Goodbye, Columbus (1969) - Young stars glimmer in Peerce's good Roth adaptation

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'Every father's daughter is a virgin' the diminutive tagline reads on the sensual image of  Ali McGraw with a rose on the cusp of blooming on this poster for Larry Peerce's Goodbye, Columbus

A young military veteran, who works at the local library and carries on his life with a comfortably loose hand, falls in love with the beautiful Brenda, who comes from a well-to-do Jewish family...

 

Goodbye, Columbus is written by Arnold Schulman (A Hole in the Head (1959)), adapting Philip Roth's (Everyman (2006)) same-titled 1959 novella, and directed by Larry Peerce (One Potato, Two Potato (1964)).

It is a zeitgeist type youth romance-drama with lots of skin; from the early pool scene to the later love scenes, some are natural and sexy, too. It today offers an interesting snapshot of its times, but it also has good performances from Richard Benjamin (Scavenger Hunt (1979)) and Ali McGraw (Players (1979)), as well as a refined sensibility, which may come from Roth's basis work.

SPOILER In the end the relationship, which is especially trialed by her bourgeois family, breaks - because she has forgotten her diaphragm! An authentic and painful fight becomes their end.

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 1.5 mil. $

Box office: 22.9 mil. $ (North America alone)

= Mega-hit (returned 15.26 times its cost in North America alone)

[Goodbye, Columbus was released 3 April (USA) and runs 102 minutes. Shooting took place in July 1968 - ? in New York and Massachusetts. The film's 10.5 mil. $ in rentals made it the #10 top-grossing title in North America of the year; the gross is reported at 22.9 mil. $ and foreign grosses are unreported online, regrettably. The film was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, lost to Waldo Salt for Midnight Cowboy. It won 1/3 Golden Globe nominations and was nominated for 3 BAFTAs among other honors. Peerce returned with The Sporting Club (1971). Benjamin returned in Catch-22 (1970); McGraw in Love Story (1970). Goodbye, Columbus is fresh at 92 % with a 7.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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