Neil Simon Filmography

The Goodbye Girl

Crew: Executive Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Jeff Daniels, Patricia Heaton, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Lynda Boyd, Alan Cumming

Synopsis: The TNT cable network aired this made-for-TV version of Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl in January 2004. Jeff Daniels stars as Elliot Garfield, an actor who subleases an apartment in New York City. Unfortunately, the apartment is already occupied by dancer Paula McFadden (Patricia Heaton) and her Read More

Laughter On The 23rd Floor

Crew: Executive Producer, Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Nathan Lane, Mark Linn-Baker, Victor Garber, Saul Rubinek, Peri Gilpin

Synopsis: Playwright Neil Simon got his first big break in the early '50s as a staff writer on Sid Caesar's fabled television series Your Show of Shows, and this comedy (adapted by Simon from his play) takes a fictionalized look at the backstage chaos that went into producing one of the landmarks of Read More

Frasier: Frasier's Edge

Synopsis: Just before he is to receive a lifetime achievement award, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) receives a congratulatory gift from his mentor, Prof. Tewksbury (René Auberjonois) along with an unsettling written note. Disturbed by the sentiments in the notes, Frasier is plunged into an intense Read More

The Out-of-Towners

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gregory Jbara, Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, Mark McKinney, John Cleese, Oliver Hudson

Synopsis: When Frank Sinatra sang "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere, it's up to you, New York!" he probably didn't have the same odds in mind that line up against Henry and Nancy Clark in The Out-Of-Towners. Henry (Steve Martin) is an advertising man from Ohio who runs his life on an exacting Read More

The Odd Couple II

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Christine Baranski, Barnard Hughes, Jonathan Silverman

Synopsis: Howard Deutch directed this sequel to the The Odd Couple (1968), originally adapted from the 1965 Broadway comedy by Neil Simon. Thirty years later, Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon) and retired sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau) meet at LAX and drive a rental car across the desert to attend the Read More

Pitch

Synopsis: In this Canadian documentary, two young filmmakers attend the Toronto Film Festival and pitch a film concept to various celebrities. Their film idea, titled The Dawn, concerns a Mafia don who goes for a hernia operation but gets a sex change instead. During the 1996 Toronto fest, they approach Roger Ebert Read More

The Sunshine Boys

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Woody Allen, Peter Falk, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael McKean, Liev Schreiber

Synopsis: Neil Simon adapted this 1997 comedy from his 1972 play, first filmed in 1975 with Walter Matthau and George Burns as two feuding veteran vaudevillians reuniting to do a television special. For this new version, Simon updated the period and characters into a tale of two comedians (Woody Allen, Peter Falk Read More

London Suite

Crew: Play Author, Teleplay By

Actors: Kelsey Grammer, Richard Michaels, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jonathan Silverman, Madeline Kahn, Kristen Johnston, Richard Mulligan, Patricia Clarkson, Julie Hagerty

Synopsis: Crafted in the mold of his classic play-cum-films Plaza Suite and California Suite, the legendary Neil Simon authors London Suite, a made-for-television movie that took its first bows in September 1996. As in the prior films, Simon presents a series of couplets that unfold in and around a single Read More

The Hollywood Collection: Jack Lemmon - America's Everyman

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Chris Lemmon, Billy Wilder, Garson Kanin, Delbert Mann

Synopsis: Jack Lemmon has mastered both stage and screen in his career with such hits as "The Odd Couple," "The Days of Wine and Roses," "The China Syndrome," "Save the Tiger" (for which he received an Oscar) and "Grumpy Old Men." He and Walter Matthau starred in numerous films together that were nearly Read More

Jake's Women

Crew: Play Author, Teleplay By

Actors: Alan Alda, Anne Archer, Lolita Davidovich, Julie Kavner, Mira Sorvino

Synopsis: Assembled by the same team responsible for "The Hallmark Hall of Fame", this TV adaptation of Neil Simon's hit play Jake's Woman stars Alan Alda, recreating his Broadway role as Simon-esque writer Jake. Mired in an unhappy marriage with current spouse Maggie (Anne Archer), Jake tries to cope with Read More

Lost in Yonkers

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, Mercedes Ruehl, Irene Worth, Brad Stoll, Mike Damus, David Strathairn

Synopsis: An adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning, semi-autobiographical stage play by popular dramatist Neil Simon, this comedy-drama focuses on the difficulties faced by two young brothers forced to live with a group of eccentric relatives. Arty (Mike Damus) and Jay (Brad Stoll) are young teenagers Read More

Broadway Bound

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Corey Parker, Jonathan Silverman, Anne Bancroft, Michele Lee, Hume Cronyn

Synopsis: The 1986 stage hit Broadway Bound is the third entry in playwright Neil Simon's "autobiography trilogy". Unlike the cinemadaptations of Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound was filmed for television, where it debuted March 23, 1992. Brighton Beach Memoirs star Jonathan Silverman Read More

The Marrying Man

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Kim Basinger, Alec Baldwin, Robert Loggia, Elisabeth Shue, Armand Assante

Synopsis: Neil Simon forgoes his typical urban East Coast kvetchers and replaces them with sunny Californian kvetchers in The Marrying Man, a film which became a beacon of gossip in 1991 due to the alleged shenanigans of stars Alec Baldwin and {$Kim Basinger), who fell in love during production. Simon based Read More

Biloxi Blues

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Matt Mulhern, Corey Parker, Michael Dolan, Penelope Ann Miller

Synopsis: Biloxi Blues was the second of playwright Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical trilogy (number one was Brighton Beach Memoirs; number three, Broadway Bound). Matthew Broderick stars as Simon's alter ego Eugene Morris Jerome, who is drafted and shipped off to boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi in the Read More

AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Jack Lemmon

Synopsis: Hosted by the American Film Institute, this video is a tribute to to career of Jack Lemmon. Included are excerpts from: The Odd Couple, The Fortune Cookie and The Apartment. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Brighton Beach Memoirs

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Blythe Danner, Bob Dishy, Brian Drillinger, Stacey Glick, Judith Ivey, Jonathan Silverman

Synopsis: Brighton Beach Memoirs is the first of playwright Neil Simon's unofficial "autobiographical trilogy" (it was followed by Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound). Jonathan Silverman repeats his stage role as Simon's teenaged alter-ego Eugene, who lives in 1937 Brooklyn with his parents (Blythe Danner and Bob Dishy Read More

The Slugger's Wife

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Michael O'Keefe, Rebecca De Mornay, Martin Ritt, Randy Quaid, Cleavant Derricks

Synopsis: This routine film should have been called the "rock singer's husband" because it is about the life of a baseball player affected by his love for a singer. Darryl Palmer (Michael O'Keefe) plays for the Atlanta Braves, and when he walks into a nightclub and sees an attractive woman singing (Rebecca DeMornay Read More

The Lonely Guy

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Steve Martin, Charles Grodin, Judith Ivey, Steve Lawrence, Robyn Douglass

Synopsis: In a comedy as flat as the cardboard cut-outs of movie stars that appear in one scene, Steve Martin plays Larry Hubbard, a wild and lonely guy who has been dumped by his girlfriend. Since misery loves company, he takes up with Warren, a fellow Lonely Guy (Charles Grodin), and eventually both Read More

Max Dugan Returns

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Marsha Mason, Jason Robards, Jr., Donald Sutherland, Matthew Broderick, Dody Goodman

Synopsis: Max Dugan (Jason Robards Jr.) is an elderly ne'er-do-well whose tenuous mob connections have made him persona non grata with his daughter Marsha Mason. Struggling to raise her restless son Matthew Broderick on her own, Mason is none too pleased when Max returns to the family fold with yet another Read More

I Ought to Be in Pictures

Crew: Play Author, Producer, Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret, Dinah Manoff, Lance Guest, Lewis Smith

Synopsis: Neil Simon based his screenplay for I Ought to Be in Pictures on one of his more serious theatrical pieces. Walter Matthau is top-billed as Herbert Tucker, a struggling screenwriter who suddenly finds his 19-year-old daughter, Libby(Dinah Manoff), on his Hollywood doorstep. Having deserted his Read More

Only When I Laugh

Crew: Play Author, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Marsha Mason, Kristy McNichol, James Coco, Joan Hackett, David Dukes

Synopsis: Playwright Neil Simon made one of his periodic forays into serious themes with the drama The Gingerbread Lady, and while this screen adaptation adds a bit more wit to the proceedings, it remains a change of pace from his usual breezy comedies. Georgia (Marsha Mason) is a successful actress who has Read More

Seems Like Old Times

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Charles Grodin, Robert Guillaume, Harold Gould

Synopsis: For the first (and thus far the only) time in his career, Chevy Chase plays a genuinely sympathetic character in Neil Simon's Seems Like Old Times. This time around, Chase is a divorced novelist who is abducted by crooks and set up as the fall guy in a bank robbery. Arrested, Chase manages to Read More

Chapter Two

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: James Caan, Marsha Mason, Joseph Bologna, Valerie Harper, Judy Farrell

Synopsis: Neil Simon's bright, autobiographical romantic comedy, a big Broadway success, has been adapted to the screen in a screenplay by Simon, directed by Robert Moore, that subtly shifts the emphasis from the play. In the stage version, recently widowed writer George Schneider (James Caan) and his Read More

The Cheap Detective

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Peter Falk, Ann-Margret, Eileen Brennan, Sid Caesar, Stockard Channing, Dom DeLuise, Louise Fletcher, John Houseman, Madeline Kahn, Scatman Crothers

Synopsis: Spoofing the entire 1940s detective genre, and his own performances as a bumbling private detective, Peter Falk plays Lou Pekinpaugh, a San Francisco private detective accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress, the partner's wife, Georgia Merkle (Marsha Mason). Police Read More

California Suite

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Bill Cosby, Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Richard Pryor, Maggie Smith

Synopsis: Playwright Neil Simon turned to the hotel setting he used so successfully in his stage-play (later a movie) Plaza Suite to explore four more human dramas in his play California Suite, which was adapted into this quite successful movie. In the first episode, the divorced couple of Bill and Hannah Read More

The Goodbye Girl

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, Paul Benedict, Barbara Rhoades

Synopsis: Marsha Mason is known as "The Goodbye Girl" because of all the live-in boyfriends who have said ta-ta to her in the past few years. A former Broadway chorus dancer, the divorced Mason lives in the Manhattan apartment of her latest lost love with her daughter Quinn Cummings. Enter arrogant actor Richard Dreyfuss Read More

Murder by Death

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith

Synopsis: As penned by Neil Simon, this satire of movie mysteries is set in motion when several prominent detectives are invited to the mansion of the reclusive Lionel Twain (Truman Capote). In Ten Little Indians fashion, the gathered sleuths are locked into the forbidding mansion, and subject to various Read More

The Sunshine Boys

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Walter Matthau, George Burns, Richard Benjamin, Lee Meredith, Carol Arthur

Synopsis: In this 1975 adaptation of Neil Simon's stage play, director Herbert Ross presents the story of two old-time Vaudvillians played by Walter Matthau and George Burns in his first starring role since 1939's Honolulu. After decades apart, the cantankerous duo is persuaded to reunite for a television Read More

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, Gene Saks, Elizabeth Wilson, Florence Stanley

Synopsis: A lesser but still entertaining Neil Simon work, The Prisoner of Second Avenue was adapted to film in 1974. Jack Lemmon takes over the role played on Broadway by Peter Falk: Mel is a New York-based advertising man who goes through hell when he loses his job. The gods seem to conspire against him Read More

The Heartbreak Kid

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Tim Browne, Jean Scoppa, Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd, Jeannie Berlin, Eddie Albert, Audra Lindley

Synopsis: In Elaine May's second directorial outing, Charles Grodin stars as Lenny, a slick salesman who, while honeymooning with his new bride, Lila (Jeannie Berlin, May's daughter), begins to have second thoughts about his marriage. Once Lenny spots the gorgeous Kelly (Cybill Shepherd), he is lost Read More

Last of the Red Hot Lovers

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: John Batiste, Oliver Steindecker, Alan Arkin, Sally Kellerman, Paula Prentiss, Renée Taylor

Synopsis: Based on a play by Neil Simon, this comedy concerns Barney Cashman (Alan Arkin), the owner of successful seafood restaurant who is stuck in the depths of a mid-life crisis. Barney's marriage is no longer providing him with a sense of romantic adventure, and when he discovers his mother's apartment Read More

Star Spangled Girl

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Gordon Bosserman

Synopsis: Jerry Paris's Star Spangled Girl (1971), based on Neil Simon's play (a notorious Broadway flop), never made much of an impression in theaters, which is understandable with a cheap, overlit television look to most of it and Davy Jones singing the song "Girl" over the main titles (which got a lot Read More

Plaza Suite

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Walter Matthau, Maureen Stapleton, Barbara Harris, Lee Grant, Louise Sorel

Synopsis: It is not uncommon for actors to double and triple in roles while appearing in the "omnibus" plays of Neil Simon. Plaza Suite was the first film version of a Simon play to carry over the multiple-role device to the screen. Walter Matthau appears in all three one-act playlets comprising Plaza Read More

The Out-of-Towners

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Sandy Dennis, Milt Kamen, Sandy Baron, Anne Meara, Robert Nichols

Synopsis: Ohio businessman Jack Lemmon is offered a golden job opportunity; all he has to do is relocate himself and wife Sandy Dennis to New York City. What follows has led some critics to complain that playwright Neil Simon has written a "hate letter" to Manhattan. Within a 36 hour period, the couple (a) Read More

Sweet Charity

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Shirley MacLaine, John McMartin, Ricardo Montalban, Sammy Davis, Jr., Chita Rivera

Synopsis: Shirley MacLaine plays Charity Hope Valentine who, despite her job at a seedy dime-a-dance joint, is an incurable optimist. Charity never stops looking for true love and never seems to look for it in the right places. We first see her in the company of Charlie (Dante DiPaolo), a slimeball who Read More

The Odd Couple

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herb Edelman, David Sheiner

Synopsis: Compulsive neatnik Felix Unger (Jack Lemmon) is thrown out of his house by his divorce-bound wife. He wanders aimlessly through the streets of New York, toying with the idea of suicide, before gravitating to the apartment of his best friend, incorrigibly sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau Read More

Barefoot in the Park

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Charles Boyer, Mildred Natwick, Herb Edelman

Synopsis: Based on the hit Broadway play by Neil Simon, who made his screenwriting debut with this adaptation, Barefoot In The Park follows the lives of newlyweds Paul (Robert Redford) and Corie Bratter (Jane Fonda) as they adjust to married life in a tiny Greenwich Village apartment. Paul is a Read More

After the Fox

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Peter Sellers, Britt Ekland, Lydia Brazzi, Paolo Stoppa, Tino Buazzelli, Victor Mature

Synopsis: With Peter Sellers as star, Neil Simon as screenwriter, and Vittorio DeSica as director, how could After the Fox miss? Miss it did, however--though the film, patchy and inconsistent though it might be, definitely has its moments. Sellers plays an Italian master thief who can't seem to stay out of Read More

Come Blow Your Horn

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Lee J. Cobb, Molly Picon, Barbara Rush, Jill St. John

Synopsis: This filmization of Neil Simon's first Broadway hit was adapted for the screen by Norman Lear. Once we get past the illogical casting of middle-aged Frank Sinatra and twentysomething Tony Bill as brothers, we're home free. Sinatra, a swinger supreme, uses his New York apartment as a harem of sorts Read More