''Going Home'' is a 1971
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by Herbert B. Leonard and starring
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945), followed by his starring in ...
,
Brenda Vaccaro
Brenda is a feminine given name in the English language.
Origin
The overall accepted origin for the female name Brenda is the Old Nordic male name ''Brandr'' meaning both ''torch'' and ''sword'': evidently the male name Brandr took root in area ...
and
Jan-Michael Vincent
Jan-Michael Vincent (July 15, 1944 – February 10, 2019) was an American actor known for portraying helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke in the TV series ''Airwolf'' (1984–1987) and the protagonist, Matt Johnson, in the 1978 film ''Big W ...
, who was nominated for a
Golden Globe award for best supporting actor.
Plot
Harry Graham (
Mitchum) is a lonely and beaten-down man who has recently been released from
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
after serving time for murdering his wife 13 years earlier. His son, Jimmy (
Vincent
Vincent ( la, Vincentius) is a male given name derived from the Roman name Vincentius, which is derived from the Latin word (''to conquer'').
People with the given name Artists
*Vincent Apap (1909–2003), Maltese sculptor
*Vincent van Gogh ...
), who witnessed the slaying as a child, is still haunted by the crime and wants to confront his father about it. Jimmy tracks Harry to a run-down seashore community and finds him living in a trailer park with his girlfriend Jenny (
Vaccaro). It's clear that Jimmy himself is dealing with serious psychological problems, and the father-son reunion leads to sometimes grim complications.
Principal cast
Critical reception
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' did not care for the film although he praised its intelligence and some of the actors:
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
of ''
The Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' did not care for the film and gave it 2 out of 4 stars:
See also
*
List of American films of 1971
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
References
External links
*
*{{amg movie, 62856, Going Home
1971 films
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Films shot in New Jersey
Films shot in Pennsylvania
American neo-noir films
1970s English-language films
1970s American films