A desperate executive faces moral decay in the 1973 drama Save the Tiger
In short: Harry Stoner is a garment industry executive drowning in modern life. Haunted by WWII trauma and suffocating under financial pressure, he turns to fraud and arson to save his failing business. This 1973 film captures the anxiety of the American dream through a career-defining performance by Jack Lemmon.
Directed by John G. Avildsen and written by Steve Shagan, Save the Tiger explores the moral disintegration of Harry Stoner, a man obsessed with the simplicity of his pre-war youth. Stoner, played by Jack Lemmon, lives in a Beverly Hills mansion but is crippled by the daily costs of his lifestyle and the impending collapse of his apparel company, Capri Casuals. To keep the business afloat, he and his partner, Phil Greene, resort to fraudulent accounting, yet they still face a dire need for capital to fund a new fashion line.
The film follows Stoner as he descends into criminality, eventually hiring an arsonist named Charlie Robbins to burn down his factory for an insurance payout. This desperate act is punctuated by Stoner’s internal fragmentation; he suffers from war-induced flashbacks, struggles with the demands of his high-society life, and finds himself alienated from the younger generation, exemplified by his interactions with a hitchhiker named Myra. The title itself originates from a minor scene where Stoner signs a petition to save tigers, a stark contrast to his own predatory behavior.
Despite its limited commercial success, the film is remembered for Lemmon’s performance, which earned him the 1974 Academy Award for Best Actor. Critics were divided on the film's quality, with Vincent Canby of The New York Times calling it a brave but flawed examination of the American dream. While it failed at the box office, the film remains a significant artifact of early 1970s American anxiety, holding an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes today.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Save the Tiger
- Also: Save the Tiger
- Also: Wikidata — Save the Tigers · CC0
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