Neil Simon’s play The Prisoner of Second Avenue has Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft as a harried urban couple. The film is more of a drama with comedy, for the personal problems as well as the environmental challenges aren’t really funny, and even some of the humor is forced and strident.
Lemmon has done prior Simon plots on the screen, and he has the same basic character down cold. Bancroft demonstrates a fine versatility in facing the script demands. Atop the couple’s problems in their apartment comes Lemmon’s axing after many years on the job.
Gene Saks, Elizabeth Wilson and Florence Stanley do well as Lemmon’s brother and sisters, while Ed Peck, the hostile upstairs neighbor, and Ivor Francis, Lemmon’s taciturn shrink, head a good supporting cast.
