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Looking for Mr. GoodbarWhenever Hollywood celebrates the great writer-directors, Richard Brooks is always forgotten. It??™s hard to fathom, given that he received a slew of Oscar nominations throughout his career for ace films including In Cold Blood, The Blackboard Jungle and The Professionals. While he didn't get a nod for Looking For Mr Goodbar it's amongst his better known pictures, adapted from the novel by Judith Rossner. Diane Keaton stars as Theresa, a schoolteacher by day and bar-hopper by night. With the sexual revolution in full swing, Theresa sees nothing wrong with spending her evenings looking for a decent one night stand. But as her appetite for sex becomes rivaled by her desire for drugs, she finds herself drawn into a dangerous world completely at odds with her homely daytime existence. Sullied only by its dated title sequence, Goodbar is an extraordinary movie for many reasons. It's particularly remarkable for proving that Diane Keaton is an actress of genuine power rather than just a winsome smile under a fancy hat. Of course, The Godfather also demonstrated Keaton's gravitas, but under Brooks' direction she conjures up a complex, layered character, as convincing when she's caring for kids as when she's dallying with would-be-suitors in seedy bars. Winning the Academy Award for Annie Hall the same year she appeared in Goodbar, many feel that Keaton picked up the prize for the wrong picture.
Besides great performances from Keaton and co-star Tuesday Weld (also Oscar nominated for her role), Goodbar is noteworthy for a Who's Who of 1970s leading men. The young Richard Gere is especially good as Tony Lo Porto, but William Atherton (the "dickless" Walter Peck from Ghostbusters) and Richard Kiley (the voice of Jurassic Park) also impress, as does Tom Berenger, whose turn as the enigmatic Gary explains why the guy who's now reduced to making Sniper 3 was once one of the hottest actors in Hollywood.
And like all of Brooks' pictures, the film is blessed with a superb supporting cast including the underrated Richard Bright, the excellent Julius Harris (the claw-handed Tee Hee in Live And Let Die) and Brian Dennehy, here making his feature debut. Trekkies, meanwhile, should keep an eye out for the teenaged LeVar Burton, aka Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge.
Made long before every other Hollywood film seemed to be about a woman in peril, Looking For Mr Goodbar interestingly inverts the traditional thriller, managing to be as much an examination of a life in freefall as an exercise in excitement. Such originality won't surprise those familiar with Richard Brooks, whose ballsy approach to screenwriting was second only to his unpredictable approach to direction. Of course, in some countries, talent like this would reap the richest of rewards. But since Brooks only had one Oscar win (ironically for his overwritten adaptation of Elmer Gantry), he remains on the outskirts of cinema history, an awesome auteur ripe for rediscovery.
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