, including its almost hypnotic
synthetic keyboarding motif underneath as an intro. It's then modernized
for cool saxophone, brass, and electric bass in "The Odd Couple," still
with that synth keyboard motif. A funny shift to Mexican tones for
trumpet and castanets for the theme is a highlight during "In the
Slammer" before the idea then moves back to its modern rendition from
"The Odd Couple." It suddenly interrupts the score's comedy theme at
0:52 into "Deja Vu" with a prolonged presentation of the keyboard motif,
and another modern version resumes. The Hefti theme follows a rogue
harmonica solo at the conclusion of "End Credits" in its original form.
It's tough to say if digital-era audiences could find any connection to
this idea, and it does stand out like a sore thumb against Silvestri's
own two themes. His main identity for this sequel uses a swinging waltz
construct overflowing with innocent comedic appeal and decent drama.
It's cheery on strings and woodwinds at 0:07 into "Parking Lot" and
transitions to more wholesome strings with brass support at 0:35. The
idea extends out of the comedy theme's instrumentation at 0:16 into
"Bruce's News" and explores its secondary lines extensively. It defeats
the straight comedy mode at the end of "Just Forget It" with a touch of
muted brass and does the same in the middle of "I Have to Pee" for a
pair of really nice performances. By this point, it's clearly apparent
that Silvestri intended to apply this main theme as a resolution to all
comedy and conflict where possible. It also gains size as the score
progresses, flowing nicely at "In the Slammer" at a faster pace for
woodwind and string layers and segueing to full ensemble goodness at
0:15 into "Felix Makes His Move."
In the latter stages of the plot featuring fuller
family scenes in
The Odd Couple II, Silvestri uses his main theme
to guide a separate but undeveloped romance idea in "I Really Love Her"
and slows it to additional redemptive dramatic posturing at 0:15 into
"The Wedding," including more prominent brass backing. A lounge jazz
rendition in "Oscar & Felix" for piano, saxophone, acoustic bass, and
percussion takes it to source-like charm before it becomes traditionally
deliberate from oboe at the beginning of "Goodbye & Hello." The main
Silvestri theme is then slowed again for strings in the ambient "Deja
Vu" and saves its largest performances yet for the opening of "End
Credits," including crashing cymbals and very pronounced brass presence
from top to bottom for these moments. Never truly defeated is
Silvestri's ridiculous comedy theme, a somewhat quirky but insubstantial
idea over a plucky bass string rhythm for humor. Opening "Bruce's News"
on woodwinds and extending at 1:55 to bumbling silliness on trumpet,
this idea's pairs of notes are blurted by clarinet at the outset of
"Just Forget It" and turn ironic with the castanets in "I Have to Pee."
It joins the faux-military material in "Roadside Battle," exploding late
in the cue, and informs the stumbling, plucky humor of "Dead or Asleep"
on saxophone. After an extended absence, the comedy theme returns from
some castanet and shaker laughs in the middle of "Goodbye & Hello" and
resumes the same form in the middle of "Deja Vu," adding a triangle to
the mix. It finally follows the main theme in the suite presentation at
1:52 into "End Credits," with the Mexican instrumentation this time
joined by bongo drums and increasing intensity. While this comedy theme
isn't memorable at all, Silvestri's new main theme certainly does hit
the right buttons, and it's hard not to smirk at the inclusion of the
Hefti theme alongside it. Those vintage references are spotted well into
the film and interpolated decently by Silvestri even if they aren't
deconstructed in any way due to the idea's inherent distinction. (The
opening of "In the Slammer" is extremely funny, though.) It's hard to
imagine any way that Silvestri could have improved upon his strategy for
this film without losing the affably shallow but highly effective
dramatic feeling that he brought to his
Grumpy Old Men scores.
The out-of-print 30-minute album is a nostalgic breath of fresh air and,
aside from the one challenging passage in "Bus Seige," a pleasant
experience with just the right touch for the close of the Lemmon and
Matthau saga.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.34
(in 56 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 41,268 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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