OT: Random TV Viewing: "Deadwood" and "Cinderella Liberty"(Hitchocck connection)
I could do these posts at their board, but I think they are more relevant here. Because they are out of my warped mind.
Spinning the cable dial:
"Cinderella Liberty" came on. 1973 -- that very good year. Everybody remembers Nicholson in " "The Last Detail that year. Both that movie and Liberty were based on "Navy novels" by a guy named Daryl Ponicisan or some such. Both movies had a lot of cussing and gave us a low-income "grunt level" view of the Navy sailor man. Nicholson in Last Detail was a bigger deal(Oscar nommed) than James Caan in Cinderella Liberty(a Navy man's "Magical" liberty leave)...but this one's interesting, too.
And I"d call it "The Marnie Climax Love Story."
For Marnie ends with the "horrific" flashback to Little Marnie being moved out of the bedroom so Hooker Mama can bed down with a sailor(Bruce Dern.) THAT story ends in murder.
Well, Cinderella Liberty begins where Marnie ends. James Caan's sailor picks up a "barroom hooker"(Marsha Mason) and goes to bed with her but learns that her pre-teen son shares the apartment(he is already sleeping on the couch, they don't have to move him.)
What Marnie saw as sexual horror, Cinderella Liberty sees as...a love story. Sailor Caan will try to save the hooker and her boy, marry the woman, raise the boy. He's a very good guy. And this is an OK, offbeat love story. 1973 style, with a Paul Williams score for schmaltz. (Remember him?)
Noteable: Marsha Mason would soon be Mrs. Neil Simon and in his scripted movies almost exclusively(including, Chapter One, with James Caan PLAYING Neil Simon under another name.) Those movies were all rather sweet and twee and square(Goodbye Girl, anyone?)
But in THIS movie, Marsha Mason does a lot of nudity, talks a lot of sex, is generally rude and crude and socially unacceptable.
I wonder if Neil Simon fell in love then and there...
(They're divorced now.)