felix was a bad lawyer

I came across this clip from The Odd Couple.

Not purely by chance, mind you -- I was looking for a Youtube clip of the moment the Felix says "Sew Buttons." I wanted to use it as a rejoinder in a Facebook conversation about Michael Crichton. Actually, it was a conversation about Charles Dickens, but I kinda sorta hijacked it to talk about Michael Crichton. I didn't mean to hijack it, but I did. Bad me.

Anyway, there's something bugging me about this. The backstory is that, at one of the guys' regular poker games, someone (Oscar, I think?) teases Murray the cop that he's too soft and nice. To prove he's not, he arrests the whole group for illegal gambling. Hilarity ensues.

So, in this courtroom scene, Oscar turns the tables and points out that Murray was playing poker too. His evidence: Murray's cigar, Murray's fondue fork and a picture of Murray collecting a large pot. Now, I can't comment on that pot, since we don't see the photo. But the cigar and the fondue fork hardly prove that Murray was playing poker with the guys. Even if they can be linked to him by his fingerprints or saliva, they just prove he smoked a cigar and used a fondue fork.

But Felix' defense of Murray is actually what damns him. He points out that the fondue fork wasn't Murray's because it had a red tip. "My tip was purple! Speed's tip was...yellow! Vinnie's tip was light blue. And Officer Greshler's tip was white!" The red-tipped fork was not used during the game. This is a fraudulent fondue fork!" So he's argued that Oscar had bad evidence, but admitted that Murray was at the poker game.

I don't know why, but that really annoys me.

Oh, and, by the way, at about 3:41 you can see the exchange in which Felix responds to "So?" with "Sew buttons!"