Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

          A dark meditation on the Sexual Revolution that caroms wildly between sensitive vignettes and overwrought climaxes, Looking for Mr. Goodbar divided audiences during its original release but has since attained cult-movie notoriety, especially because, as of this writing, it has yet to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray. (Falling into obscurity often boosts a once-popular film’s reputation.) Adapted from a best-selling novel by Judith Rossner and written and directed by uncompromising auteur Richard Brooks, the movie is a cautionary tale, but it’s not entirely clear what Brooks wants to caution viewers against. Sometimes, it seems as if he’s castigating his lead character, a young professional woman with a wild sex life, for the sin of seeking physical fulfillment. At other times, it seems as if the villain of the piece is the lead character’s recklessness. And thanks to a gruesome narrative turn during the story’s third act, an implication is communicated that homosexuality is a malignant societal force. Suffice to say, the sexual politics of the movie have not aged well.

        Yet certain elements of the picture probably seemed damned weird right from the get-go—consider the awkward device of grown-up star Diane Keaton playing her character during college scenes, or such surrealistic flourishes as the trippy visual effect that’s featured during the final shots of the movie. In fact, Brooks takes a gonzo storytelling approach from start to finish simply by pitching the intensity level of key scenes absurdly high. Were it not for the supple textures of Keaton’s performance, Looking for Mr. Goodbar would feel like a cartoon, albeit a nihilistic one.

          The story follows Teresa (Keaton), a good girl from a religious New York City-area family, as she matures professionally and sexually. Following an eye-opening dalliance with her college professor, Teresa takes a job as a teacher at a school for deaf children, so right from the beginning of this young woman’s journey, her intellectual and physical lives are intertwined. Teresa’s older sister, Katherine (Tuesday Weld), is a high-strung swinger who gets in too deep with a sexually adventurous man, but instead of being frightened by Katherine’s experiences, Teresa is titillated.
          Soon, Teresa enters the swinger world and gets involved with men including Tony (Richard Gere), a small-time crook who introduces Teresa to cocaine. (One memorably campy scene features Tony, jacked up on blow, doing push-ups in Teresa’s apartment while wearing nothing but a jockstrap.) Teresa also becomes involved with James (William Atherton), a social worker who represents a “safe” choice of romantic partner. However, she shuns his old-fashioned normalcy in favor of freakier delights. Eventually, Teresa’s sexual wanderlust lands her in bed with Gary (Tom Berenger), a sexually confused young man with a prison record, which instigates the movie’s infamous final scene.

          Looking for Mr. Goodbar is strange on many levels, but the most noteworthy cinematic disharmony is the rift between the story Brooks is telling and the one Keaton is telling. Brooks delivers every narrative assertion with an exclamation point, eschewing subtlety for hand-wringing histrionics. Meanwhile, Keaton does extraordinary work, imbuing her performance with naturalism and spontaneity. In essence, Brooks tries to make a Grand Statement while Keaton sketches a character study. This has the effect of making Keaton feel separate from the rest of the movie, especially when Gere over-acts his way through a ridiculous performance that Brooks should have restrained. And while supporting players including Atherton, Richard Kiley, and Priscilla Pointer all deliver competent work, the only actor who achieves the same level of nuance as Keaton is Weld, a perpetually underutilized daredevil of a performer who is capable of incandescence in the right context. (Her work in this movie earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.) Ultimately, Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a uniquely disjointed movie—part melodrama, part tragedy, and part oh-so-’70s bummer phantasmagoria.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar: FREAKY

Bite the Bullet (1975)

          There’s a major story problem at the center of this big-canvas adventure set in the afterglow of the Wild West era, so your ability to overlook the problem will determine whether you can enjoy the film’s many verbal, visceral, and visual pleasures. Here’s the problem. A macho adventure story about a brutal 700-mile horseback race across some of the southwest’s most unforgiving terrain, the narrative is predicated on the notion that competitors are willing to endanger their steeds in the hope of winning a significant cash prize. Fair enough. Yet the film’s hero, Sam Clayton (Gene Hackman), is consistently portrayed as such a devoted equine caretaker that he beats the tar out of anyone he observes abusing horses. Therefore, his choice to enter the race—even though his original role was merely to deliver a champion stallion to one of the competitors—makes very little sense. Seriously, is the most effective means of protesting an event that you consider to be inhumane participating in that event?

          As was often his wont, writer-director Richard Brooks pushes the story deep into the Myth of the American Man, which means that notions of heroism and legacy and pride often trump basic logic. That said, for viewers who can overlook the basic disconnect at the heart of the film’s principal characterization, Bite the Bullet is an exciting film.

          Predictably, the race attracts a colorful group of competitors. Clayton and Luke Matthews (James Coburns), are both veterans of Teddy Roosevelt’s famed Rough Riders. Sir Harry Norfolk (Ian Bannen) is an Englishman with high-minded notions of sportsmanship. Carbo (Jan-Michael Vincent) is a hotheaded kid looking to make a reputation as a tough guy, no matter the cost to animals or people. Miss Jones (Candice Bergen) is a prostitute eager to change her life. The oldest competitor (Ben Johnson), is a saddletramp with health problems who never shares his name—making him a surrogate for the countless anonymous adventurers whose labors helped birth the legend of the Old West.

          Brooks, an adept screenwriter who often wandered into strange narrative terrain, mostly stays focused in generating character-driven pathos and rip-roaring adventure, essentially recapturing the vivacious tone of his great film The Professionals (1966) while infusing the picture with a thread of melancholy. Much of this works. Brooks capably introduces the characters with pre-race vignettes, and then he follows groups and individuals during intimate scenes of adversity and bravery. Hackman hits consistently interesting notes by playing to his mean streak while also demonstrating compassion, Johnson hums the same elegiac melodies he performed so beautifully in The Last Picture Show (1971), and Vincent incarnates the arrogance of youth. Meanwhile, Bannen, Bergen, Coburn and fellow supporting player Mario Arteaga add important colors to Brooks’ palette.

         Speaking of palettes, the film looks terrific, with cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr. crafting just the right mixture of frontier grit and nostalgic beauty.

          Ultimately, the lingering image from this picture is that of horses moving in slow motion, sweat pouring out of their bodies in clouds of foam, as their riders push them beyond their limits. One imagines Brooks was after some sort of Big Statement here, so it’s a shame he didn’t find the right leading character to use as a prism. At best, the film’s Big Statement is hopelessly murky; at worst, the assertion is bewilderingly hypocritical. It doesn’t help, of course, that the film is quite long-winded, especially during a pair of endless monologues, one inflicted by Hackman and the other by Johnson.

Bite the Bullet: FUNKY