Just perfect...

hyped garbage

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Every avid movie fan has a few films that are their "secret gems" - movies that not everyone knows about but ones you will recommend they see with great enthusiasm...."You really have to see this...you will love it. House Calls is just such a film and the reasons are two- fold...Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson.This is one of two films the pair made together....the other is a second of my 'secret gems," called Hopscotch and again, it clicks because of the chemistry between the two, coupled with wonderful supporting casts and great dialogue.The tragedy is that there weren't more movies involving these two. It is hard to imagine, on paper, a romantic comedy that matches Matthau and Jackson. Matthau has the looks of a basset hound, but incredible comedic flair. Jackson has played so many roles but romantic comedy doesn't come immediately to mind when her name is mentioned....until people see these films.Like so many here, I can watch either of these movies over and over and still love them both deeply. You really HAVE to see both. You won't be disappointed.

Late one night on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" Show, I watched Tom ask his guest Henry Morgan what he considered to be 'perfect.' Morgan responded, "Anything with Glenda Jackson." And although I wouldn't consider this film to be perfect, it does bear out that notion very well. I was about to use the cliché' about Hollywood not making pictures like this anymore, but then I just saw, "Up in the Air," another intelligent film about 2 people over the age of 35 who fall in love. That's where the similarities end, though. "House Calls" is just sheer fun watching 2 pros like Matthau and Jackson hit it off and seem completely natural while they're at it. I saw this film in the theater in 1978 (at the ripe old age of 18) and it took me another 20 years to get all of the jokes. Any film that can make punch lines out of 1920's tennis great Bill Tilden, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wouldn't play too well at the megaplex these days. One other thought: the original theatrical release featured a 'walk on the beach / fall in love' montage set to The Beatles/George Harrison tune, "Something." It seemed a bit forced at the time, but that song has since been swapped out for a rather generic Henry Mancini music cue for subsequent home video and cable release. Too bad, because that scene just lays there now, another victim of music licensing Hell.

Walter Matthau is best remembered for the long series of comedies he did with his equal comedy partner Jack Lemmon from THE FORTUNE COOKIE to THE ODD COUPLE II. But people tend to forget that in the late 1970s he appeared with another partner in two films - a female partner. This was Glenda Jackson, the English double Oscar winner, who demonstrated her comic abilities against Matthau's first in HOUSE CALLS and then in HOPSCOTCH. Matthau's role was slightly larger in both films, because his characters were more central to the plots, but the chemistry between them was quite good. If you ever want to see two pros demonstrating how sexual intercourse can be crazily funny watch Walter and Glenda as Dr. Charley Nicholson and Ann Atkinson experimenting to see if two people could have sex on a bed under the old movie code rule of the two parties each having one leg on the floor! Never has sex been looked at from such a clinical and mechanical point of view.Matthau's Charlie has just been widowed before the film began. He has only had one woman in his life - his wife. So now he's the eligible bachelor. He also is the leading surgeon in the hospital he works out of, but the chief surgeon is Dr. Amos Weatherby (Art Carney). Carney is apparently senile (there are moments later in the film that show he turns his senility on and off - see the scene where he rams Richard Benjamin's car). Amos is up for re-election (Charlie is his closest competitor for the post - if he wants it). However, Amos manages to convince Charlie to let him keep the job for reasons of self-esteem.One day Charlie notices Ann in the hospital. She has had a slight accident and is resting in bed, but Amos has put her into a cage like apparatus (which Charlie remarks has not been used since about 1920). He gets her out of the device, and soon is romancing her. She joins the staff of the hospital, but she is critical of Charlie's willingness to cater to Amos, and she is critical of certain selfish tendencies she sees among the doctors in the hospital.Amos' bungling causes the death of a wealthy patron of the hospital (Lloyd Gough), who owned a baseball team (his greatest innovation being separate admission costs for double headers). Amos tries to calm down the young widow of the team owner, delivering the eulogy at the burial service (the line in the summary above is the peroration line of the eulogy). However she is still determined to sue (her lawyer Thayer David says the hospital is the most incompetent he's ever seen). So Amos suggests that Charlie romance the widow to satisfy her from that expensive lawsuit. But how will Ann react to this? The film is quite amusing, and was so successful that besides causing a sequel for Jackson and Matthau, it led to a television series as well.

A tediously unfunny, thoroughly predictable (complete with the two leads arguing-and-making-up for a "happy ending" in crowded city streets) romantic comedy, which can't be saved even by Matthau's unforced likability. Uninspired script, almost no laughs delivered.