Savor Slice of Jack Lemmon Today

Try a slice of Jack Lemmon this afternoon, July 10, in the Barrington library.

A free summer matinee movie series, A Slice of Lemmon, debuts with It Should Happen to You at 1 pm in the air-conditioned auditorium. Librarian and film enthusiast Doug Swiszcz will provide some pre-movie commentary on each film.

A Slice of Lemmon: A Summer Matinee Movie Series will air a handful of the comedies of Jack Lemmon over the next few weeks. It Should Happen To You is a 1954 film that also stars “the delightful Judy Holliday as Gladys Glover, an unemployed model who meets would-be documentary filmmaker Pete Sheppard (Lemmon) in Central Park and complains that she’s not famous,” said Swiszcz.

“What follows is a comic meditation on the exalted place that fame and celebrity play in our culture,” he said. “Will Gladys’ preoccupation with fame—not to mention her relationship with a suave businessman (Peter Lawford)—threaten a possible romance with Pete?”

Lemmon made his screen debut in this polished comedy directed by George Cukor from a script by Garson Kanin, said Swiszcz.  The unrated movie is in black and white, and runs for 86 minutes.

Here is the rest of the “Slice of Lemmon” lineup: 

July 17: Some Like It Hot (1959) –  Lemmon and Tony Curtis disguise themselves as women to elude mobsters in 1920s Chicago. Marilyn Monroe co-stars. (Black & white, 120 min., unrated) 

July 24: The Apartment (1960) – Lemmon is an insurance company employee who hopes to climb the corporate ladder by lending his apartment to philandering executives for their trysts. Shirley Maclaine and Fred MacMurray co-star. (Black & white, 125 min., unrated)

July 31: The Odd Couple (1968) – Lemmon and Walter Matthau are mismatched roommates Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison in this film version of Neil Simon’s classic Broadway play. (Color, 105 min., rated G).