Diagonaldi Very well executed

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

summer1111dg This was the introduction of Ali MacGraw to movie audiences. I can't think of anyone who could have played Brenda Patimkin more believably. She is perfectly cast, as the spoiled, self-involved, smart, gorgeous princess daughter of a wealthy Jewish family. No one plays spoiled, bright and beautiful better than Ali MacGraw.I also love Richard Benjamin as her unmotivated, anything but ambitious suitor, Neil Klugman. He is the antithesis of everything Brenda and her family epitomize. The dichotomy is that while he espouses supposed disdain for all they represent -- he is more than willing to be seduced.There is a classic scene where Neil is stuffing his pockets full of grapes and is caught by the younger sister. He tries to hide the fact that his pockets are gorged with luscious fruit. But she calls him out on what he is doing.The romance is a departure for Brenda. Neil, though Jewish, is a forbidden fruit of sorts. He is not ambitious or destined to be successful husband material. Therefore he is a completely inappropriate choice of suitor for Brenda. This of course makes him all the more attractive -- at least temporarily for Brenda who is rebelling against her mother.

wbe3 I recently saw this film again after seeing it when I was twelve (progressive Jewish parents).I didn't remember much about it except that Ali MacGraw took her clothes off, that it reminded me A lot of my family at the time, and that there was a very moving scene in a library with Richard Benjamin and a small African American boy.I was right on all counts -- Ali looks great (her first film), it STILL reminds me of my family and when I showed it to some friends of mine (also Jewish) they all said the same about their families, and the scene in the library is just as I remembered it. I was as moved today, some 36 years later, as I was back then.A wonderful comedy.

Tom DeFelice The look of the film is very 1969 (the year it came out), but the attitudes are very much 1962. Two Dartmouth students yell with glee when they meet at a party that one is Class of '64 and the other is Class of '66. Brenda, the female lead character, relates how surprised she was when as a little girl her father had shown her 2 $100 bills. She had never seen a $100 bill before.For a modern audience to enjoy this film, you have to look at it as a period piece. After all, the film's tag line is "Every father's daughter is a virgin". You know you are not in 2004. Not all of the biting satire still holds, but the romance does. Both Ali MacGraw and Jack Klugman give very warm, appealing performances.It is amazing how many thing have changed in the last 35 years...and how many thing haven't changed. An interesting film from a time when there were "good girls" and "bad girls" and a bride wearing white meant something.

Keith Orr One of the simple pleasures of viewing Woody Allen's films is you don't have to be kosher necessarily to relate to Allen's stock character of the down-trodden goy fraught with a plethora of neurosis-everything from sexual dysfunction to the nagging doubt predicated by existential angst over our natural inclination towards God and the infinite. What cheap shots Allen did throw at religion were strictly for laughs both as parody and commentary. In other words, Catholicism and Judaism suffered slings and arrows in the same measure. At the time ofthe film's release, "Goodbye, Columbus" was criticized for being "too jewish". It's simple tale of nice jewish boy meets spoiled jewish princess meets crass wealthy jewish family (who somehow along the way forgot their humblebeginnings) is met with tribulation and turmoil mostly from shrewish jewishmother inevitably leading to a parting of the ways for nice jewish boy arrived during a period in Hollywood when the youth of America were being heard atpeace marches, flag burnings, love-ins, gay and feminist movements, sexualliberation and draft dodging. From 1967-72, audiences were being treated tofilms of relevant social commentary beginning with "The Graduate" and justabout ending with the release of "Harold and Maude". It's all good as it was all about consciousness-raising. Among them, "Goodbye, Columbus" is a bit of apeon but a film that still remains a stinging comment on class-consciousAmerica in it's whole up-the-rich-screw-the-poor-warts-and-all approach tostory telling. Richard Benjamin is fine as Neil, a man smitten by Ali McGraw (her debut) as Brenda but taken aback by her family and her unremittingdependence on them. The final scene involving Brenda's willingness to commit an unconscionable act of sex sans condom and it's consequences promptingNeil's apathy to face the world wiser but at least no worse for the wear remind us of just how emotionally disconnected most Americans were in the latesixties. We were battered and bruised having come through an unpopular war .Add to that the violent demonstrations we were witnessing at home leaving anation numb if not weary. Perhaps the most evocative scene which says themost about our culture is the wedding reception for Brenda's lunkhead brother in which friends and relatives descend upon the banquet table like a plague of locusts devouring everything in sight. It sets just the right tone for the film: 'I'm so hungry, I'd eat my own kind. And only then with certain reservation.'