Looking for Mr. Goodbar<\/em> reads, on paper, not too different to Annie Hall<\/em>: Keaton stars as Theresa Dunn, a young Manhattanite dealing with the pitfalls of (then) modern romance in the midst of the feminist revolution (\u201cThe Decade of the Dame,\u201d as a news broadcast in the film sarcastically refers to it). Like Woody Allen\u2019s doppelganger in Hall<\/em>, Alvy Singer, Theresa is given to comic bouts of daydreaming, which director Richard Brooks depicts in a similarly mundane manner. It even engages in some meta-comedy, having her read The Godfather at one point, and even discuss the movie (in which Keaton co-starred). Like Annie, Theresa is smart but flighty, beautiful but messy, and fiercely protective of her independence even as she finds herself attracted to demanding men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s where the comparisons stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Annie Hall<\/em> is about the ways in which those demanding, insecure men warp a free-spirited woman, Looking for Mr. Goodbar<\/em> is about how they kill her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brooks\u2019s film is an adaptation of Judith Rossner\u2019s 1975 best selling novel of the same name, itself based on the true-life murder of Roseann Quinn in 1973 by John Wayne Wilson. The broad strokes of Rossner\u2019s novel and Brook\u2019s film follow the real story: Theras Dunn is a suburban girl next door type, raised Irish Catholic in New Jersey. She moves to New York City in college and takes a job teaching deaf children. By night, she cruises local singles bars, reading and picking up men. It is one of these men who will brutally rape and stab her to death in the nightmarish climax of the film\u2014arguably the most disturbing finale in the anals of American cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The film takes some liberties with the book, which itself is a fictionalized account of Quinn\u2019s tragic story. Along with the aforementioned fantasy scenes, Brooks devotes more attention to Theresa\u2019s family life, where she is constantly butting heads with her conservative father (Richard Kiley) and lending support to her older sister (Tuesday Weld, who would receive one of the film\u2019s two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress), a similarly \u201cfallen woman\u201d whose decadent lifestyle of casual sex and drugs seems to repel Theresa even as it rubs off on her. These scenes\u2014particularly those with her father\u2014often come off like bad Paddy Chayefsky and lend credence to the film\u2019s detractors, who charge it as hamfisted in its social commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where the film comes alive is in its depiction of New York City\u2019s nightlife, which Brooks milks for all its glamour and sleaze. This is the Fun City of so many classic \u201870s dramas: we can imagine Travis Bickle creepily glaring at Theresa from across a crowded bar; her pompous ass of a professor (Alan Feinstein), with whom she embarks on her first serious affair, likely attends the same parties as Alvy Singer; while her hotshot hustler hookup Tony (Richard Gere, in one of his early breakout roles) probably turned the same tricks as Joe Buck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Brooks scores these scenes to an array of disco and soul bangers from the likes of Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Commodores, Bill Withers, Bozz Scaggs, and The O\u2019Jays, and you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a bleaker, more brutal film with as bumping a soundtrack. Said soundtrack is the main reason the film has been widely unavailable for so long, with licensing rights tangling it up until recently (a new 4K and Blu-ray edition from Vinegar Syndrome was released late last year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is one of the biggest changes Brooks makes to the story (much to the chagrin of Rossner, who publicly disparaged the film even as she praised Keaton\u2019s performance). Whereas in the novel James remains a wounded sad sack, the movie turns him into something much darker and creepier. A scene in which he fabricates a horrifying psychosexual memory of his mother and father shows him to be just as fucked up and dangerous as the other men in Theresa\u2019s life, from her rageaholic father to the violent Tony to the self-hating gay drifter Gary (Tom Berenger, in only his second film role) who will eventually murder her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike Rossner\u2019s novel, which reveals There’s death in its first pages before jumping back in time, Brooks\u2019s film doesn\u2019t tip its hand as to where it\u2019s all leading, although by the third act it is very clear that Theresa\u2019s life is in grave danger. That it is neither Tony nor James who ends up taking her life, but a stranger who only shows up in the final 15 minutes, makes the already horrifying ending even more upsetting. The idea that this film is a repudiation of feminism\u2013as many critics at the time, as well as modern reviewers on Letterboxd, claim\u2013rather than an examination of the inherently predatory nature of all men doesn\u2019t hold water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (The sole male character in the film who proves an exception is the brother of one of her students, played by a very young LeVar Burton. Initially, the brooding teen comes off as a threat, intentionally playing off white audience stereotypes, but as the film progresses he becomes a silent guardian figure. The scene in which he intervenes on behalf of Theresa and kicks the shit out of an abusive Tony earned spontaneous applause from the rep house audience I caught the movie with.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, there is a reactionary flavor to some of the material, including the decision (taken from Rossner\u2019s novel) to make Theresa\u2019s killer a gay man, when in reality, Wilson was a straight married man with children\u2014although it bears noting that Brooks complicates things by showing an act of gay bashing as the inciting incident that drives Gary over the edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, to view the film through so black-and-white a political\/moralistic framework does a disservice to it. As author Megan Abbott\u2014whose noir novels traverse the dark crossroads where female desire butts up against patriarchal violence\u2014wrote in her Letterbox review<\/a> of the film: \u201cThis isn\u2019t a movie about women paying the price for acting on their desires. It\u2019s a movie about a beset masculinity, men in perpetual crisis post-sexual revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That this film is more relevant than ever in 2025 is a devastating confirmation of everything Brooks, Keaton, and co. were trying to say here. Mr. Goodbar is still out there, god help us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” is available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray<\/a> from Vinegar Syndrome. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/goodbar2-1024x576.jpg\")
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The crux of the narrative revolves around Theresa\u2019s love life, particularly her push-pull relationship with the scuzzy but sexy Tony and seemingly nice guy social worker James (William Atherton). Theresa is upfront with both men about what she wants from them (\u201cDon\u2019t love me, just make love to me\u201d), but of course all this does is make them more possessive.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n