Gloria (1980 film)

Plot

In New York City, in the South Bronx, Jeri Dawn is heading home with groceries. Inside the lobby of her apartment building, she passes a man whose dress and appearance are out of place. The woman quickly boards the elevator.

She is met in her apartment by her husband Jack Dawn, an accountant for a New York City mob family. There is a contract on Jack and his family, as he has been acting as an informant for the FBI. Suddenly, the family's neighbor, Gloria Swenson, rings their doorbell, asking to borrow some coffee. Jeri tells Gloria there is an impending hit on her family and implores Gloria to protect her children. Gloria, formerly a mobster's girlfriend, tells Jeri that she doesn't like kids but begrudgingly agrees. The Dawns' daughter Joan refuses to leave and locks herself in the bathroom. While the family attempts to get Joan, Gloria takes their young son Phil, and an incriminating accounts ledger, to her apartment, narrowly missing the hit squad.

After hearing loud shotgun blasts from the Dawns' apartment, a visibly shaken Gloria decides that she and Phil must go into hiding. After quickly packing a bag they leave the building, just as police are entering with heavy weapons. Meanwhile, a crowd of onlookers and news reporters has gathered in front of the building, and a cameraman captures a picture of them leaving.

Gloria and Phil take a cab into Manhattan, where they hide out in an empty apartment belonging to a friend of hers. The following morning, Phil sneaks out of the apartment and sees his photograph on the front page of several newspapers. Later on, Gloria watches the news on television, which reports the mob hit and names her as Phil's suspected abductor.

The next morning, realizing they are not safe where they are, Gloria and Phil sneak out of the apartment just as a group of gangsters close in on them. The gangsters know Gloria and confront her on the sidewalk outside, exhorting her to give up Phil and the ledger. In desperation, Gloria shoots her revolver at the car of five gangsters, which takes off and flips over. Gloria realizes both her fate and Phil's are now deeply intertwined, and that they will have to leave New York to survive.

Gloria goes to the bank to empty her safe deposit box, and the two settle for the night at a flophouse. She confronts another group of gangsters at a restaurant; she asks for immunity in exchange for the ledger. "Only Mr. Tanzinni can agree to that", says one of the goons, so she disarms them and flees.

The next day, Gloria tells Phil that she plans to send him away to a boarding school. Offended by her intentions, Phil claims he is an independent grown man who can manage alone. Gloria decides to abandon him and have a drink. She is soon filled with guilt for leaving the child and rushes back to look for him; however, he has been captured by some wiseguys. Gloria rescues him, killing one mobster in the process, and fleeing from two others via a taxi and the subway, where several by-standers help her escape.

The two eventually make it to a hotel room, where Gloria laments the mob's strength and ubiquitous presence, explaining to Phil that she was once the mistress of Tanzinni himself. She meets with Tanzinni, relinquishes the ledger, and then flees, killing one gangster as another shoots down upon her elevator car. Phil waits several hours, then flees to Pittsburgh via rail. At a cemetery, Phil and Gloria (the latter disguised as the former's grandmother arriving in a limousine after miraculously surviving her ordeal) reunite.

Cast

• Gena Rowlands as Gloria Swenson
• Julie Carmen as Jeri Dawn
• Buck Henry as Jack Dawn
• John Adames as Phil Dawn
• Lupe Garnica as Margarita Vargas
• John Finnegan as Frank
• Tom Noonan, J.C. Quinn, and Sonny Landham as Mob Henchmen
• Lawrence Tierney as The Broadway Bartender

Production

John Cassavetes did not originally intend to direct his screenplay; he planned merely to sell the story to Columbia Pictures. However, once his wife, Gena Rowlands, was asked to play the title character in the film, she asked Cassavetes to direct it. Gloria is John Adames' only film role.

A sequel was in the works before Cassavetes's death. https://x.com/gaynarowlands/status/1744495876704174435

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 91% approval rating based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "A comparatively commercial entry from director John Cassavetes, Glorias pulpy pleasures are elevated by his observant touch and Gena Rowlands' galvanizing star performance." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and described it as "tough, sweet and goofy", as well as "fun and engaging but slight". He believed the overly silly nature of the script is redeemed by "Cassavetes' reliance on a tried-and-true plot construction" and the acting performances, particularly that of Rowlands, who he said "propels the action with such appealing nervous energy that we don't have the heart to stop and think how silly everything is". In a retrospective review, Slant Magazine praised Rowlands' performance and said that "the supporting cast pales in comparison to Rowlands".

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
  • Gloria Swenson – Nominated Hero

The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited Gloria as one of his favorite films.

Legacy

The film was remade in 1999 under the same title with a screenplay by Steve Antin. The remake was directed by Sidney Lumet. It starred Sharon Stone and Jean-Luke Figueroa.

Other films inspired by Gloria include Erick Zonca's 2008 film Julia, starring Tilda Swinton and Luc Besson's 1994 film Léon: The Professional. In 2013, Paul Schrader was planning his own remake of the film, starring Lindsay Lohan. And, in 2018, Taraji P. Henson starred in a loose remake entitled Proud Mary.

John Adames

The film is notable for the performance of child actor John Adames (also known as Juan Adames), for which he won the first ever Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor, shared with Laurence Olivier for his role in The Jazz Singer. Adames, who had been cast after an open call, was between five and seven years old when cast, and his character Phil Dawn was six. He did not have any subsequent film roles afterwards.

Adames' performance was criticized by contemporary reviewers, who according to critic Ray Carney, expected Adames to be "cute and cuddly", and when he was not, they judged that Cassavetes had failed. Eric Henderson of Slant magazine posited that the criticism was due to Adames' vocal delivery, which he compared to "what Paddy Chayefsky would sound like impersonating Alvin Chipmunk".

Roger Ebert praised Adames' performance, calling him "well cast". Writing for Film Comment in 2017, Shonni Enelow revisited Adames' performance as the "crucial positive negative" that "makes the film work".

Accolades

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Cassavetes, John and Raymond Carney (2001). "Chpt 10: Gloria (1978–1980)" in Cassavetes on Cassavetes. Macmillan. .
• Morris, George (1980). "Lady on the Lam", Texas Monthly. Vol. 8, No. 10. ISSN 0148-7736.

References

1. (July 29, 1980). "''Gloria'' (15)". [[British Board of Film Classification]].
2. "Gloria (1980)". [[Box Office Mojo]].
3. [https://mubi.com/en/us/collections/cassavetes-db MUBI Collection: CRACKED EMOTIONS: TWO BY JOHN CASSAVETES. MUBI]
4. Brody, Richard. (July 11, 2013). "Gloria".
5. "John Adames".
6. "Gloria". [[Fandango Media]].
7. "Gloria Reviews".
8. Ebert, Roger. (n.d.). "Gloria". [[Chicago Sun-Times]].
9. (March 14, 2003). "Review: Gloria". Slant Magazine LLC.
10. "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains Nominees".
11. "Akira Kurosawa's Top 100 Movies!".
12. Kim, Wook (January 19, 2012). [https://entertainment.time.com/2012/01/20/top-10-kickass-movie-women/slide/gloria-swenson-gloria/ "Top 10 Kickass Movie Women: Gloria Swenson, ''Gloria''"]. ''[[Time (magazine). Time]]''.
13. Cockrell, Eddie. (February 9, 2008). "Berlin review of ''Julia''".
14. Jagernauth, Kevin. (January 10, 2013). "Steven Soderbergh Offered To Edit 'The Canyons', Lindsay Lohan Was Fired & The Saga Of Paul Schrader's Troubled Film".
15. Ennelow, Shonni. (September 2017). "The Kid Slays in the Picture". Film Comment.
16. "GLORIA (1980)".
17. Brody, Richard. (2013-07-11). "Gloria".
18. (2001). "Cassavetes on Cassavetes". Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
19. "The 53rd Academy Awards (1981) Nominees and Winners". [[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]].
20. (July 27, 2018). "BSFC Winners: 1980s". [[Boston Society of Film Critics]].
21. "Gloria". [[Golden Globe Awards]].
22. Lloyd, Christopher. (October 30, 2023). "Reeling Backward: Gloria (1980)".