A suddenly-unemployed company executive suffers a nervous breakdown, and his supporting wife tries everything to console him and pick up the slack.A suddenly-unemployed company executive suffers a nervous breakdown, and his supporting wife tries everything to console him and pick up the slack.A suddenly-unemployed company executive suffers a nervous breakdown, and his supporting wife tries everything to console him and pick up the slack.
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 1 win & 2 nominations total
Storyline
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- TriviaAccording to the Jack Lemmon's biography "Lemmon" by Don Widener, actress Anne Bancroft recounted this episode from the film's shooting: "[Jack was] nice to a point where he's crazy...We had a scene in 'Prisoner [of Second Avenue'] where he had to carry a shovel in - a very close two-shot favoring me. I played the scene with tears in my eyes because Jack had accidentally hit me in the shin with that shovel. The director saw something was wrong so he stopped everything. I had a big bump on my leg, but it was Friday and over the weekend I fixed it up. When we came back on Monday the first scene was a retake of the shovel thing. Well, Jack brought the shovel in and I anticipated getting hit again. He's so full of energy, you're sure he's not noticing; but he never touched me. The take was fine, but Jack limped away. To avoid hurting me, he had cut himself. He was bleeding and we had to bandage his leg; his wound was much worse than mine. He is so kind he hurt himself rather than injure someone else. That's a little crazy! It's the nicest crazy I know, and I know a lot of crazy people."
- GoofsWhen Edna comes home from work with a souffle for dinner, she puts it in the oven but never turns the oven on. A few minutes later when she takes it out of the presumably hot oven, she does not use an oven mitt or pot holder to protect her hand.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Urban Living: Funny and Formidable (1975)
Featured review
New Yorker Jack Lemmon fights with his wife, while Rocky Balboa runs for his life
Mel Edison (Jack Lemmon) and his wife Edna Edison (Ann Bancroft) live lives of quiet desperation in an expensive yet shabbily constructed New York apartment with loud and obnoxious neighbors that they do not know nor do they want to know. Then Mel loses his job at age 48 after 22 years with the same firm. He says he was fired, but the modern term is laid off because it was not that he did something wrong, his employer, for whatever reason, just didn't need him anymore. So Mel's quiet desperation becomes louder as weeks turn to months and he can't find employment. Meanwhile, his wife has gone back to work and he feels less and less part of her life as she now comes home with the workplace stories instead of him. Will Mel ever find employment again? Will he ultimately crack up? Watch and find out.
This film just seems to try too hard with the voice over joke news flashes about what was modern urban life in the 1970s and the quirky extended family members. But the parade had passed it by with it seeming to retread ground first broken by All In the Family five years before. What saves it are the performances of the cast, and not just the main cast. Quite a few future famous actors have bit parts in this and it's a delight when they pop up. M.. Emmett Walsh is the apartment doorman. 1984 Best Actor Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham is a cab driver. And probably the funniest cameo appearance is unknown Sylvester Stallone as a young man who is chased through the streets of New York by an angry Mel, who thinks Stallone has stolen his wallet and he is determined to get it back.
When Mel is going to work and noticing that more and more of his coworkers are disappearing to the point where he is the last guy in the office, you might wonder why he didn't see the writing on the wall and go look for another job. After all it's easier to find another job when you still have one. The reason for this inaction is that this was made at a time when the concept of being "laid off" was a new one. From the end of WWII up until about 1970 you either got fired for being incompetent at your job or being dishonest or you had employment until you retired. That's an odd concept today when workers are perpetual - and pensionless - moving targets.
This film just seems to try too hard with the voice over joke news flashes about what was modern urban life in the 1970s and the quirky extended family members. But the parade had passed it by with it seeming to retread ground first broken by All In the Family five years before. What saves it are the performances of the cast, and not just the main cast. Quite a few future famous actors have bit parts in this and it's a delight when they pop up. M.. Emmett Walsh is the apartment doorman. 1984 Best Actor Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham is a cab driver. And probably the funniest cameo appearance is unknown Sylvester Stallone as a young man who is chased through the streets of New York by an angry Mel, who thinks Stallone has stolen his wallet and he is determined to get it back.
When Mel is going to work and noticing that more and more of his coworkers are disappearing to the point where he is the last guy in the office, you might wonder why he didn't see the writing on the wall and go look for another job. After all it's easier to find another job when you still have one. The reason for this inaction is that this was made at a time when the concept of being "laid off" was a new one. From the end of WWII up until about 1970 you either got fired for being incompetent at your job or being dishonest or you had employment until you retired. That's an odd concept today when workers are perpetual - and pensionless - moving targets.
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By what name was The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) officially released in India in English?
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