Word: misses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When Stewart Stern wrote Rachel, Rachel for Miss Woodward, he displayed a gift for biting dialogue and for transforming ordinary situations into sequences that carry a sharp sting of recognition. The same ability is repeated here, notably at a family funeral where the mourners try to hide their dislike of one another. Gilbert Gates directed I Never Sang for My Father, an underrated film that was also about family tensions. He shows himself once again to be an unpretentious director with a talent for worming himself to the emotional core of characters and scenes...
...Miss Woodward, there is no more authentic, believably feminine spirit on the screen today. In Summer Wishes she is brittle, cold, hysterical, but above all a woman who knows that she is lost and is in desperate search of herself. It is a lovely performance, almost matched by Balsam. Cannily holding back until he revisits Bastogne, where he fought in World War II-and where he was last fully alive-he shows us the center of a character deeper, more mysterious than we had imagined...
...concludes satisfyingly but not resoundingly, its people merely having lived a little more and learned a little more-mostly about the need to accept themselves and those who are close to them. If she had her life to live over, Rita says at one point, "I'd still miss all the things I missed and I'd still do all the things I hated." Maybe so. But at the end one feels that, given a second chance, she might manage with more grace and with less pain for others. Meanwhile, her example is worth pondering-and seeing...
...Merritt portrays Nathan with an appropriate and consistent accent, and possesses a good sense of timing. There are several fine comic moments between Nathan and his fiancee of fourteen years, Miss Adelaide (Joann Beckson). Miss Beckson is outstanding, bringing to the role all of the necessary chintziness and gum-cracking, charm, coupled with a comic flair and a powerful voice. Her rendition of "Adelaide's Lament" is delightful, as is her duet with Nathan...
Backing up Miss Beckson are the eight Hot Box Girls who handle their Busby Berkeley-ish routines with adequate precision. However, in "Take Back Your Mink," their strip-tease number which features skin-tone body stockings with strategically-placed, appliqued hearts, the Hot Box Girls appear more embarrassed than their audience...