(1972) 3 Bruce Eder To Find a Man is an odd "problem picture" -- a distant cousin to such late-'40s social dramas as Gentleman's Agreement -- that remains too controversial 30 years later to get a fair and proper airing. The particular issues at the center of To Find a Man -- abortion and teenage pregnancy -- have grown even more controversial in the decades since the movie was released, resulting in its near disappearance from distribution. If To Find a Man were only about abortion, it would have enough to make it interesting, but it's far more than that -- it's a beautiful, lyrical, fascinating character study and drama, about two friends who find out that each has never known the other half as well as they thought. Andy, portrayed by O'Connor in a restrained yet painfully affecting performance (his only big-screen appearance), is the one to whom this matters, and his realization of this and what he does about it makes for a poignant ending. Martin gives what is arguably one of her best big-screen performances in the role of a beautiful but maddeningly shallow, narcissistic girl, more concerned about what news of her pregnancy would do to her plans for a trip to Europe and to attend a good college, and more concerned about buying pretty clothes than even helping her friend to pay for the abortion; and Phyllis Newman and Lloyd Bridges are equally fine, respectively, as her self-centered mother and depressed, alcoholic father (whose disillusionment reaches new depths when he mistakenly comes to believe that Andy is the father of the baby). Tom Bosley as a cynical but helpful druggist and Tom Ewell as the wry-witted abortionist lend compelling grace notes to the proceedings, and a simple yet beautiful score by David Shire stays with the viewer long after the movie has ended. To Find a Man isn't a perfect movie -- the setting and orientation are, at times, annoyingly upscale, and some of the ethnic character portrayals are virtually stereotypes, but the movie also captures something of the texture and feel of life in New York City in the early 1970s about as vividly as any mainstream feature ever released. Issued in 1972, a year before the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, but after New York State had legalized abortion, To Find a Man provided a surprisingly even-handed examination of the issues surrounding abortion -- but despite excellent reviews, it was out of first-run theaters within a month and emerged nine months later playing on the wrong end of a double-bill with The Owl and the Pussycat. It then dropped off radar screens until it turned up on television, where it was shorn of a lot of the abortion-related dialogue and all of the depictions of teenage life of the era, which harmed the texture of the film and the depiction of the characters. The movie hasn't been seen intact in decades, owing to the fact that abortion and teen pregnancy, as well as casual teen drug use (glimpsed in a couple of scenes), became such hot-button political issues. Director Kulik broke as much or more new ground with this movie than he did working on television series such as The Defenders -- ironically, he may have opened up more than he bargained for, and touched one too many political and marketing department nerves, given the fate of the film; but he also created his magnum opus in the process.

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To Find a Man (1972)

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Adult Situations
Suitable for Children

genres

Drama

sub-genres

Psychological Drama

category

Feature

directed by

Buzz Kulik

countries

USA

released

1972

run time

90 min.

produced by

Columbia Pictures, Rastar

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by Bruce Eder synopsis

Screen newcomers Darren O'Connor (the brother of Glynnis O'Connor) and Pamela Sue Martin (billed here as Pamela Martin) play a pair of 16-year-olds, former childhood sweethearts and playmates from Manhattan's Upper East Side, who find their lives thrust back together when she becomes pregnant by the boyfriend of a friend's mother. O'Connor's Andy Morrison has always loved Martin's Rosalind McCarthy from afar, but she has always been too self-centered to notice or care, until she needs him "to find a man" to do the abortion. He tries to go about solving her problem his way, methodically and carefully, all the while doing his best to cope with her outbursts and her need to get the abortion while she's home for the week from the Catholic boarding school that she attends. They battle insensitive bureaucrats, hopelessly overburdened hospitals, and her pushy and dissipated parents, as well as Andy's class prejudices, and in the course of solving Rosalind's problem, each realizes that they've never really known or understood the other.

characteristics

- Abortion

- Teen-pregnancy

- Friend

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