brightsides
Saw this film on AMC last week and it still holds up. I first saw this film in 1977 as a college student living in a one room apt away from home for the first time, and it had a major impact on me. Diane Keaton made the move from the comedic heroine to the troubled Theresa Dunn, a sensitive, caring teacher by day, looking for love in all the wrong places at night. Her inner turmoil from her childhood disfiguring disease; to the relationship with her hard-nosed, Notre Dame loving, Irish Catholic father; to subsequent lovers is heartbreaking. Her search for the male attention and acceptance that she didn't receive at home is portrayed with honesty and depth by Keaton. Richard Kiley skillfully plays her father, who is of a different generation, where women knew "their place". He would rather turn and look the other way than face some hard family truths. It's evident that Teresa has a love/hate relationship with him when she refuses to accept the nice guy social worker, James, as a suitor mostly because her father admires him. She would rather engage in dead-end conquests than have a committed, romantic, relationship. Tuesday Weld was nominated for a Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role as Kathryn, Teresa's high-flying, stewardess sister; who can do no wrong in her father's eyes. Richard Gere's energy is electric and frightening during his scenes with Teresa. He has the raw male sexuality and danger Teresa finds exciting yet she is clearly his intellectual superior. Interesting stuff. Tom Berenger is great as the sociopathic loser, and look for a split-second role for Brian Dennehey as a doctor. This movie can serve as both a cautionary tale and a history lesson....the sexual revolution never seemed so scary.
swanagangenevee
Not really. I have heard that there are no prints of this Movie although it is considered a classic. It is. Diane Keaton gives a powerful performance as a gifted teacher who frequents seedy bars and picks up men to one-night stands. Scary. Scarier is when she really picks up the wrong one.What a lot of people may miss in the movie is that Diane's character has a congenital medical condition (Scoliosis I believe) and does not want to marry a man and have a child with it. Pretty mild condition in my opinion to live your life this risky. She walks with what she thinks she pulls off as a little switch, but her untimely partner recognizes it as a mild limp because she did have surgery for it as a child.Her array of men are somewhat handsome losers with Richard Gere, John Travolta and Tom Berenger. All I want to do is see it again and have it in my collection!
classicsoncall
About half way into the picture, and after seeing Theresa's Janis Joplin poster on the wall enough times, I started wondering to myself, 'Is she going to wind up dead"? That seemed to be the path Diane Keaton's character was on, a descent into a self inflicted depravity that eventually spiraled out of control with her final singles bar encounter. Theresa telegraphs her eventual fate by stating at one point that "I don't believe in a future", as her father (Richard Kiley) rails against her free-wheeling lifestyle. The picture uniquely contrasts Theresa's outwardly responsible life as a teacher of deaf children with her nightly cruising of the bar scene looking for the next more challenging high.With a Seventies backdrop the picture is somewhat dated, though it accurately captures some of the more depressing aspects of the era, the increasing emergence of meaningless relationships, the ease of getting and using social drugs like pot and cocaine, and probably the worst of all, disco music. Very much a downer. I did get a kick though out of the not so subtle reference to Theresa's reading material, a copy of The Godfather, and Richard Gere's response to seeing the movie. Since he mentioned Al Pacino, I wonder why he didn't notice Theresa's striking resemblance to Kay Adams.
migca
I saw "Mr. Goodbar" at a film festival screening, several years after it's initial release. In some ways (none of them good), this movie has haunted me ever since. I can still recall feeling strangely perturbed and confused as the film neared it's final minutes. I guess I expected that the ending would somehow magically bring the preceding grimy and occasionally chaotic events into some sort of focus.All I got from that ending was a brutal stomach ache similar to the lingering pain induced by a cheap sucker punch to the gut. I will readily admit to having gained no further understanding or insight into this film over the years. I still can't imagine why anyone would make a film like this, or what possible value or entertainment viewers derived from it.For me, Diane Keaton's performance is the only thing in the movie that keeps it from getting the lowest vote. That she managed to project some warmth and humanity from such a crudely drawn, relentlessly sad, and gratuitously self-destructive character, only made the ending that much more horrific and senseless. It's easily one of the worst experiences I've ever had in a movie theater.
AD
