Save the Tiger

Save the Tiger
Theatrical release poster
Directed by John G. Avildsen
Produced by Steve Shagan
Written by Steve Shagan
Starring Jack Lemmon
Jack Gilford
Laurie Heineman
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Cinematography James Crabe
Edited by David Bretherton
Production
company
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • February 14, 1973 (1973-02-14)
Running time
 100 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1 million[1]
Box office $3,000,000 (US and Canada rentals)[2]

Save the Tiger is a 1973 drama film about moral conflict in contemporary America directed by John G. Avildsen, and starring Jack Lemmon, Jack Gilford, Laurie Heineman, Thayer David, Lara Parker, and Liv Lindeland. The screenplay was adapted by Steve Shagan from his novel of the same title.

Lemmon won the 1973 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Harry Stoner (making him the first of six actors to win Oscars for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor), an executive in the garment industry who struggles with the complexity of modern life versus the simplicity of his youth.

Plot

Harry Stoner (Jack Lemmon) is an executive at a Los Angeles apparel company close to ruin. With no legal way to keep the company from going under, Stoner considers torching his warehouse for the insurance settlement.

The arson is agreed to very reluctantly by his partner (Jack Gilford), a stable family man who watches Harry's decline with alarm. Through it all, Harry drinks, laments the state of the world, and tries his best to keep the business rolling as usual. This last task is complicated when a client has a heart attack in the arms of a prostitute provided by Stoner.

With nerves still shaky, Stoner takes the stage at the premiere of his company's new line, only to be overcome by war memories. He ends the day spontaneously deciding to go home with a young, free-spirited girl hitchhiker, whose ignorance of his generation underscores his isolation from the world around him.

Cast

Production and reception

The movie was written by Steve Shagan and directed by John G. Avildsen. Lemmon was determined to make the movie, despite its limited commercial prospects, and so he waived his usual salary and worked for scale. The movie was filmed in sequence after three weeks of rehearsal in Los Angeles. There is also a novel version of Save the Tiger, by Shagan: the title comes from a campaign to save tigers from extinction to which Stoner contributes.

Reception

The movie failed financially at the box office, but critics and viewers who saw it liked the performance of Lemmon as Stoner.

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 12 reviews, and an average rating of 7.2/10.[3]

Award wins and nominations

Wins
Nominations

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Save the Tiger: Trivia". IMDb. Amazon. Retrieved June 8, 2013.
  2. ↑ "Tracking the Players". Variety. January 18, 1993. p. 36.
  3. ↑ "Save the Tiger (1973)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved March 22, 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Save the Tiger: Awards Wins and Nominations". IMDb. Amazon. Retrieved April 17, 2012.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.