Absence of Malice (1981)

Director:

Sydney Pollack

Writer:

Kurt Luedtke (written by)

Release Date:

18 December 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Suppose you picked up this morning's newspaper and your life was a front page headline... And everything they said was accurate... But none of it was true.

Plot:

Michael Colin Gallagher is the son of a long dead Mafia boss who is a simple liquor warehouse owner...

Plot Keywords:

Reporter | Murder | Mafia | Slander | Media

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Paul Newman	...	Gallagher
Sally Field	...	Megan
Bob Balaban	...	Rosen
Melinda Dillon	...	Teresa
Luther Adler	...	Malderone
Barry Primus	...	Waddell
Josef Sommer	...	McAdam
John Harkins	...	Davidek
Don Hood	...	Quinn
Wilford Brimley	...	Wells
Arnie Ross	...	Eddie Frost
Anna Marie Napoles	...	Nickie
Shelley Spurlock	...	Sarah Wylie
Shawn McAllister	...	Hood 1
Joe Petrullo	...	Hood 2

Runtime:

116 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

South Korea:12 | USA:PG (certificate #26332) | Australia:PG | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | Norway:12 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | West Germany:12 | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Coral Gables, Florida, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Writer Kurt Luedtke, a veteran newspaperman, based the protagonist of this film on the real-life son of a reputed gangster in Detroit. The alleged gangster was tried and convicted of the crime. At his retrial potential jurors were asked if they had seen this movie, to determine if they would be prejudiced in their evaluation of the evidence. Ultimately the gangster and his partner were both convicted and sentenced to jail terms for labor-related extortion.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Megan sends Gallagher a copy of the front page of the next morning's daily newspaper at least 12 hours before the edition even went to print. In reality, the front page is never laid out until the last minute before deadline to insure the most current news.

Quotes:

James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney General: You had a leak? You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Time Chasers (#9.21)" (1997)

An important and great movie

I did not feel too much the reservations some of your commentators had about the acting of Newman and Fields. I thought they were fine. But of course the importance of this film lies (as so many others pointed out) in its expose of the inner workings of our justice and journalistic systems and their ability to wreak havoc in the lives of ordinary defenseless citizens. I rather thought this movie a precursor of television's Law and Order for that reason. For me among the movie's many touching and beautiful moments the most poignant was the scene in which the soon-to-be-suicidal young friend of Newman's receives at dawn on her lawn the freshly delivered newspaper she'd been waiting all night for and reads with horror the "outing" of her abortion for all to read and proceeds to gather up all the copies of the newspaper thrown onto the neighbors' lawns so as to stave off her moment of shame and disgrace with all the co-religionist people who know her including her family. It reminded me of the scene in Rattigan's Separate Tables in which the middle-aged molester of young girls finds his exploits reported in a neighboring village's newspaper which has been delivered to his hotel. He then tries to cut out the revealing story before it can be delivered to its subscriber. But he too fails to suppress the news and has to suffer the consequences of publicity in his private life. Absence of Malice is a great and important movie