Looking for Mr. Goodbar (film)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Richard Brooks
Produced by Freddie Fields
Screenplay by Richard Brooks
Based on Looking for Mr. Goodbar
by Judith Rossner
Starring Diane Keaton
Tuesday Weld
William Atherton
Richard Kiley
Richard Gere
Music by Artie Kane
Cinematography William A. Fraker
Edited by George Grenville
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • October 19, 1977 (1977-10-19)
Running time
 136 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Box office $22,512,655[2]

Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1977 American drama film, based on Judith Rossner's best-selling novel of the same name, which was inspired by the 1973 murder of New York City schoolteacher Roseann Quinn, who led something of a double life. The film was written and directed by Richard Brooks, and stars Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton and Richard Gere.

The film was a commercial success, earning $22.5 million,[note 1] and garnered two Academy Award nominations, Best Supporting Actress for Tuesday Weld and Best Cinematography for William Fraker.

The film has never been released on Blu-ray or DVD, and is widely unavailable on the home video market.

Plot

In the mid-1970s, Theresa Dunn, a young Irish-American school teacher in New York City, experiences her sexual awakening, while searching for excitement outside her ordered life. While in college, Theresa lives with her repressive Polish-Irish Catholic parents, and suffers from severe body image issues following a childhood surgery for scoliosis that left a large scar on her back. Theresa later finds out that her scoliosis is congenital, and that her aunt had the same condition and committed suicide. As a result, Theresa is reluctant to have children of her own.

Meanwhile, her beautiful "perfect" older sister, Katherine, has left her husband and embarked on a wild lifestyle involving multiple affairs, a secret abortion, recreational drug use, and a short-lived marriage to a Jewish man. Theresa finds first love, and loses her virginity, to her much older, married college professor Martin. He ends their affair just before her graduation, leaving Theresa feeling used and lonely.

Theresa takes a job teaching deaf children, and proves to be a gifted and caring teacher. With Katherine's encouragement, she moves out of her parents' home and into an apartment in Katherine's building. She frequents a bar at night where she meets a charming but vain Italian-American character named Tony. She ends up sleeping with, and taking cocaine with Tony. He leaves in a hurry, and gives her a Quaalude pill to counteract the cocaine. This causes her to oversleep, and she arrives very late for work the next day, angering her employer and students. Tony then disappears for a long while, and Theresa misses him initially.

Through her job, Theresa also meets and dates an Irish-American welfare caseworker, James. Her parents approve of the responsible James, seeing him as a potential husband for Theresa. However, the couple do not have sex, because James wants a traditional courtship, and a monogamous relationship. Theresa sees that as stifling her freedom. Although James initially seems nice, over time he appears to become controlling, and also disrespectful of Theresa. Moreover, he shows signs of being just as perverted and selfish as Tony.

Meanwhile, Theresa begins to go out to more marginal places, and has sex with complete strangers, often older men. Tony eventually returns and acts as if nothing had happened. He barges in on Theresa while she is with another man, and chases the man away. Tony becomes controlling and abusive, and Theresa also discovers that he is a street hustler. She breaks up with Tony, but he stalks and harasses her, both at home and at her workplace. After imagining what could happen if Tony were to turn her in to the police as revenge, Theresa gathers up all the drugs in her apartment and flushes them down the toilet.

With the new year approaching, Theresa resolves to turn over a new leaf and take control of her life. Seeking one final hookup on New Year's Eve, Theresa picks up Gary, a sexually confused ex-convict, who tells Theresa he has a pregnant wife in Florida. He has been living at the expense of other lovers who, it is strongly implied, are affluent gay men, since coming to the city. Although Gary is attracted to Theresa, when they are in bed together at her apartment, Gary finds himself unable to achieve an erection. He then sniffs a "popper". Theresa tells him it is OK if they don't have sex, but Gary misinterprets this as questioning his sexuality. In a rage, Gary attacks her, rapes her, and then stabs her repeatedly with a knife, killing her in an orgy of blood and drug-induced surrealism.

Cast

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack included numerous disco tracks from the era. A soundtrack album was released by Columbia Records (JS 35029).

  1. "Theme from Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Don't Ask to Stay Until Tomorrow)" – Carol Connors and Artie Kane
  2. "Don't Leave Me This Way" – Thelma Houston
  3. "Lowdown" – Boz Scaggs
  4. "Machine Gun" – Commodores
  5. "Love Hangover" – Diana Ross
  6. "She Wants to (Get on Down)" – Bill Withers
  7. "Theme from Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Don't Ask to Stay Until Tomorrow) [Reprise]" – Carol Connors and Artie Kane
  8. "Theme from Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Don't Ask to Stay Until Tomorrow) [Vocal]" – Carol Connors and Artie Kane; vocal by Marlena Shaw
  9. "She's Lonely" – Bill Withers
  10. "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It" – Donna Summer
  11. "Back Stabbers" – The O'Jays
  12. "Prelude to Love" – Donna Summer
  13. "Could It Be Magic" – Donna Summer

Reception

The film opened to mixed reviews, but solid box office. Many critics praised Diane Keaton's performance.[3] The film currently holds a "fresh" 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus "Diane Keaton gives an absolutely fearless performance in a sexual thriller whose ending will leave audiences trembling."

Some critics found the film lurid and muddled; a review by Frank Rich for Time magazine criticized Brooks for making "many crude miscalculations" in adapting the novel.[3] Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, praising Keaton's performance but lamenting the "many loose ends and dead ends", some of which he blamed on significant alterations to the novel's plot.[4] John Simon noted that while the novel is set in New York City, the film is said to be located in San Francisco (though identifiably filmed in Chicago's Rush Street neighborhood). He also noted that "the main character is made considerably prettier, thus reducing the principal sources of her insecurity", as compared to her portrayal in the novel as somewhat of a "Plain Jane".[5]

Author Judith Rossner "detested" the film,[6] although she praised Keaton's performance. Rossner added, "I feel like the mother who delivered her 13-year-old daughter to the door of Roman Polanski and didn't know what was going to happen." [7]

Robert O. Friedel, MD, has suggested that Theresa's behavior in the film is consistent with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.[8]

Looking for Mr. Goodbar introduced Richard Gere, LeVar Burton and Tom Berenger, all as men whom Theresa encounters.

The film also inspired the music video for the 1993 Madonna song "Bad Girl". In the video, Madonna plays a woman who, like Theresa, engages in self-destructive behavior by drinking heavily and sleeping around with random men before she is ultimately murdered by a man she had selected for a one-night stand.

Awards

Tuesday Weld received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and William A. Fraker received a nomination for Best Cinematography at the 50th Academy Awards.

Diane Keaton was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress (Drama) and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She was not nominated for an Academy Award for this film, but she won Best Actress the same year for Annie Hall.

Director Richard Brooks was nominated for "Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium" from the Writers Guild of America.

Notes

  1. ↑ In 2016 dollars, the film would have earned $86.9 million. See Box Office Mojo (Accessed December 30, 2016).

See also

References

  1. ↑ "LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (X)". C.I.C. British Board of Film Classification. November 21, 1977. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  2. ↑ Looking for Mr. Goodbar at Box Office Mojo
  3. 1 2 Rich, Frank (October 24, 1977). "Diane in the Rough". Time (110(17)): 104. Retrieved 2014-10-20.
  4. ↑ Chicago Sun-Times
  5. ↑ Simon, John (December 9, 1977). "The Movies: Double Whammy". National Review: 1443.
  6. ↑ Pike, Rayner and Nancy. Rossner, Judith Louise. Encyclopedia.com (Accessed December 30, 2016).
  7. ↑ http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/judith-rossner-70-novelist-of-mr-goodbar/18467/
  8. ↑ "Early Sea Changes in Borderline Personality Disorder," Current Psychiatry Reports 2006, 8:1–4.
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