Ten Movies I Wish I'd Never Seen: The Goodbye Girl (#6)

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Here, on a Monday morning, I'm going to compound the Monday-ness of it by speaking ill of the dead! How rude of me! Honestly, I had no idea that this was the next film on my list of movies I wish I'd not bothered to watch. It's just a coincidence. Fresh out of the headlines, here's today's movie. #6: The Goodbye Girl Neil Simon died yesterday (8/26) at the age of 91. He left a treasure trove of plays and movies for which he will be long remembered, including this one, from 1977. The Goodbye Girl won Richard Dreyfuss an Oscar, making him (at the time) the youngest Oscar winner for best actor. It is also widely heralded as one of Neil Simon's greatest works. To me, this isn't The Odd Couple, even though it reads like it (the iconic scene of Dreyfuss yanking Marsha Mason's underwear off the shower rod is so Felix Unger that you can almost envision Tony Randall or Jack Lemmon doing the same thing to Jack Klugman or Walter Matthau). I didn't find it all that funny. I saw this a few years ago, during one of TCM's "30 Days of Oscars" marathons. I was all settled in and ready to enjoy this great classic movie. I didn't. Maybe it's Marsha Mason, who was Neil Simon's wife at the time: I didn't care for Chapter Two, another Simon movie with Marsha Mason in a leading role, either. At any rate, I was severely disappointed in this movie. All the hype, and such a letdown. The Goodbye Girl Directed by Herbert Ross Released in 1977 One of the most memorable scenes of the film: