I Ought to Be in Pictures (1982)
Grandmother has nothing to say when Libby tells her that she is off to LA to look up Dad, a Hollywood screenwriter. Grandmother has been in a New York cemetery for six years and Dad has been out of Libby's life for 16 of her 19 years. Libby arrives in LA on a Tuesday and phones Dad the one night that Stephanie, who does Jane Fonda's hair, stays over. Stephanie is there the next morning when Libby decides she needs to tell her story face-to-face.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
Wonderful Movie
Instant Favorite.
I wanted to but couldn't!
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
Every once in a while, you watch a random film, and hours, days, weeks, a lifetime later, it's one you find you just never forget.This, for me, is one of those films.Flying under the radar, and IMMENSELY underrated, this one quietly showed up in 1982, and then seemed to be gone and forgotten about, by nearly everyone.Though it did have a video (vhs) release, criminally, it was never released on DVD.But now, the little film that could, is FINALLY available on DVD, as part of 20th Century Fox's Cinema Archives series.Maybe, just maybe, the rest of the world will now slowly catch on to this sneaky little gem of a movie, and find themselves remembering it hours, days, weeks.......or even a lifetime later.
Wonderful film with Neil Simon again showing that he is the master of writing.Dinah Manoff is just marvelous as the precocious 19 year old who goes to California to see the dad she hasn't seen in 16 years.The film is touching as it first shows that Matthau knows so little about his daughter (and son) but then as the film goes on, he shows all the attributes that a father shows.As Matthau's girlfriend, Ann-Margret is very good. The picture itself provides no screaming of usual Matthau antics. He is genuine here in every sense of the word.The film shows the strong bond that is formed and we're sorry when Libby takes the bus back to N.Y. At least, there is a commitment by the father to keep in touch. We also have to wonder what kind of woman he was married to that drove him away years before.
which had been performed on Broadway in the mid-late 70's. It was an interesting and light generational & family piece which centers around a teenager girl arriving at the home of her long-absconded father. Dad turns out to be the opposite of everything a girl could have hoped for, a slovenly failure living in a run-down home in L.A. Dinah Manhoff (the daughter of Lee Grant) and Walter Matthau do fine job of father and daughter battling guilt, anger, expectations, hopes and dreams. A line I remember well comes when Ms. Manhoff is berating Mr. Matthau for his failures as a father by comparing him to the steadfast grandmother who raised her and her brother "My grandmother was my father." Catch this little seen film if you can.
This is a modest but affecting little film. Besides his gift for one-line zingers, Neil Simon has a way of giving his characters lines that are both surprising and believable. Dinah Manoff is perhaps a bit abrasively cooky at first, but she moderates the Brooklyn shtick after awhile and comes over as more complex and real. Walter Matthau as her bewildered but finally disarmed dad is consummately believable. Ann Margaret has little to do, but she does it with superb subtlety. Just watch how well she listens and understands