Counter-Currents
Looking for Mr. Goodbar:
A Tale of Disco-Era Debauchery
Travis LeBlanc
1,758 words
Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a lesser-known 1970s Diane Keaton film, but that does not really say a lot when you consider that her well-known films from that decade include all-time classics such as The Godfather films and Woody Allen’s glory-years entries such as Annie Hall. Add to this the fact that Looking for Mr. Goodbar has been notoriously difficult to find. While it is occasionally shown on TV, it has never been released on DVD or Blu Ray and is not available on any streaming service due to music licensing issues arising from its disco-era soundtrack. But the film made a splash when it was released in 1977 and even had the distinction of being the movie that ended Star Wars’ 15-week run at the top of the box office.
Looking for Mr. Goodbar is about Theresa Dunn, an Irish Catholic woman living a double life as a dedicated teacher of special needs first-graders by day, while she is a bar-hopping, pill-popping floozy at night who cruises the shadier Chicago dives looking for random sexual encounters while developing an unhealthy taste for the hip, new era-defining drug: cocaine. Rather than being an all-time classic, Looking for Mr. Goodbar is an of-its-time classic. It is set in the disco era, when the seeds of the sexual revolution that had been sown in the 1960s were starting to bear fruit. The picture that was beginning to emerge was not a pretty one.
The film was based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name, which was in turn based on the real-life murder of Roseann Quinn in 1973. Roseann Quinn was a New York schoolteacher who was murdered by a man who she brought home from a singles bar. The Quinn murder became something of a cause célèbre for conservatives at the time, who held it up as a cautionary tale about the dangers of female sexual liberation and an example of what might happen to bad girls who reject the traditional path of marriage and motherhood.
Director Richard Brooks had been around since Hollywood’s Golden Age, when he wrote and/or directed films starring Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster, and Bette Davis. Arguably, Brooks’ most culturally significant film was Blackboard Jungle, which is famous for being the first movie to have rock ‘n’ roll music on its soundtrack and is credited with bringing the emerging genre to the mainstream. The film’s theme song, “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets, who are sometimes considered the first white rock stars, shot to #1 on the pop charts as a result of the movie — the first rock ‘n’ roll song to do so.
As Looking for Mr. Goodbar opens, Theresa is still in college and in the midst of an affair with her married college professor, Martin. While she worships the ground Martin walks on, he is devoid of warmth and is loath to express any genuine affection to his co-ed concubine. Martin breaks off the affair after Theresa attempts to call him at home. It is implied that Martin will inevitably move on to the next smitten co-ed, and Theresa is left feeling used and humiliated. Having become disillusioned with romance, and now “damaged goods” marriage-wise, Theresa decides to embark on a lifestyle of casual sex with strange men.
Theresa does not do so randomly. The film provides us with some psychological motivations for her actions. Theresa had scoliosis as a child, which resulted in her having to be in a full body cast for a year, and the corrective surgery left her with an unsightly and unsexy scar. Later she learns that the condition is hereditary, and that there is a possibility that if she has a child that the kid might have to go through the same ordeal. Moreover, Theresa grew up as the mousy younger sister of Katherine, a natural sexpot who attracted male attention effortlessly. Theresa thus developed something of an inferiority complex. When we first meet her sister Katherine, she is pregnant and unsure who the father is, as she has been having multiple affairs. Katherine is played Tuesday Weld, who received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance.
Theresa moves out of her parents’ house and begins a new double life where she is both Madonna and whore. By day, she is a saintly schoolteacher of deaf children who is willing to go the extra mile to help the little tykes achieve their fullest potential. By night, she picks up men in men in bars, and as the film progresses, both the men and the bars become shadier and more disreputable. The men she picks up are usually not strapping young chads, but older men, suggesting that she is attracted to father figures (Theresa’s lousy relationship with her dad is a major subplot). By the end, she is picking up men in gay bars. One sexual encounter ends with a man leaving money on the counter, apparently believing that he just had sex with a prostitute.
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Her ability to keep these worlds apart begins to deteriorate. One night, she takes a Quaalude to get to sleep after binging on cocaine, which results in her being late for work. Her apartment also becomes infested with cockroaches, as she becomes disinterested in doing even basic housecleaning.
While an endless parade of men come in and out of Theresa’s apartment and nether regions, there are two men who become a regular presence in her life. One is James, played by William Atherton, who is an Irish Catholic welfare caseworker, and genuine “husband material.” Theresa meets James as he is about to cut off welfare support to one of her students’ parents, which would result in the family’s eviction and her student’s withdrawal from school. Theresa starts dating James with the intent of manipulating him into giving more favorable treatment to the family, and for a time, it looks like Theresa might be able to use her whorish powers for good. But James wants a traditional courtship with no sex before marriage. As Theresa becomes desensitized to the degenerate lifestyle, she has difficulty managing a normal, healthy romantic relationship, and she comes to resent James for his patriarchal expectations of her.
The other semi-constant in Theresa’s life is Tony, a rakishly handsome Italian street hoodlum played by gerbil enthusiast Richard Gere in his breakout role. Tony is anti-social, unpredictable, and unreliable, and is most definitely not relationship material. Tony is also prone to disappearing for extended periods of time to engage in a life of petty crime, only to then show up without warning, expecting sex. Theresa is nevertheless intrigued by Tony’s snaky charisma and unpredictability.
James and Tony are obviously meant to be foils. James represents safety and stability, while Tony symbolizes spontaneity and danger. And yet, both men come to resent that Theresa will not be the woman they want her to be. James is frustrated that Theresa will not be the perfect housewife, living out her traditional gender role, and Tony is frustrated that she will not become the perfect slut, available for his exclusive sexual use on his erratic whims. Both become increasingly possessive and take to stalking Theresa, which only causes her to withdraw more.
After Tony starts making idle threats, Theresa become paranoid that he will call the police on her – and then they will discover the assortment of drugs stashed around her apartment. She flushes all the drugs down the toilet and resolved to retire from the floozy lifestyle in the new year. But before that, she goes on one more night of cruising on New Year’s Eve. On this night, she meets the mentally ill repressed homosexual Gary, who she takes home. After he is unable to achieve an erection, Theresa asks him to leave. Gary interprets this as Theresa questioning his sexuality, leading to him becoming unhinged. He rapes and murders Theresa by strobe light.
While considered a drama at the time, the ending has caused some people to label Looking for Mr. Goodbar a horror movie. In fact, no less than Stephen King ranked it at #6 on his list of scariest movies.
Looking for Mr. Goodbar received mixed reviews at the time. Much of the criticism was due to the film’s deviations from the novel, which significantly change the story’s meaning. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert explains the difference:
There’s one crucial thing that Looking for Mr. Goodbar doesn’t make clear: Just because you find Mr. Goodbar doesn’t necessarily mean you were looking for him. The heroine of Judith Rossner’s bestseller was looking. Theresa was turned on to a particular flavor of self-destructive sexual experience, one involving possible danger to herself, and she played a role in bringing about her own death. In Richard Brooks’s film version, that masochistic impulse isn’t considered as openly. He gives us a Theresa who drinks too much, sleeps around too much, and takes too many drugs — but she seems more of a hedonist than a masochist. She’s looking for a combination of good times, good sex, and a father figure, for psychological reasons the movie makes all too abundantly clear. But she isn’t looking for danger, mistreatment, or death.
There were also some grumblings from liberals that the movie engaged in some slut-shaming and victim blaming. The message is that the heroine died as a result of embracing her sexual independence; if she had followed the standard patriarchal norms of marriage and motherhood, she would still be alive.
46 years after its premiere, Looking for Mr. Goodbar still packs a punch. When it was released, the sexual revolution was in its infancy and casual sex outside of marriage was a novelty. The first “singles bar” was opened in 1965. Nowadays, hookup culture is ubiquitous, and so you would think that Looking for Mr. Goodbar would seem more pedestrian to us nowadays than it is. It is in fact because the film was the product of a more traditional society that it is more harrowing. Diane Keaton’s character rejects her traditional Catholic upbringing to become a slut, which makes the story more tragic than if it were a modern retelling featuring a woman who becomes a slut because she had no tradition to reject and doesn’t know any better.
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26 comments
I’ve always wanted to see this but I gave up trying to find a copy. There are several bootleg dvds floating around but I have no idea of the quality of the film. Now I’m on the hunt for a decent copy.
I’ve actually had pretty good luck with non-Chinese boot-leggers.
OK.RU has everything. It is a Russian social media site that is like Facebook and Youtube combined and they appear to be completely indifferent copywrite law. It’s my go-to for hard-to-find stuff: obscure made-for-TV movies, out-of-print movies, rare cult films…
In the case of Looking for Mr Goodbar, there is currently a low-quality version on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NatpKB5Nf6Y
It appears readily available on Amazon on dvd…see this is why our side is losing so bad.
Most of those available are Region 2.
You may be right. They say it’s an Australian bootleg cleverly disguised.
I think it is region one, but the reviews say it is in fact a high quality bootleg. It is true that there has never been an official release on dvd.
‘Looking for Mr. Goodbar’ is a horror film.
The other ‘domestic horror’ film from that era is ‘Cruising’ starring Al Pacino.
Cruising is an interesting movie and worth watching if for no other reason than for its immense historical value as a depiction of the New York City gay scene on the eve of the AIDS crisis.
Fun fact: Friedkin actually based that movie off some real life killings in NYC’s gay “community.” Even more fun fact: the real life killer actually played one of the medical techs in Friedkin’s own The Exorcist.
Like I said, ‘Cruising’ is a horror film.
TCM occasionally plays the movie. After I watched it on TCM, I looked up the real life account of the woman it was based on.
On a tangent, Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco is good, covering some of the same territory, and showing some of the devastation of the Sexual Revolution, but with a lot of humor. It includes some very good disco music, and this is coming from someone who sympathized with the infamous “Disco Demolition” event in Chicago. Watch out for George Plimpton’s little cameo scene! 🙂
Speaking of Stillman, his movie Metropolitan is outstanding, and I think it would be enjoyed by a lot of readers here.
Definitely a film a cut above the mainstream fare of the day. In just following the logic of the storyline, without being preachy, it remains a film both the left and right find something worth debating. These out of print films can often be found online by searching the film name + “watch online”. Also on archive:
https://archive.org/details/looking-for-mr-goodbar
A crappy, stupid movie with no redeeming value.
Maybe but I think it sociologically interesting as a snapshot of where the culture was at a specific point in history. Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a movie that could only have been made in 1977. I have a thing for movies like that.
Yeah, I like watching cinematic “artifacts” like that, too. While I’ve never seen Looking for Mr. G, some movies that I think are uniquely a product of their era are: Easy Rider, Harold and Maude, Over the Edge, River’s Edge, and Midnight Cowboy.
Over The Edge is amazing! Probably my favorite teens gone wild type film(aside from River’s Edge) with an awesome soundtrack. So many quotable moments.
“Hey Ritchie, quit playing! I can’t swim!”
“Grow fins, turkey.”
“Eat it, ya stinkin pig!!”
Taxi Driver is perhaps the ultimate example. A lot of Taxi Driver‘s appeal is how it transports you to 1975 New York. It would be impossible to remake Taxi Driver and have feel as 1970s as the original. With all the CGI and AI available today, they could make it look 1970s but it wouldn’t still wouldn’t feel as 1970s.
It’s easily my favorite Scorsese film. You can almost feel the grit and grime of the shithole that was Times Square seeping through the screen. Bernard Herrmann’s jazz score complemented it perfectly.
I saw this depressing movie at the time and loathed it. The film would be perfect to show to novice monks as it would put them off sex for life.
Peter Yates’s The Deep – also from 1977 – is good, clean fun. Jacqueline Bisset swimming underwater, wearing only a T-shirt for a top, is said to have made the wet T-shirt contest a thing. So another era-defining film!
Best film on the hollow pleasures of the late 70s and easily the bleakest ending to any Hollywood movie ever.
I actually saw the film when it came out, and find this review enjoyable in evoking an era.
The film is basically a study of the road to ruin, and I recall the writer of a self-defense manual say that the main character in this film pretty much got what she asked for.
It was hard to feel much sympathy for Theresa, but the film caught a tangent in women wanting to screw around, have their way, and yet become dissatisfied and refusing to simply find a good man and settle down. This kind of woman has pretty much satiated our life and culture now. Theresa Dunn was a pioneer to the Kardashians and a baker’s dozen of other sleaze bags. It also reminds me of Keaton’s strength as an actress. She isn’t much to look at, and really went in for the frump look, but she had a kind of everyday look that the 70’s, breaking away from glamour, craved. By no means could you ever call Keaton glamorous, but she fit the period.
I also noted the negative view of the queer lifestyle. It was, I thought, rough and honest, and
an example of the 70’s openness, rather like Midnight Cowboy. I watched both films, and have no desire to ever see them again. They’re good films, but once is enough.
“But she wasn’t looking for danger, mistreatment, or death.” Yet she was. It was in the cards for her from the start, as we all follow destructive paths that we disdain but subliminally want. Sort of like an America and the West that, while going for freedom and carnality, secretly craves death.
we all follow destructive paths that we disdain but subliminally want.
To the extent that this is what is really going on, isn’t it programmed by by the valorisation of false virtues, the pursuit of which does not provide us with any self-respect.
Nice review and summary. I remember well when this came out. I didn’t see it because I thought the subject matter repellent and sensationalistic.
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