If a film could have been made without a director, The Odd Couple (Pearl, 12.40pm) might have been it.
So irresistible is the chemistry between double-act Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon and so apt the wit of Neil Simon's script with its potent one-liners that Gene Saks needed to tinkle little with the play to turn it into a screen classic.
And tinkle he didn't. The film walks straight off the stage to become perfect cinema sitcom.
You all know the plot: Matthau and Lemmon have botched their marriages and move in together for companionship, only to discover the very reasons their spouses left them.
By day, the neurotic Lemmon fusses around the house with his vacuum cleaner like an old woman; by night, he clears his sinuses by barking like a seal.
The lugubrious Matthau, who shocks Lemmon with his suggestions of fun and female companionship, lives like a student in a poker-playing atmosphere of ashtrays and empties.