'Out to Sea': Bouyant Charm

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau shed their grumpy guises in "Out to Sea," a mellow romantic comedy designed with the old-fashioned ideals of the Geritol Generation in mind. Movie-going seniors actually prefer their movies with plots, characters and a point, so Fox came up with this amiable alternative to the explosive inanity of "Speed 2: Cruise Control."

Lemmon and Matthau are Herb and Charlie, mismatched brothers-in-law who wind up as dance hosts aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Herb is the neat, sensible one and Charlie the rumpled loose cannon who’s always getting them into some kind of wacky trouble. And while their routine is as old as some of Matthau’s loud ties, it’s still just as funny.

The recently widowed Herb is about to sit down to his 45th wedding anniversary dinner with his late wife’s photo, when Charlie bursts in on this sad little scene and talks Herb into joining him for the most luxurious vacation of their lives. Once they’re aboard, Herb discovers that Charlie has signed them up as dance hosts in return for free passage.

Charlie wouldn’t know a buck and a wing from a wing and a prayer, but he figures Herb, a Baryshnikov of the ballroom, can partner the unattached ladies while he goes digging for gold. Charlie quickly connects with a splashy divorcee (Dyan Cannon) and Herb a charming widow (Gloria DeHaven), when the fanatical cruise director (Brent Spiner) -- self-described as "your worst nightmare: a song-and-dance man raised on a military base" -- warns them against fraternizing with the passengers.

DeHaven, one of the film’s loveliest assets, makes a welcome return to the silver screen along with golden oldies such as Donald O’Connor, who’s still as lithe as a sunbeam in an all too brief tap routine. Elaine Strich, as Cannon’s tough old bird of a mama, not only upstages the masterfully creaky Matthau, but reminds the audience that he’s a bit long in the tooth to be nibbling Cannon’s lovely lobes.

Although Matthau landed Sophia Loren in his last Grumpy movie, he does look, well, rather unappetizing opposite the stunning Cannon. They are the true odd couple here. Matthau and Lemmon, however, have done this schtick so many times there’s nothing peculiar about their partnership anymore. It would be odd only to encounter one without the other.

OUT TO SEA (PG-13) — Contains mild crude language and suggestive situations.