Word: glorias
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...GLORIA...
...torpedo the narrative structure. What is meant as a species of cinema verite may too easily become as specious as old-fashioned movie-star acting. Cassavetes is a deadly serious director, but his films are best seen as rickety star vehicles. His most shining star-his Bette Davis, his Gloria Swanson, his Joan Blondell-is his wife Gena Rowlands. In Gloria, he has finally realized her strengths and her limitations, and has cranked out a passable imitation of those '30s gangster movies with brassy broads and sassy tots, a Methodical Little Miss Marked Woman...
...Gloria Swenson (get it?) was once a chorine and a mobster's moll. Now she's on the lam from her old pals, with a neighbor's Puerto Rican son in tow. For two hours of screen time, Gloria and tough little Phil (and the movie) meander around Manhattan because the Mob has covered all the bus, train and air terminals and the fugitives never think to rent a car. But nothing fazes Gloria, who smokes Salems down through the filters, talks cheekily with hoods and, in defense of her ward and for the sheer hell...
...Gloria is also a golddigger with a heart of gold and Gloria is the story of two hard people coming to terms with love and trust. The movie's achievement is that it manages to be almost as effective as it is predictable. Its failure is in pretending to a naturalism it cannot maintain whenever movie actress and movie crew go slumming through the Big Apple and bystanders gawk into the lens, auditioning for stardom in some future Cassavetes film...
While the Betty Freidans and Gloria Steinems stole the limelight and the headlines during the peak of the women's movement, these women watched from the sidelines, wondering if Women's Lib would ever have any relevance to them. But now they are speaking out. And they think what they have to say could greatly affect American society...