Movie review: ‘Gloria’ (1980)

FloridaGator80

I started my blog in 2014 and wanted to do my amateur reviews of “old” movies … that is, those films we saw long ago and remember fondly, not necessarily really old films or those classics that topped the box office. Well, I’ve expanded to new, recent as well as “old” during the decade and the first 412 reviews I wrote and now I go back to 1980 for “Gloria” and the exceptional work of actor Gena Rowlands and director John Cassavetes, who was her husband. It’s a story told through characterization and, while there is violence (“Gloria” usually pulls a revolver to make her point and few times pulls the trigger, too), it is within limits and doesn’t distract from the building human emotions that are key to the film.

‘Gloria’
(1980; 123 minutes; rated PG; directed by John Cassavetes and starring Gena Rowlands, Buck Henry and John Adames)

A WOMAN ON GUARD AND ON THE RUN

I just don’t know how Gena Rowlands didn’t win the Oscar in 1980 for “Gloria.” She gives a special performance that only she could give … no other actor at the time could have accomplished what she did with “Gloria.” Spacey Spacek was sensational in winning for “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” but Rowlands was sensationally special as the title character in “Gloria,” but her nomination fell short.

“Gloria” was directed by Rowlands’ husband John Cassavetes, who himself was a three-time Oscar nominee, with one each in acting, writing and directing (not for this one, though he deserved at least a nomination if not the outright win), and both give a clinic on how to make a great film.

I’m not an experienced reviewer, so I’m unable to explain some of the storyline or cinematography it’s subliminal meanings: such as the cemetery scenes that obviously convey the concept of death or the wonderful camera work on a profile of Rowlands at one point.

Also, Gena obviously was a real smoker. It is easy in “Gloria” to observe which actors used to smoke or still smokes. Plus, she is a thorough actor, including her physical presence. In one scene, she sits on a grimy tenement stairway, crosses her leg and lights up … and, despite all the surroundings, gives the impression she’s on a comfortable couch in a Park Avenue penthouse as she enjoys the cigarette!

Gena Rowlands in a publicity “still” photo from the movie “Gloria” in 1980.

The story of “Gloria” is straightforward: A friend of Rowlands has a husband who just started ratting out the mob. The whole family has been marked for death and Rowlands as “Gloria Swenson” winds up with the young son in her care. The rest of the family, all four of them, is wiped out by the gangsters, but the mob knows that Rowlands has the boy and that he has his father’s accounting notebook with all the secrets in it.

Uh, oh!

So, with her street smarts from being a gangster’s woman in the past, she goes on the run. However, the mob has gangsters everywhere and she’s “known” about town and teams of mob guys are checking hotels, restaurants, subways, etc., and each provides a small battlefield for Rowlands and she takes them all on, pulling her revolver at the first sign of trouble … and then pulling the trigger a few times.

Here’s a look at some of the cast:

  • Gena Rowlands in a publicity “still” photo from the movie “Gloria” in 1980.

    A two-time Oscar nominee and two-time Golden Globe winner and six time nominee, Rowlands earned her Oscar and Globe nominations with the superlative job she did in this one. From every physical aspect of a look to how she ran along New York City streets, Rowlands showed her complete talent and deserved both the Oscar and Globe (Spacek won the Oscar and Mary Tyler Moore won the Globe for “Ordinary People”). Rowlands had the look of a former mob girlfriend who has some class, but some mileage on her, too (as the expression used to go). She was in command in virtually every scene in which she appears and you believe she’s looking at you when she’s looking into the camera. Rowlands’ other Oscar nomination was for “A Woman Under the Influence” in 1974 and she was presented an Honorary Oscar along with Spike Lee in 2016. Click here to read the rest of her awards and nominations from Globes to Emmys. I liked Rowlands in the 1960s Frank Sinatra vehicle “Tony Rome” (click here to read my review) and she did episodes on tee-vee, too, including one each on “Monk” and “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.” as well as 39 episodes on the soap opera “Peyton Place.” A native of Wisconsin, Rowlands died of complications from dementia at 94 in 2024.

  • John Adames plays the boy “Phil Dawn,” who is 6 years old in the film (the actor was 8 years old during filming) and first hates Rowlands, but then – naturally – bonds with her. Adames doesn’t do the acting very well, but is OK at times and gets an impressive amount of time on-screen. “Gloria” is the only acting credit for Adames and he was nominated for a “Razzie” in 1981 for worst supporting actor. I can agree a bit because he wasn’t too good, but, damn, they asked a child to accomplish a lot that most adult actors would have trouble completing.
  • A two-time Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner and nominee (not for this one), Buck Henry plays “Jack Dawn” and he’s done a dirty deed to the mob and knows he’s gonna pay for it, as will his family. It is a small role, but different for him from, say, playing straight man as a hotel desk clerk to Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate” (click here to read my review – and, BTW, Buck wrote “The Graduate”). Henry manages to convince you he’s sweating bullets because he knows he’s gonna get a few of them, but he doesn’t last long on screen. Henry’s Oscar nominations were for “The Graduate” (writing) and as co-director with Warren Beatty of “Heaven Can Wait.” He earned a “special” Golden Globe and was nominated for writing “The Graduate.” Henry also won a Primetime Emmy and had two nominations with his win for writing for the 1960s hit tee-vee show “Get Smart.” He hosted “Saturday Night Live” 10 times and was in “Catch-22.” Henry died of a heart attack at 89 in 2020.
  • Julie Carmen plays “Jeri Dawn” and does a very good job introducing the tension in the “Dawn” family. She also argues well with Henry as the mob closes in on them and she hands off “Phil” to “Gloria.” A nice job that could have all too easily been fumbled by a less talented actor. Carmen has had a varied career in television and film, going back to her first acting credits from two episodes of “The Guiding Light” soap opera in 1978. She’s also been in “Windows on the World” and “Dawn Patrol.”
  • Basilio Franchina plays “Tony Tanzini” and he’s the mob boss who wants to kill the boy as well as recover the ledge of mob secrets. He has a single scene with Rowlands and does a workmanlike job, but doesn’t manage to make the character stand out in the film. Franchina had only two acting credits and was a co-writer of the World War I classic “The Blue Max.” He died at 88 in 2003.

I’m not going to spend much time on any other actor other than to note that playing a bit part as “Sill” is Val Avery, who did many “small” parts such as in this one or Sonny Landham as a young thug. Avery was a teacher who stirs up trouble in the gang movie “The Wanderers” (click here for my review), “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Anderson Tapes” with Sean Connery (click here to read my review). Landham went to “48 Hrs.” with Eddie Murphy as well as a bigger role in “Predator” (click here to read my review) with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Avery died at 84 in 2009 and Landham died of congestive heart failure at 76 in 2017.

Originally, Cassavetes was not going to direct “Gloria.” He wrote the screenplay and sold it to a studio, but he reportedly came aboard when Rowlands as cast as “Gloria” and she wanted him to direct. Cassavetes as an actor has been in one of my favorites called “Tempest,” which was directed by Paul Mazursky and co-starred Rowlands. He was also in the World War II thriller “Brass Target” (click here to read my review).

Cassavetes is best remembered for and got an Oscar nomination as “Franko” in “The Dirty Dozen.” Interestingly, his other two nominated films co-starred Rowlands – “Faces” that he wrote and “A Woman Under the Influence” that he directed. He also received four Golden Globe nominations including for acting in “The Dirty Dozen” and screenplay and director of “A Woman …” Cassavetes died of cirrhosis of the liver at 59 in 1989.

The film was remade under the same name in 1999 and stars Sharon Stone. An updating and Stone make for at least an interesting possibility I’ll have to look at for a future review, as I have not seen it as of the posting of this review.

“Gloria” was the 52nd ranked film at the U.S. box office in 1980 with $4 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. Naturally, the No. 1 film was “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back” with $203.3 million; at No. 2 was “Nine to Five” (click here to read my review) with $103.2 million; and Spacek’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter” was seventh with $67.1 million. Here are the films from 1980 that I’ve reviewed:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Henry’s birth name was Buck Henry Zuckerman; Rowlands’ full name was Virginia Cathryn Rowlands; and Cassavetes’ middle name was Nicholas.
  • Cassavetes was reported to have written a sequel to the film by the time of his death in 1989, but, despite the reports of the possibility of a sequel, none was ever made.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “The film’s title sequence features the water colors of Romare Bearden, who was the internationally recognized dean of Black America artists. Bearden had shown his work in museums and galleries across the nation, including the Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Detroit Museum; and others. Bearden had also installed or was installing mosaics and murals in a county building in Atlanta, two New York schools, and a hospital, Lincoln Center, and Baltimore’s new mass transit system.”
  • The call for the casting of “Phil Dawn” brought out 350 boys.
  • The studio, Columbia, sat on the film for nearly a year after it was completed because they didn’t believe it would do well at the box office.
  • The part of “Phil” was originally envisioned for Rick Schroeder because of that child actor’s success with “The Champ.” So, Cassavetes wrote it with him in mind, but Schroeder wasn’t available and the character was changed to a boy of Puerto Rican descent.
  • Currency in the film includes $100 bills and today, that would equal approximately $400.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “Actress Gena Rowlands once said of her ex-gun moll character: ‘When I read the script, I knew I wanted a walk for her. I wanted something that, from the minute you saw me, you knew I could handle myself on the streets of New York. So I started thinking about when I lived in New York, how different I walked down the street when there was nobody but me. It was a walk that said, they’d better watch out.’”

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