The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Mel Edison is a middle-aged Manhattan executive who loses his job after years of steady work. He and his wife Edna live in a fourteenth-floor apartment on the Upper East Side, where noise from neighbors and the street wears on them. The city is in the middle of a heat wave, and a sanitation strike leaves garbage piling up. A daytime burglary adds to the couple's strain, and while Mel struggles to find new work, Edna becomes the one earning a living. The pressure on Mel mounts until his mental state begins to give way, and he turns to a psychiatrist for help. The film is a comedy built on the contrast between ordinary domestic troubles and the scale of Mel's unraveling.

The film was directed and produced by Melvin Frank, working from a screenplay by Neil Simon. It was Frank's fourth feature as director, following The Court Jester, That Certain Feeling and Li'l Abner. Jack Lemmon plays Mel and Anne Bancroft plays Edna, with Gene Saks, Elizabeth Wilson, Florence Stanley and Maxine Stuart among the supporting cast.

Released in March 1975, the film runs 98 minutes. On IMDb it holds a 6.7 rating from around 4,300 votes, and on TMDB a 6.6 from 78 votes. A critics' rating of 5.8 from 51 reviews places it slightly below the audience scores.