“The Man Behind the Magic,” the title of the mainstage extra within this five-film set of movies the genial two-time Oscar winner made for Columbia Pictures from 1954-1964, tells you not to expect any kind of expose. Then again, there’s doesn’t seem to be any dirt to dish on Lemmon. His son, Chris, whisks us through the life and career of his dad, with guest genuflections by, among others, Shirley MacLaine, Andy Garcia, Kevin Spacey and Peter Gallagher (reminiscing about the 1986 Broadway revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night), screenwriter Larry Gelbart, and golf pro Peter Jacobsen, on Lemmon’s other passion. It’s a cozy session, punctuated by a few hilarious anecdotes.

The one undercurrent of discontent is Lemmon’s struggle to break out of the light comedy mode that made him a star and find more meaningful parts. And that’s the problem with the films in this film collection—they’re all light comedies, and undistinguished ones at that. If I were putting together a Jack Lemmon Film Collection (and I realize that Columbia, Lemmon’s first cinematic home, was obliged to go with what it had in the stacks) my top picks would be The Apartment (1960), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The China Syndrome (1979), Missing (1982), and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)—the first the darkest of his comedies, and the rest dramas free of the collar-wringing overstatement that marred some of his work when he got his wish.

That list omits his two Oscar winners, 1955’s Mister Roberts and 1973’s Save the Tiger (he was the first actor to win both Best Supporting and Best Lead Actor Oscars), favorites like Some Like it Hot (1959) and The Odd Couple (1968), and movies I like him in, including The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) and Airport ’77, where he tried on a Charlton Heston part for size (Syndrome, a real-life disaster picture, fit better.) If I were to put Jack in a box, none of the films gathered here would make it, which is not to say that they’re entirely free of interest. What emerges is a portrait of an actor honing, then straining against, a persona. (more…)