The Sunshine Boys

Fortieth anniversary screening of THE SUNSHINE BOYS (1975), Tuesday, August 4 at 7 PM at the Royal.

Walter Matthau, George Burns, and Richard Benjamin star in the film version of Neil Simon's hit Broadway comedy about a pair of feuding vaudeville stars who are pressured to reunite for a TV special. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, and Burns won the Oscar for his first significant film role since Honolulu in 1939. The success of his comeback launched a booming new movie career for the 80-year-old actor. Herbert Ross directed the film, which also features Ron Rifkin, Lee Meredith, Carol Arthur, Fritz Feld, and F. Murray Abraham. Critic Leonard Maltin wrote, "Matthau and Oscar-winning Burns are masters at work."

Our special guest will be actor and director Richard Benjamin, who burst into prominence in 1969 when he starred in the successful adaptation of Philip Roth's novel, Goodbye, Columbus. Benjamin went on to play the leading role in the film version of Roth's most controversial novel, Portnoy's Complaint. Among the actor's other movies were Catch-22, Diary of a Mad Housewife, The Last of Sheila, Westworld, House Calls, and Love at First Bite. In 1982 Benjamin made a striking directorial debut with My Favorite Year, starring Peter O'Toole. Although he continued acting (most recently in the Showtime series Ray Donovan), Benjamin shifted gears to concentrate on directing such films as Racing with the Moon with Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage, The Money Pit with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, Little Nikita with Sidney Poitier and River Phoenix, and Mermaids with Cher and Winona Ryder.