GOODBYE, COLUMBUS 1969

One of the things I liked most about film critic Pauline Kael was how much her passion for film mirrored my own. Even when we didn't see eye-to-eye about certain films and performances, I always enjoyed how she poked fun at her own pseudo-sexual obsession with movies in the titles of her books: I Lost it at the Movies, Going Steady, Reeling. Kael, the late film critic for The New Yorker, was in a class by herself when it came to legitimizing the sensual side of that inter-sensory experience we call moviegoing. 

I'm a huge film fan and it’s easy for me to enjoy a (reasonably) wide spectrum of movies from perspectives academic and analytical. But in order for me to truly fall in love with a movie, it has to hit me on some deeply visceral, highly subjective emotional level. It has to contain what I call “the goosebump moment”; a spontaneous physical/emotional response (it needn't last more than a moment) independent of aesthetic qualifiers. A moment in the film that engages my heart, spirit, or imagination in a way that overrides the cerebral. Such a sensation takes me to a place where I’m experiencing a film more than just watching it.

In Goodbye, Columbus, my goosebump moment occurs less than two minutes into the film. It's when this rapturous vision called an Ali MacGraw dives into a sun-dappled pool of water and becomes, right before my eyes and in dreamy slow-motion, the ethereal vision of what “love at first sight” feels like. This almost Freudian commingling of woman, water, and weightlessness (infinitely enhanced by the very '60s sound of the pop band The Association on the soundtrack) rates right up there with Barbarella’s zero-gravity striptease as one of the most magical and erotically-charged title sequences I've ever seen.

Nymph Errant

Of course, I wasn't the only one who fell in love with Ms. MacGraw that spring of ‘69. My infatuation fell somewhere in line behind Richard Benjamin’s onscreen character, Paramount production head Robert Evans (the two would marry later that same year), and what seemed at the time to be the entire male and female population of North America. Although Goodbye, Columbus represented the film debuts of both Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw, it was former fashion model MacGraw who was given the "Introducing" credit and emerged as the instant superstar of the '70s. Revisiting this film 43 years later, it's still easy to understand why.

Richard Benjamin as Neil Klugman

Ali MacGraw as Brenda Patimkin

Jack Klugman as Ben Patimkin

Nan Martin as Mrs. Patimkin

Michael Meyers as Ron Patimkin

Lori Schelle as Julie Patimkin

Goodbye, Columbus (adapted from Phillip Roth’s 1959 bestselling debut novella) is one of the best of the many coming-of-age films released in the wake of The Graduate. It's a seriocomic look at Jewish identity, class conflict, and changing sexual mores as seen through the prism of a heated summer romance between Bronx poor-boy Neil Klugman (Benjamin) and nouveau riche Westchester goddess Brenda Patimkin (MacGraw).

Like the novel, the film release of Goodbye, Columbus was met with controversy related to its frank sexuality (subtle nudity and frank discussion of diaphragms, sex, and the like) and what many perceived to be an offensive depiction of Jewish culture. 

Neil lives in the Bronx with his Uncle Leo (Monroe Arnold) and Aunt Gladys (Sylvie Strause)

The position taken was that Roth's broadly satiric take on the Jewish middle class leaned too heavily toward caricature and stereotyping, resulting in a vision more representative of antisemitic self-loathing than class commentary. As for the film's once-bold sexual content, Goodbye, Columbus today feels really rather restrained and surprisingly gentle-natured. So much so that the R-rated film was eventually re-rated as PG for DVD release with nary a cut to the original print.

Brenda, a student at Radcliffe, spends the summer at the home of her parents,
a shrine to their material success

Goodbye, Columbus was a huge hit in 1969, but over time, it has somewhat faded from the public's memory. Puzzling, because the film is smart, insightful, funny as hell, and contains the best screen performances of several members of its cast.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Arnold Shulman’s deservedly Oscar-nominated screenplay for Goodbye, Columbus is a slavishly faithful adaptation of Philip Roth’s funny novella - a library paperback copy I remember taking to junior high school with the intention of poring over the “dirty parts” with my friends during lunch period. I've seen many films about poor boys falling in love with rich girls, the girls always WASP fantasy figures serving double-duty as totems of the attainable virtues of the American Dream. In having the working-class Jewish boy fall for a Jewish-American princess, Roth not only revitalizes the familiar tropes of the rich girl/poor boy romance but adds an ethnic perspective to the American Dream fantasy. 

Director Larry Peerce (with a screenplay by Funny Lady writer Arnold Schulman) present the contrasts of Neil  Klugman's bohemian Jewish intellectualism with Brenda's materialism in broad strokes sometimes, but the social satire is keen and behind the at-whose-expense? humor is a great deal of emotional poignancy.

In one of my favorite scenes, Jack Klugman (who's really terrific) gives voice to the film's tagline: "Every father's daughter is a virgin" and expresses the elder perspective of the '60s Generation Gap issue.

Neil Klugman and Brenda Patimkin are no Romeo & Juliet, but they’re certainly a young couple who start out on a romance with several strikes against them. I’ve always thought the intense sexual aspect of their relationship figured so prominently in the film because both Neil and Brenda seem to be working off a lot of repressed resentments and rebellious impulses through each other. Bookish Neil, college-educated, intellectual, almost passive-aggressive in his aimlessness, is a stark contrast to the ambitious, go-getter Country Club types Brenda usually dates. Neil’s humble Bronx background (son of Jewish immigrants) may mirror that of Brenda’s crass-but-sweet father (Jack Klugman), but his lack of ambition (i.e. middle-class assimilation/ Jewish-erasure) represents everything her upwardly-mobile family (who've only recently struck it rich through Mr. Patimkin’s plumbing-fixture business) is trying to leave behind.

One look at Brenda's acrimonious relationship with her mother (Nan Martin) is enough to confirm suspicions that perhaps Brenda’s attraction to Neil, a man so obviously unsuitable (ostensibly to her parents, but also, one senses, even to her in the final analysis), feels less like true love than a subconscious act of rebellion against her parents' stifling values.

If Neil represents perhaps a mutinous lark on Brenda's part, beyond a physical attraction to her beauty, it's hard to discern what exactly Neil is looking for in Brenda. Like one of those guys who courts the prettiest, sexiest girl in school only to spend a lifetime berating her for cashing in on her looks; Neil purports to be in love with the rich, spoiled, daddy’s girl, but rarely lets a moment pass where he isn't being critical of what he deems to be her corrupted values and false priorities. Whether it be her nose job, contact lenses, the shallowness of her friends, or the materialism of her parents, there’s a thinly veiled aggression to his jibes that makes you wonder if perhaps he’s not drawn to her out of some barely acknowledged desire to punish American Jews who seek to deny their Jewishness.

Of course, I love that Goodbye, Columbus has a scene where our couple sneaks into a moviehouse playing my all-time favorite film, Rosemary's Baby. At another time in the film, they repeat the ritual at a theater featuring The Odd Couple. No coincidence,  Rosemary's Baby and The Odd Couple are shameless plugs for Paramount films- the producers of Goodbye, Columbus.

The ethnic angle is is why I've always had a thing for Goodbye, Columbus, and why I’m surprised its reputation never remained in step with other seminal films of the '60s. It’s a romantic comedy, yes; a coming-of-age film, certainly. But perhaps its humor did too good a job of masking what I think is a provocative issue related to ethnic heritage, youth, and identity in the culturally rebellious climate of the late-'60s. White American youth was rejecting the materialism and false values of their middle-class parents. But if you were Black, Asian, Jewish, an immigrant, or any member of a historically disenfranchised people, it's likely that your parents, if fortunate, had only recently gained access to the kind of materialistic privileges white youths were finding so distasteful. 

Did assimilation into the American middle-class automatically signal a loss of ethnic identity? Did the progeny of immigrant parents or the ancestors of slaves dishonor their parents if they rejected the fruits of their struggles to attain a piece of the American Dream?  your race? 

There was definitely a Generation and Culture Gap waging in America during the late-'60s, but Goodbye, Columbus was one of the few films to look it through a perspective of the gains and losses of American middle-class assimilation.

The historical exclusion of ethnic groups from country clubs, colleges, and athletics is satirically contrasted with Goodbye, Columbus' wealthy, assimilated Jewish-Americans portrayed as athletics-obsessed members of their own exclusive country clubs and the preppiest of prep school undergrads.

This was certainly an issue for me as an African-American youth. My parents (staunch assimilationists) were realizing the American Dream just at the cusp of the Black Power movement. By the mid-'70s we had moved into a tony, predominantly-white, upper-middle-class suburb and realized all the benefits my grandparents had fought so hard for. Was it my place to confront my parents with arguments about selling out, or accuse them of embracing materialistic values when they had struggled and fought so hard to overcome so much in a racist society that sought to prohibit their access to these very things? And in the pursuit of assimilation into the larger culture, what unique values of character and racial authenticity did we lose or compromise? Goodbye, Columbus has been labeled superficial by many critics, but I have always seen at its core, a terrifically thorny social issue entertainingly addressed.

PERFORMANCES:

In her 1991 memoir Moving Pictures, Ali MacGraw makes no bones about her limitations as an actress, and this is of course true (although she’s extremely good in 1980s Just Tell Me What You Want). But being limited isn't the same as being bad. MacGraw may not have range, but she has presence. Real star-quality. And, under the guidance of a particularly strong director — as she seems to have here with Larry Peerce — she can be very effective. She's beautiful to be sure, but the character of Brenda is supposed to convey a sharp intelligence and sense of self-possession which suggests to Neil that she herself seeks an alternative to the stultified life her parents want for her. MacGraw captures this quality extremely well. Perhaps it’s because she’s playing a typed role, but I like Ali MacGraw’s performance in Goodbye, Columbus more than any other in her career.

As Brenda's gentle-natured, jock brother, Ron (here, with jockstrap in hand, lost in bittersweet reverie listening to a recording of his glory days as star basketball player at Ohio State - the source of the film's title) newcomer Michael Meyers makes a scene-stealing impression. Richard Benjamin, who would build a career playing variations on this character in several films throughout the '70s, is a solid lead and near-flawless master of the deadpan take.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY:

With all my comments about the film's ethnic/cultural subtext, I don’t want to give the impression that Goodbye, Columbus is a deeply serious drama. It’s really an at-times hilarious comedy of manners that offers more than the usual food for thought for the typical '60s Generation Gap film. Some characters may seem a tad broadly drawn, but (more's the pity) I can’t say that there’s a single individual or type in this film that I haven’t actually encountered at some time in my life. Some within my own family!

More befitting appetite suppression than stimulation, this line of reasoning has nevertheless remained popular with American parents for generations.

This wedding scene drew a lot of criticism for being over-the-top and more burlesque than authentic. Well, those critics clearly haven't attended enough weddings. In fact, the behavior displayed here at the wedding buffet table is tragi-comically similar to what I witnessed at the reception following my father's funeral. 

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I’m aware that many of the things I’m fondest of in Goodbye, Columbus (the Charles Fox music score, the montages, the class-distinction humor, the appeal of Ali MacGraw) are the very things that don’t resonate very strongly with audiences today. Still, there is much in the uniformly fine performances and witty screenplay that makes me categorize Goodbye, Columbus as something of a neglected classic. If the film has any flaws, perhaps its biggest (and ultimately costliest) is in laying on the ethnic humor so heavily that some of the more thoughtful, perceptive points of Roth's novel are lost or at the very least, blunted.

Neil Klugman, a kind of reverse Gatsby, is ambivalent about his feelings towards wealth and the kind of life Brenda leads. He responds to and identifies with an African-American youth who comes daily to the library to stare at the pictures in a book of prints by Paul Gauguin depicting the colorful dreamscapes of Tahiti. Benjamin and the young actor (Anthony McGowan) share a kind of heartbreaking chemistry in these scenes that brings a tear to my eye every time. 

I've written in earlier essays about how You’re A Big Boy Now and The Graduate stick in my mind as my top favorites of the '60s coming-of-age films. But as much as I enjoy and admire those films, I can't deny that Goodbye, Columbus is the one I regard as both the funniest and most emotionally satisfying overall. If one cares to look beyond the occasionally overstressed humor, it's a movie that really has a lot on its mind and a lot to say. Also, I can't ignore the fact that it's the only film of the three to have given me my “goosebump moment.”

If there's a sequence that strikes me as having not aged particularly well, it's the scene where Neil is shocked that Brenda is so cavalier about not taking birth control. For some reason, it never hit me in the same way in past years, but now, as I watch Neil rant and rave about Brenda's so-called carelessness, I always think "Then wear a condom, Mr. Intellectual!"  

That scene presages the film's conclusion. Filmed almost exclusively in two-shot during their romance, Brenda and Neil's eventual estrangement is dramatized in a scene of mounting tension that denies their sharing of the same frame. The couple, miles apart in their ideologies and principles, realize at last that they are from two different worlds.

Goodbye, Columbus opened Wednesday, April 9, 1969 at the Crest Theater in Westwood

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2012