Save the Tiger (1973)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

John G. Avildsen

Writer:

Steve Shagan (writer)

Release Date:

21 July 1973 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Jack Lemmon in his most important dramatic role since "The Days of Wine and Roses."

Plot:

A businessman's professional struggles begin to conflict with his personal life over the course of two days.

Plot Keywords:

Businessman | Fashion Show | Beach | Suit | Tie

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 5 nominations

Cast

Jack Lemmon	...	Harry Stoner
Jack Gilford	...	Phil Greene
Laurie Heineman	...	Myra
Norman Burton	...	Fred Mirrell
Patricia Smith	...	Janet Stoner
Thayer David	...	Charlie Robbins
William Hansen	...	Meyer
Harvey Jason	...	Rico
Liv Lindeland	...	Ula (as Liv Von Linden)
Lara Parker	...	Margo
Eloise Hardt	...	Jackie
Janina	...	Dusty
Ned Glass	...	Sid Fivush
Pearl Shear	...	Cashier
Biff Elliot	...	Tiger Petitioner (as Biff Elliott)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 (re-rating) (2005) | UK:AA (original rating) | Canada:18A (Ontario) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Filmways Pictures

Trivia:

Sissy Spacek read for the part of Myra.

Goofs:

Continuity: Harry wipes Fred's face almost completely clean of the red body paint. In a subsequent shot, Fred's face is covered with red paint again.

Quotes:

Harry Stoner: How old are you?
Myra: Twenty.
Harry Stoner: Nobody's twenty.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Magic Time: A Tribute to Jack Lemmon (2002) (V)

Soundtrack:

Air Mail Special

The American Dream may be lost, but thankfully not Lemmon's dream performance

This is a well-crafted movie, directed in 1973 by John G Avildsen in a conventional, theatrical manner, harking back to social dramas of 10 or 20 years before, but reflecting the more uncertain '70s in its unresolved ending.

Jack Lemmon delivers a brilliant, Oscar-winning performance as Harry Stoner, a middle-aged man at the end of his tether, who confuses his personal midlife crisis, and the failure of his fashion business, with what he sees as the USA's moral decline in the post-war years. Obsessed with the lost cameraderie of his active service in the war, with the baseball and jazz giants of yesteryear, and with the slain and fallen idols of the 60s (Kennedy, King, Monroe etc), he sleepwalks into his own moral abyss of an arson plot, comforting himself that he is no worse than the times in which he lives.

Lemmon's character is countered by those of Phil Greene, his business partner, convincingly played by Jack Gilford, and Meyer (William Hansen), the firm's veteran, expert cutter and refugee from Nazism. Phil does not suffer Harry's sense of disillusion, because he is too down-to- earth to have experienced the illusion in the first place; Meyer, also, despite superficial discontent with the changing times, gains strength from his skill and family life.

For me, the main theme here is the familiar one of the lost American Dream, and the film brings to mind the final lines of the seminal exploration of that theme, the Great Gatsby - "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Harry's American Dream is not of a golden future, but of a golden past; it isn't lost, it simply never existed. But, that said, in this movie thematic analysis definitely takes second place to appreciation of Lemmon's bravura performance.