Main Cast: Richard Benjamin, Ali MacGraw, Jack Klugman, Nan Martin, Michael Meyers
Release Year: 1969
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Based on one of author Phillip Roth's shorter works, Goodbye Columbus stars Richard Benjamin as Neil, a young man of humble means who falls in love with Jewish-American-princess Brenda (Ali MacGraw). Their romance is out of the question so far as Brenda's suburbanite parents are concerned, so Neil and Brenda rendezvous in some of the sleaziest motels ever seen in a 1960s film (and that assessment includes The Bates Motel). Unwilling to take birth control pills because they upset her tummy, Brenda opts for a diaphragm, which unfortunately is discovered by her mother. Their rocky relationship comprises the bulk of the film. The trendy, New Wave-influenced direction by Larry Peerce gained a great deal of critical attention in 1969, notably such self-indulgent devices as having a close-up of a girl's navel dissolve into a long-shot of a swimming pool. Far more memorable is Peerce's amusingly straight-on depictions of upper-class Jewish/American social functions. In their film debuts, Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw are appealingly awkward; the more memorable performance is delivered by Michael Meyers as MacGraw's adenoidal younger brother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Lori Shelle - Julie; Royce Wallace - Carlotta; Sylvie Strauss - Aunt Gladys; Kay Cummings - Doris; Michael Nurie - Don Farber; Monroe Arnold - Uncle Leo; Elaine Swain - Sarah Ehrlich; Richard Wexler - Busboy; Rube Schaffer - Uncle Max; Mari Gorman - Simp; Gail Ommerle - Harriet; Bill Deeringer - John McKee; Betty Grayson - Aunt Molly; Jan Peerce - Wedding Guest; Chris Schenkel; Jaclyn Smith - Model; Ray Baumel; Anthony McGowan; Delos V. Smith
Credit
Manny Gerard - Art Director, Gene Coffin - Costume Designer, Steve Barnett - First Assistant Director, Larry Peerce - Director, Ralph Rosenblum - Editor, Charles Fox - Composer (Music Score), Andrew Ciannella - Makeup, Gerald Hirschfeld - Cinematographer, David M. Walsh - Cinematographer, Stanley Jaffe - Producer, Arnold Schulman - Screenwriter, Philip Roth - Book Author
Neil Klugman (Richard Benjamin) is a highly intelligent, working class army veteran and graduate of Rutgers University who earns a living as a library clerk. He falls in love with Brenda Patimkin (Ali MacGraw), a wealthy student at Radcliffe College who is at home for the summer. The consequent obstacles that they face from Brenda's family, (particularly her father portrayed by Jack Klugman) due to differences in class and assimilation into the American mainstream, create the central conflicts of the film. Morality and propriety differences related to the premarital sex and the possibilities of ill-timed pregnancies, consist of the more imposing conflicts, and the ones proving impossible to resolve.
