# The Out-of-Towners
**The Out-of-Towners** is a 1970 American comedy directed by [Arthur Hiller](https://www.edgepedia.org/arthur-hiller) and written by [Neil Simon](https://www.edgepedia.org/neil-simon), in which a middle-aged Ohio couple, George and Gwen Kellerman, travels to New York City for a job interview and is battered by 24 hours of compounding disasters: a diverted flight, a lost reservation, muggings, municipal strikes, and a night in [Central Park](https://www.edgepedia.org/central-park).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) • [2](https://www.paramount.com/movies/the-out-of-towners-1970) Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis star as the Kellermans, in a Jalem Productions film produced by Paul Nathan.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | New York opening 29 May 1970; Los Angeles opening 24 Jun 1970[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) |
| Production | Principal photography 18 March to early June 1969, in Boston, New York City, and California[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) |
| Print details | 98 minutes, color, MPAA rating G, music by Quincy Jones, cinematography by Andrew Laszlo[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) |
| Box office | Thirteenth-highest-grossing picture of 1970, with $7.25 million in film rentals[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) |
| Award | Writers Guild of America award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) |
| Nominations | Golden Globe nominations for Lemmon (Actor, Musical or Comedy) and Dennis (Actress, Musical or Comedy)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) |
| Remake | Paramount's 1999 remake starred Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, directed by Sam Weisman[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
George Kellerman, a successful businessman from [Dayton, Ohio](https://www.edgepedia.org/dayton-ohio), is invited by his company to visit its New York offices to discuss his promotion to an executive position. He and his wife Gwen plan dinner at a fine restaurant, a night at a luxury hotel, and the morning interview followed by a return flight. Instead, fog and air traffic divert their plane to Boston, their luggage is lost, and they take a crowded train to New York during a downpour, arriving amid strikes by garbage collectors and transit workers.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
At the Waldorf-Astoria their late arrival has cost them the reservation. A friendly stranger who offers them shelter turns out to be a mugger and takes their money; the police car dispatched to take them to an armory shelter is itself hijacked, and the robbers abandon the couple in Central Park, where they are mugged again and George loses his watch. By morning George has been beaten by athletes who mistake him for a rapist and chased by a mounted policeman who takes him for a child molester.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
Through the ordeal George treats the sequence of calamities as an epic struggle he is determined to win, suffering what TCM's account describes as a gradual meltdown into an overbearing, litigious, and, in Gwen's words, "sarcastic... whining, irritable, insensitive and intolerant" character.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) The supporting cast includes Sandy Baron as a TV man, Graham Jarvis as Murray the mugger, [Anne Meara](https://www.edgepedia.org/anne-meara) as a woman in a police station, [Ann Prentiss](https://www.edgepedia.org/ann-prentiss) as an airline stewardess, Ron Carey as a Boston cab driver, and [Billy Dee Williams](https://www.edgepedia.org/billy-dee-williams) as a Boston lost-and-found employee.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) • [2](https://www.paramount.com/movies/the-out-of-towners-1970)
## Origins in Plaza Suite
Simon conceived the story as a one-act play, intended as the fourth segment of his stage comedy *Plaza Suite*. He came to believe the epic journey suited the screen better, and he set it aside to develop as his second original screenplay.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) When *Plaza Suite* opened on 14 February 1968 at New York's Plymouth Theatre, directed by [Mike Nichols](https://www.edgepedia.org/mike-nichols), it contained three one-act segments rather than four.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) Among the changes in adapting the story, Simon moved the hotel from the [Plaza Hotel](https://www.edgepedia.org/plaza-hotel) to the Waldorf Astoria.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
The inspiration came from an incident around 1967, when Simon flew to Boston to work on David Merrick's musical *How Now, Dow Jones* and was caught in a major snowstorm that lost his luggage and turned a ten-minute hotel ride into three hours on icy streets.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) A year after the film's release, Simon and Hiller reteamed on the screen version of *Plaza Suite* (1971), and again in 1984 on *The Lonely Guy*.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970)
## Production
The project was announced in October 1968 as Simon's second original screenplay, following *After the Fox* (1966), to be filmed by [Paramount Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/paramount-pictures) and Jalem Productions beginning in spring 1969. Lemmon was attached from the start and briefly hoped to cast [Joanne Woodward](https://www.edgepedia.org/joanne-woodward) as his co-star; by late December 1968 trade papers reported that [Sandy Dennis](https://www.edgepedia.org/sandy-dennis) had the female lead.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
Simon wanted the film shot mostly on location so it would "look original, not like a stage play." [Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) began on 18 March 1969 in Boston, where [Logan International Airport](https://www.edgepedia.org/logan-international-airport) stood in for itself. After eight days there, the company moved to New York City, shooting at Grand Central Station, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and a Manhattan police station. An estimated ninety percent of the picture was set to be filmed at night, largely because the Waldorf Astoria would admit the crew only between midnight and 6:00 a.m.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) A commuter-train sequence had already been shot over one week on a train running between Los Angeles and [San Bernardino, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/san-bernardino-california).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
Hiller was reportedly surprised by the production's smoothness, crediting New York Mayor John Lindsay's recent efforts to lower union rates and ease filming restraints in the city. Filming wrapped in early June 1969.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) Seventeen preview screenings were scheduled across the United States on 10 March 1970, ahead of the theatrical release.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
## Reception
Critical response was mixed. The *Daily Variety* review of 23 March 1970 called the film "a total delight," and the Hollywood Reporter praised it as "the closest the sound film has come to recapturing the genius of the silent movie chase comedy." Roger Greenspun's *New York Times* review of 29 May 1970, by contrast, deemed it a seemingly "conscious exercise in dulled insights and missed opportunities" and complained that a boom microphone became visible about two-thirds of the way through and remained intermittently on screen for the rest of the film; TCM notes the visible boom was probably an artifact of the print being projected without the 1:1.85 aperture-plate masking rather than a filming error.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) • [4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-out-of-towners-1970/critic-reviews/)
Commercially the film did well: it ranked as the thirteenth-highest-grossing picture of 1970 with $7.25 million in film rentals, and Lemmon and Dennis received Golden Globe nominations.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS) The completed script won the Writers Guild of America award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) Lemmon, though he counted the film among his favorites of the Simon collaborations, criticized Hiller's cutting of a five-minute sequence he considered crucial to character motivation, and no details of that footage were published.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970)
When the film was broadcast on television in the early 1970s, one source reports that a hijacking scene was cut, probably in response to the fear of terrorism after the Munich Olympics hostage situation and subsequent hijackings.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970)
## The 1999 remake
Paramount released a remake in April 1999, starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn as Henry and Nancy Clark, with John Cleese as a diffident hotel manager, directed by Sam Weisman and written by Marc Lawrence from Simon's screenplay. The remake was produced without Simon's or Hiller's involvement.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970) • [5](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-out-of-towners-1999) Development began in 1996 under Robert Evans Productions, with Simon brought in to rewrite his own script; he dropped out eight months later, concluding an updated version would be "too grim" because "the world is a tougher place."[6](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/61266-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS?cxt=filmography)
The remake was judged generally inferior to the original. Roger Ebert gave it 1.5 of 4 stars, finding the characters inconsistent devices rather than people, though he praised Cleese's hotel manager as the cast's most valuable addition.[5](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-out-of-towners-1999) On Metacritic the remake scored 33, "Generally Unfavorable," against 72, "Generally Favorable," for the 1970 film.[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-out-of-towners-1970/critic-reviews/) • [7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-out-of-towners/critic-reviews/) Its domestic gross was $28.5 million against a reported $40 million budget, with *Daily Variety* predicting a final gross barely above $30 million.[6](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/61266-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS?cxt=filmography) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_out_of_towners)
## Context and legacy
Film historians place the film in the New York-centered cinema of the early 1970s, an era in which municipal strikes frequently crippled the city and the metropolis figured on screen as a breakdown of civic order; Pauline Kael wrote that New York-made movies of the period were set in "Horror City... a permanent record of the city in breakdown."[9](https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/49115/files/2026/01/American-Film-History_-Selected-Readings-1960-to-the-Cynthia-Lucia-Roy-Grundmann-Art-Simon-1-2015-Wiley-Blackwell.pdf) One scholarly account calls the film's stance "amiable anti-urbanism," noting that, unlike later films of the decade, it ends with the consolation of the good life back in Ohio.[10](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/26592/1/85.pdf) The Village Voice's Molly Haskell, reviewing the film, observed that until this, Simon's second original screenplay, following After the Fox (1966), New York had always played a secondary role in his work.[11](https://www.villagevoice.com/honoring-molly-haskell-a-review-of-the-out-of-towners/) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
## References
1. [The Out-of-Towners (1970), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/20619-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS)
2. [The Out of Towners (1970), Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramount.com/movies/the-out-of-towners-1970)
3. [The Out-of-Towners (1970), Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/215530/the-out-of-towners-1970)
4. [The Out of Towners (1970) critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-out-of-towners-1970/critic-reviews/)
5. [Roger Ebert, The Out-Of-Towners review, Chicago Sun-Times, 2 April 1999](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-out-of-towners-1999)
6. [The Out-of-Towners (1999), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/61266-THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS?cxt=filmography)
7. [The Out-of-Towners critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-out-of-towners/critic-reviews/)
8. [The Out-of-Towners, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_out_of_towners)
9. [American Film History: Selected Readings, 1960 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell)](https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/49115/files/2026/01/American-Film-History_-Selected-Readings-1960-to-the-Cynthia-Lucia-Roy-Grundmann-Art-Simon-1-2015-Wiley-Blackwell.pdf)
10. [The Cinema of Urban Crisis](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/26592/1/85.pdf)
11. [Honoring Molly Haskell: A Review of "The Out-of-Towners", The Village Voice](https://www.villagevoice.com/honoring-molly-haskell-a-review-of-the-out-of-towners/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Shared-title version families › Classic Hollywood shared-title families*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license