Product Details

• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Format: NTSC

Amazon.com essential video
Based on the mid-'70s novel by Judith Rossner (which itself was based on a true story), this film was supposed to be the one that established Diane Keaton's credibility as a "serious" actress--and yet she won the Oscar for the other film she did the same year, Annie Hall. Still, Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a solid and intriguing film, which offered the first substantial film roles to Richard Gere and Tom Berenger. Keaton is a repressed Catholic school teacher who works with deaf children. In the midst of the sexual revolution, she discovers her own appetite for carnal pleasure--but tries to keep it physical, avoiding emotional entanglement, until she meets Mr. Really Wrong. Keaton is solid but director Richard Brooks can't keep this from dragging. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

The Best Film of The 1970s
Some of these reviewers (the negative ones) are rather simple-minded as to the entire concept of the film. The one reviewer who mentioned the "cheapness" of the film simply did not get it. The "cheapness" was the entire point of the atmosphere as the allure of Terry's life and how she felt about herself. I watched the film three times and I am not grasping why a few of the reviewers mention how "slow" the film was. There was nothing "slow" about it at all. The point of the beginning was included for the audience to get to know and to care about the character. I am sure that the very same "reviewers" who complained about the "slowness" of the film would have just as well complained if the beginning scenes had not explained the character's story. Some of the reviewers are very mature (and that helps others to decide logically as to whether or not to purchase this film) and some are very childish (which really doesn't help at all in the selection process!).

If you want slasher garbage, rent slasher garbage. This film is for the "thinker" not the "loafer". It is amazing that the negative commentaries are from those who have never really become a screenplay writer or a director of any kind. Most viewers have no idea of what it takes to organize and shoot a film of quality.

Grow up America!!! Not ALL films will be to your liking and they cannot be. It's impossible to please everyone with regards to writing or filmmaking. And to the one reviewer who felt that this film was a "downer": Hello! It was meant to be! It wasn't written for the comedic driven audience. That's why it's called a "Drama". It does not suppose to make you "feel good". Rent 'Sabrina' if you want to "feel good". If you are moody and intense, then, this movie is for audience-types who truly appreciate realistic themes with drama based momentum. It's not called "Looking for Disney's Magic Kingdom" for Pete's sake!! It's not the garbage which is portrayed in the typical mainstream stupidity like "13 going on 30" or anything with J.Lo or the typical Lindsey Lohan/Jennifer Aniston variety~ or anything with those damned twins~ (whom which many of us cannot at all relate to anyway thus the reason that not all films are made for everyone~ I personally wish that there were more films directed and written with a deliberate and thought-provoking style as "Goodbar". I personally am tired of un- original, dull, and silly remakes and rip-offs of other films. It's time to bring back older quality actors and quality story telling as this film demonstrates in very fine realistic style.

What happened to the quality in filmmaking? It's time to bring this back and it's time to stop catering to the simpleton plot crowd. We need better story development writers (like 'Veronica Guerin') and talented actors who are willing to risk the criticism. Cautionary tales are great for the mind. This country needs to be challenged to learn to think more than to be cheaply entertained ALL OF THE TIME.

You will not find another Keaton or another Richard Brooks (director). The gritty reality of loneliness and bedraggled low-self-esteem of the character is part of an art form in this film and in its own way life is imitating art and even vice- versa. This movie is for grown-ups and not for grown adolescents who must have the visual action force at every single moment. The build-up from beginning to end is what brings superiority to this film. If you want a "pick me up" try "comedy"(plenty of it) and if you want an action movie try "action-adventure"(too much of it); if you want to grow up, check this film out!!

A glimpse of what cinema can be.
This is raw, risk-taking cinema--from the no-holds-barred performance of a lifetime by Dianne Keaton to the bold and imaginative direction of Richard Brooks. Moreover, it captures the woman's point of view more convincingly than any other film that comes to mind. As spectators we remain inside Keaton's head as well as capable of judging her in her obsessive, doomed quest for personal fulfillment at all costs. The sordid climax (no wonder profit-dependent Hollywood swore off such films) is all the more remarkable because we see it through the eyes of the victim. When Dianne Keaton's desire and death wish converge and she loses the capacity to see, the movie necessarily fades to black as well.

I was so blown away by the film that I immediately read its literary source. This is one of the few times the book has proved a disappointment compared to the movie. As a prose stylist, Judy Rossner doesn't begin to match the artistry of Keaton and Brooks not to mention the psychological depth that is normally off limits to a medium as surface-bound as film.

Annie Hall Meets Mr. Goodbar
Released in 1977 and based on Judith Rossner's best-seller, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" was touted as the star turn for Diane Keaton, but it was "Annie Hall" that swept her to the Academy podium that year. A Catholic teacher of deaf children, Keaton's portrayal of a sexually repressed woman looking for scores in all the wrong places is unsettling in an generally inaudacious - and brutal - film. But, the talent that she is, Keaton keeps our attention and is nearly upstaged by Tuesday Weld in an Oscar-nominated supporting role. "Goodbar" takes us to the darker side of casual sexal encounters and issues a warning that we ought not delve too deeply into the darkness without a light on in our brains. The film also marked the first substantial work of Richard Gere and Tom Berenger. But it remains Keaton who carries the film, and she does it splendidly and achieves the intended goal of making us squeamish about the dangerous underpinnings of sexual experimentation. The film's closing scene is harrowing and also achieves its own goal to send the viewer off with an unsoothed boding of doom, and it gives us no hope. Panned critically at the time, the film nonetheless is a showcase of Keaton's dramatic talents, something she'd had little chance to do until then. She alone makes the film worth watching.