Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Richard Brooks’s adaptation of Judith Rossner’s notorious bestseller, inspired by the 1973 murder of Roseann Quinn, caused quite a stir at the time of its release, announcing itself as a polarizing pop-cultural touchstone in a climate of rapidly shifting sexual mores. Keaton’s dramatic turn in this dark story of fleeting intimacy and wrenching isolation marked a bracing departure from her Oscar-winning comedic tour de force in the same year’s Annie Hall. The star’s extraordinary range is on full display in her embodiment of Theresa Dunn, a keenly sensitive, independent-minded schoolteacher with a penchant for trawling dimly lit singles bars, seeking a good time in the company of men whose own appetites, confronted with the encroaching reality of women’s liberation, might veer at any moment into vindictive aggression. Tuesday Weld earned an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role as the daddy’s-favorite sister, in a cast that also features breakthrough performances by Richard Gere and Tom Berenger.