Sandy Dennis, made her first television performance in 1956 in The Guiding Light and her first film performance in Splendor in the Grass (1961). She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). She followed this with her performances in Up the Down Staircase (1967), The Fox (1967), Sweet November (1968) and The Out-of-Towners (1970). Dennis signature style included running words together, stopping and starting sentences, suddenly going up and down octaves as she spoke. William Goldman, in his book The Season, referred to her as a "critics' darling" who received rave reviews no matter how unusual her acting. Her last couple film performances was in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean(1982). And she played a leading role in the film The Indian Runner(1991).
The Out-of-Towners(1970). Comedy. Written by: Neil Simon. Director: Arthur Hiller, Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis. Simon's screenplay won him the Writers Guild of America award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen.The movie was remade with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn in 1999.
George Kellerman, is invited by his company to visit their New York City offices and discuss his promotion. George and his wife, Gwen, fly to New York planning to have a fabulous dinner and spending the night in a luxury hotel.
To begin their nightmare of adventures, their plane is rerouted to Boston when air traffic and fog make landing in New York impossible. When they arrive in Boston the Kellermans find that their luggage has been lost and must take a over crowded train to New York. Tired and hungry, George and Gwen reach New York during to what George calls a "monsoon" and find that the city is in the middle of strikes by garbage collectors and transit workers.
They walk the 10 blocks to the Waldorf-Astoria, only to find that the hotel has canceled their reservation. A stranger offers them other hotel accommodations, but soon turns out to be a mugger and takes all their money. Without a place to stay for the night, they go to the police and are told they will be put up at the armory, but the police car which takes them to the armory is hijacked by robbers, who leave the Kellermans in Central Park. They spend the night there and George's watch is stolen.
The next morning two young men mistake George for a mugger and beat him up. The trouble does not stop there, George is later chased by a mounted policeman, who he thinks is a child molester. George and Gwen are helped by a passing Cuban diplomat and all are assaulted by demonstrators. "OH MY GOD!!" Will George ever make his interview or get back home to Dayton, in one piece?
My husband and I both love this movie. I think we can recite this movie line for line. I also thought Dennis's performance of the supportive wife was hilarious, as she does everything she can just to keep her husband happy.
