Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

A dedicated schoolteacher spends her nights cruising bars, looking for abusive men with whom she can engage in progressively violent sexual encounters.

Director:

Richard Brooks

Writers:

Judith Rossner (based on the novel by), Richard Brooks (written for the screen by)

Stars:

Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Tuesday Weld

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Diane Keaton	...	Theresa
Tuesday Weld	...	Katherine
William Atherton	...	James
Richard Kiley	...	Mr. Dunn
Richard Gere	...	Tony
Alan Feinstein	...	Martin
Tom Berenger	...	Gary
Priscilla Pointer	...	Mrs. Dunn
Laurie Prange	...	Brigid
Joel Fabiani	...	Barney
Julius Harris	...	Black Cat
Richard Bright	...	George
LeVar Burton	...	Cap Jackson
Marilyn Coleman	...	Mrs. Jackson
Carole Mallory	...	Marvella

Storyline

Theresa is a successful teacher of deaf children during the day but after a short unhappy affair starts to spend her nights cruising bars. Her craving first for sex but later also for drugs leads into increasingly demeaning and dangerous situations at odds with her daytime commitment to her children.

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Plot Keywords:

murder of a nude woman | sex in car | female nudity | sexual humiliation | 69 sex position | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

This was filmed and released the same year as Diane Keaton's Oscar winning role in Annie Hall. Although she was not an Oscar contender for Goodbar, many people in the industry believe the acting range Keaton displayed by making two such diametrically different films in a single year did play a part in Academy members giving her their 1977 Best Actress award.

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Goofs

In the book, Theresa's sister Katherine goes to Puerto Rico to procure an abortion during a scene that takes place in the mid-1960s. In the movie, the timeline is changed so that this scene is set in 1975, two years after abortion was legalized by the Roe v. Wade ruling, making the trip to Puerto Rico unnecessary.

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Quotes

Theresa: How did Barney take it?
Katherine: Barney? Oh Barney took it real hard. He's already shacked up with a teenybopper with a maxi-mouth and a mini-brain, dirty thief! Oh yes, they also have his and her towels, his and her hairdryers, his and her vibrators!

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Crazy Credits

A still version of the Paramount logo is seen at the beginning, in black and white.

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Connections

References Gone with the Wind (1939)

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Soundtracks

All of Me
(1931) (uncredited)
Written by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons
Sung on a TV show

User Reviews

Life Sex & Death in the Swinging 1970's: A True Story

****SPOILERS**** It was not until almost the end of the movie "Looking For Mr. Goodbar" just before Theresa Dunn's, Diane Keaton, fatal encounter with Gary, Tom Berenger, that I realized why she was bent on being on the path of self-destruction both emotionally as well as physically. Theresa's fear of transmitting to her children the disease that she was suffering from and that left her emotionally as well as physically scared since she was a little girl; Congenital Spinal Scoliosis the curvature of the spine.

This revelation came out when Theresa had a violent spat with James, William Atherton, the only man in the movie who really was in love with and wanted to marry her. The other two men that Theresa had affairs with in the movie Martin, Alan Feinstein, and Tony, Richard Gere, looked at Theresa as a piece of tail who was only good for a one night stand. Who after having their way with her with put Theresa away in the drawer until the next time they felt like having a romp in the woods.

Being brought up in a strict Irish-Catholic home but with a dark fear of getting married and having children Theresa choose the life that she led as a 1970's swinger by night and a teacher of deaf children by day in NYC. Her younger sister Katherine, Tuesday Weld, was also not what her father Mr. Dunn, Richard Kiley, thought a nice Catholic girl should be. Even though she kept it from her father Katherine had at least one abortion and married a man out of her faith Barney,Joel Fabiani, who was Jewish and who her father openly resented. It was Barney who later introduced Katherine into a sex and drug lifestyle and in the end left her for a much younger girl who he was shacked up with.

Theresa's father was obsessive but very sympathetic in his wanting Theresa not to leave home and move in with Katherine and Barney in New York City. Still he could do nothing to stop her since she was an adult. Working as a teacher for young deaf children seemed to give Theresa the family that she was longing for but at the same time denied for herself by not wanting to be a wife and mother.

The two lovers that Therea had before James were just what she wanted, persons only to have sex with and really nothing else. Martin who after he had sex with Theresa couldn't even look at or talk to her and Tony who was both a 1970's stud-type and coke-head not only got her turned on to coke but got her fired from her job as a teacher for being arrested for drug possession. The only man who could have turned Theresa's life around and who Theresa's father looked upon as his own son, James a social worker in NYC was rejected by Theresa when he, unlike Martin and Tony, showed that he really loved her and wanted to marry her and not just spend the night with Theresa and leave her the next morning.

On New Years Eve Theresa was at the singles-bar celebrating the coming of the New Year when she picked up Gary, a male hustler. Gary was just attacked by a gang of thugs together with his room-mate for being in drag. The very disturbed young man was a ticking time bomb ready to explode and it was his affair with Theresa that New Years Eve night that set him off. Feeling inadequate because he couldn't preform sexually with Theresa, probably because he was almost dead drunk at the time, Gary took out his frustrations on Theresa who realized only too late what an unstable and dangerous person she was involved with and brutally slashed and strangled her to death.

"Looking for Mr. Goodbar" is a dark and depressing film but it honestly reflects the world of the 1970's drug and swinging generation and the story of a young woman who's psychosis played right into that world. The movie is based on the true story of Roseann Quinn who was murdered by John Wayne Wilson whom she picked up at the Tweeds Bar on New Years Eve 1973. Wilson hanged himself in his jail cell on May 5, 1973 some five months later while awaiting trial. It was later reported that a jail guard who was sick and tired of Wilson's threats of committing suicide provided him with the bed sheets that he ended up hanging himself with.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 October 1977 (USA)

Also Known As:

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,540,635, 23 October 1977

Gross USA:

$22,512,655

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$22,512,655

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

136 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White (still photograph montages) Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1