All Night Long

Gene Hackman plays a man who was just fired from his executive job. He's demoted to being the night manager at a 24 hour drug store. He doesn't get along with his wife (Diane Ladd) or his 18 year old son Freddie (played by 26 year old Dennis Quaid). Freddie is sleeping around with his 4th cousin Cheryl (Barbra Streisand). George tries to put a stop to it and Cheryl dumps Freddie and starts sleeping with him! This is a strange one. It came out in 1981 and bombed immediately. It had a lot of bad publicity with Lisa Eichorn being fired and replaced with Streisand. Also Streisand re-wrote the entire script to make her part bigger. She wanted to try something different with this movie. That's fine but why redo the script? This story was about George and his dealing with being fired and being middle-aged--Streisand should have left the script alone. As it is it's a terribly uneven movie--veering wildly from drama to comedy. The drama is pretty heavy and the comedy is, at best, subtle. It was pushed as a romantic comedy which it certainly was not. However it was never dull and works as a mild dramady. W.D. Richter wrote the original screenplay and he always writes (and directs) offbeat movies so this being a strange movie makes sense.

Acting is all over the map. Streisand (wearing a blonde wig) plays her role in a muted way. She only sings one song (badly) and doesn't play the tough-acting role she's well known for. She tries for something different but it doesn't work. Hackman is just great in his role--he really brings the movie to life. Ladd is hardly in this and Quaid is WAY too old for his role--and looks it. So it is uneven and strange but worth a look. I give it a 5.

Stuck-in-a-rut businessman Gene Hackman gets fed up with the rat race after being demoted from company executive to manager of an all-night convenience store. He longs to be an inventor (he creates a reverse-image mirror), and ends up divorcing his non-supportive wife over speculation he's having an affair with his teenage son's married girlfriend, a flighty sexpot in lavender chiffon. Comedy-drama has some early promise but not enough jokes, and it starts to sag just 40 minutes in. Hackman displays his effortless charm, and Barbra Streisand attempts something offbeat--though it's a gamble which doesn't quite pay off, as we never get a grip on her wispy Cheryl. The picture is a cracked egg: interesting conception and design, yet unsatisfactory. There are a handful of funny lines and trenchant bits of satire scattered about, and every scene in the drug store is ripe with possibilities which are then left unformed and unrealized. *1/2 from ****

Gene Hackman is completely winning as George Dupler, an average Joe who vents after repeatedly being passed over for promotion in his company. So he gets demoted to managing an all-night drugstore - a place with a decidedly weird clientele. He buys some trouble for himself when he pursues new acquaintance Cheryl Gibbons (Barbra Streisand), who's already been getting it on with Georges' teenage son Freddie (Dennis Quaid)!

Overall, an interesting venture for the stars that didn't really deserve to bomb so mightily in its time. It's flawed, to be sure (for one thing, it's not completely resolved to any real satisfaction), but it has a certain endearing quality. In that sense, it's much like the unconventional casting of Streisand here, who was a replacement for Lisa Eichhorn. (Supposedly, Gene and Lisa did not get along, which is one reason given why the switch was made.) But Babs is fairly likeable here, and much of the cast does fine work. "All Night Long" is just offbeat and loopy enough to be watchable, although it works better when depicting the strange folk who come out at night, rather than the romance at the centre of the plot. (The screenplay is by W.D. Richter, who more often than not has specialized in offbeat tales, like his directorial debut, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai in the Eighth Dimension".)

Hackman is the main reason to watch. He's at his most engaging, playing this middle aged man dealing with the various setbacks and nuances at this stage in his life. But there's a steady parade of familiar faces in supporting and bit parts to perk things up: Kevin Dobson, William Daniels, Hamilton Camp, Ann Doran, Raleigh Bond, Tandy Cronyn, Terry Kiser, Vernee Watson, Chris Mulkey, Richard Stahl, Bonnie Bartlett, etc.

In the almost 40 years since this release, Gene and Babs have expressed negativity towards the film if they indeed acknowledged it at all. And many Streisand fans denote it as a low point in her career. But the casual movie watcher might not be so harsh, and see this for what it is: a harmless, amiable trifle.

Six out of 10.

Everything about "All Night Long" is off and never turns on. Why is it always the films with the best people that wind up being so bad? In this film's case of wasted star talent, the victim here is Gene Hackman. He portrays a middle aged drug store employee who feels that he has squandered his life so he solves his boredom problems by going on little nighttime charades with the odd insomniacs who prowl the streets during late night. Hackman is extremely miscast in this kind of role and Barbra Streisand's presence doesn't help to save it either.

This small comedy with a galaxy of Jupiter sized personalities became the comedy Armageddon of it's day. Actually quite funny and now a curiosity piece - albeit forgotten, it is even a surprise to Streisand fans that it exists. I saw it on a 'rescue mission' double feature with CONTINENTAL DIVIDE where these two brief comedies that had a brief release mopped up whatever box office was possible as a duo. Sreisand and Belushi together! Well the box office in Australia actually played a happy tune and this double feature became a sleeper hit for a month or so early in 1982. Then video struck, cinemas closed and that was the end of that. As a suburban farce with "ordinary people characters" played by Oscar winners, it was slumming it a bit (like Fred and Ginger in FOLLOW THE FLEET) but odd enough and with a sprinkling of good laughs worked well enough. Like FOR PETE'S SAKE in 1974, seeing Streisand coupled with ungainly love interest, all set in low income apartments and with blue collar jobs, seems strange after the DOLLY and Fanny glamour...but.... ALL NIGHT LONG as 'the other Streisand film you've never seen' does deserve a better profile... and compared to Adam Sandler comedies is positively a masterpiece of hilarity. Actually it's a wonder we don't get the ANL remake with him and Drew Barrymore... stranger things have happened (MR DEEDS anyone? no? funny about that...) Apparently Streisand was paid $8million, upping the budget to $12 million......!! work that production cost out!