Licença Para Amar Até a Meia-Noite

This movie was made in 1973, and I thought it was a great movie for several reasons. It depicts the gritty, boring life of a career enlisted serviceman. Military heroics are replaced with human heroics at a time when civilians had a dim view of anyone who spent time in the service. The movie turns all the trite plots about saintly prostitutes and sailors on its head. Caan plays a real sailor, and Marsha Mason, a funny but can't help herself hooker. Her young son by an unknown black father is slowly drawn into a friendship with her mother's "honky" john. This unlikely threesome is what makes this movie worth watching. In my opinion, it is a better movie than "From Here to Eternity", which has too much of the recruiting version of the military. Cinderlla Liberty is stripped raw of the poster Navy. This movie shows life in the real Navy about a real human being, who happens to be a sailor.

The film's title refers to a real-life temporary "pass" or "leave" issued to navy personnel. In this fictional story, John Baggs, Jr. (James Caan) is one such sailor, stuck in Seattle on leave, a man who doesn't know what to do with his time, or his life. He ends up at a beer joint where he meets Maggie (Marsha Mason), a part-time hooker and pool hustler. "Cinderella Liberty" is the story about how these two lonely people meet, and their on-again, off-again romantic relationship.

Baggs is a low-key sort of fellow. But he doesn't take any guff from anyone. Maggie is on welfare. She lives with her eleven-year old son, Doug, in a dingy apartment in a dingy tenement building. Baggs tries to help the kid, but Doug has lots of emotional baggage, as does his mother.

The main characters are somewhat tragic. Baggs is certainly no war hero. Indeed, he's rather ordinary, but very caring. Yet, despite his best efforts to unite the three of them into a family, things don't always work out. But the film has a surprise ending that helps offset earlier distressing plot points.

Mostly downbeat and depressing, "Cinderella Liberty" is very 1970ish. Cinematography conveys an evocative mood, dark and dreary, and some of the images have a reddish tint. Post Viet Nam, the military is portrayed as somewhat bumbling. There's an obvious absence of military bravado and swagger, which engenders the story with a sense of realism.

Casting and acting are fine. The chemistry between Caan and Mason seems genuine. The film was shot entirely on-location in Seattle. No film studios were used.

This is a story of dashed hopes, of opportunities lost. Although not for everyone, mostly because of the very slow plot pace, "Cinderella Liberty" is a realistic, character driven story, the kind that's rarely made by contemporary Hollywood.

Cinderella Liberty presents a world of lonely people looking for a little love in their lives. James Caan does a complete turnaround from his Godfather persona playing John Baggs, Jr. -- a sensitive, lovesick and positive sailor who backs into (or does it back into him?) the life of Maggie Paul (Marsha Mason), a pool playing barroom hustler with a biracial son, Doug (Kirk Calloway) whose tough exterior reveals a very sad and lonely boy. This comedy-drama creeps up on you like the love the characters feel for each is slowly realized. Excellent work by everyone here -- but this one bears a repeat watch for the work of Kirk Calloway, who is amazing as the boy and Eli Wallach, Baggs' alter-ego of a what lonely Navy life could hold for him. Look for this gem and go back to a time in film acting when real emotions were all the special effects needed to entertain and touch you.

When Cinderella Liberty was released I'd only been out of the Navy about a year, so I was automatically biased in favor of it. I happened across the film on AMC this morning, and was pleased to see that it holds up well. James Caan is perfect as the lifer-by-default, a guy apparently motivated by inertia and the need for a job rather than any driving patriotic force. Marsha Mason is likewise great as the whore-with-a-heart (not necessarily a heart of gold), and the boy who plays her son is superb. Eli Wallach is flawless as the lifer left over from the old "Rocks and Shoals" Navy, a genuinely tough era much more closely-related to life in the 19th century than the 21st. If you want a look at enlisted life in the Navy, especially in the early 70's (yes, they did allow mustaches and a bit of hair in those days), I would recommend this film wholeheartedly.

Granted there are some literary devices which are a tad far-fetched that simply have to be accepted to allow this story to work - for one, the cavalier way in which Baggs is treated while his papers are 'lost', and for so long. None the less, this is, in the end an affecting and inspiring tale. Perhaps one of the reasons for its dubious reception here is that in this extremely cynical and selfish age people have difficulty accepting a tale about someone who assumes so much grief in order to help people ("It makes me feel good," says Baggs, simply and disarmingly.) Perhaps the world would be a better place if we could all be more like the guileless Boatswain, played by James Caan in a good-guy departure from his usual tough guy parts.

Of particular note is the fine job Eli Wallach does with the minor part of Baggs' nemesis Forshay. It's a memorable moment when Baggs, asking Forshay, as he is drummed out of the service without benefits or pension, "Where are you going? Home?", hears Forshay reply "THIS was home." The combination of sadness, bitterness, and fear of the future that Wallach puts into these three words is testimony to his power as an actor.

A bit of judicious editing might have been called for, as the movie was a tad long (cutting Paul Williams' execrable songs would have been a good place to start), but none the less it's a feel-good movie that rises above its gritty setting.