MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
An Unmarried Woman (1978, 124 minutes)
The women’s liberation movement of the ’60s raged against the inequity of a business world that paid men more to do the same job than it did a woman. But it was 1978’s powerful An Unmarried Woman that broke new ground by showing women how to exist without being propped up by a man.
Martin and Erica Benton are jogging near the Queensboro Bridge when he suddenly screams, “Jesus Christ! This fucking city’s turned into a pile of dog shit! My sneaker’s ruined! Come on, take a crap on me! Everyone else is!” bellows Martin (Michael Murphy) at a cruel world as Erica (Jill Clayburgh) scrapes the manure from his shoe. “What’s the point of jogging two miles if you’re just going to die from lung cancer,” she points out as he lights up a coffin nail. “The longer I’m married to you, the more you sound like my mother,” snipes her stockbroker/husband as he tosses the shoe into the East River.
Next morning, their teenage daughter, Patti (Lisa Lucas), knocks on the bedroom door of their spectacular Upper East Side apartment. “Goin’ to school,” says Patti. “We expose that kid to too much,” says Martin. “At least we keep the door locked,” says Erica. Patti smiles at her mother dressed in bikini panties and a white T-shirt. “Did the earth move?” she asks her parents, pointedly. Erica daydreams once they’ve both left: “Tonight the world was introduced to a brilliant new talent, Erica Benton, in her incredible performance of Swan Lake,” she reads from a phantom review.
The nightmare begins a few days later. Walking through the bustling streets of Soho, Erica tells Martin about her latest gathering with a half dozen of her girlfriends. “I love our meetings, sort of like a continuing story, part Mary Hartman, part Ingmar Bergman.”
Suddenly Martin begins sobbing uncontrollably. “Marty, what is it, honey?” she asks, holding him by the arms of his topcoat. He tries to speak, but nothing comes out. “What? Tell me,” Erica implores him. Finally the story emerges through the tears. “I’m in love with somebody else. I’ve been seeing another woman.” Erica looks like she’s taken the middleweight champ’s best right cross to the heart.
“At first, I thought it was just a fling,” he continues. “But it isn’t. I love her. I want to live with her. Oh god, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt Patti.” She slowly takes her hands away from his coat and stares blankly up the street. “Her name’s Marcia Brenner. She’s a teacher. I met her at Bloomingdale’s, for god’s sake,” he babbles, so wrapped up in his own little tragedy he begins to laugh. If he’s expecting forgiveness, it will never come from Erica who looks like she’s already turning the page.
