I Never Sang for My Father

I saw this movie when it first came out and I remember it vividly from over thirty years later. I recently saw it again, expecting the passage of time to have dimmed my fondness for it somewhat. It was just as wonderful as I remembered it, but I understood things at the age of 39 that I did not at ten. Melvyn Douglas and Gene Hackman deservedly got Oscar nominations for their splendid work here. There is also a marvelous script, also nominated for an Oscar. I expect I will remember the last line until I die. Most Highly Recommended

I can count on this movie to move me, to bring up feelings for me EVERY TIME I see it. Robert Anderson, the writer, nailed it, caught the essence of the difficulty children have relating to their fathers. Melvyn Douglas is outstanding as the father who, when his son (Gene Hackman) comes to visit falls asleep in front of the TV watching inane Westerns and then says to his son, "Gene, Gene are you leaving so soon? We hardly get to spend any time with you..." And the daughter says: "I am grateful to him (her father) because he taught me a very important lesson: This world is cold and lonely and uncaring and if you can't get the love and attention you need from your own father, who can you get it from? Yes, I am grateful to him..." This is powerful stuff. Great writing and acting except for the woman who plays Hackman's future bride. Bad casting there. The rest is superb. If you want to be moved (and some movies SHOULD move you -- that's another reason they're called 'movies,' right?!!), this is it.

I saw this film as a child on late night TV in the 70's and never really grasped it's truthful portrayal of the classic dysfunctional family. I didn't realize at the time just how dysfunctional my family was and how my father's controlling behavior and self centered personality shaped our family dynamics and still does. The close, loving adult relationship I always wanted with my father never happened because of his overbearing personality and utter disinterest in his children's adult lives. The children of such parents are often made to feel that it's either their fault or at least their responsibility to fix it. I saw the film again today on TCM and it perfectly captured the devastating long term effects from growing up in such a household. There's not a wasted word in the script. Tom doesn't give a wit about Gene. He doesn't even know him or care to. It's all about Tom. Boy, do I know what that feels like. I wished I had written Gene Hackman's dialog down so I could use it during my next frustrating visit with the old man.

This film should be required viewing for any adult son (or daughter) who is guilt-ed on a regular basis and told that everything their parents ever did for them as children has strings attached.

I'm an actor and I hope I get the chance to play Gene Garrison some day...with my father in the audience. Who am I kidding? He still wouldn't get it.

I find myself recommending this movie to people all the time. It is such a clear picture of the challenges faced by anyone trying to help an aging parent.

But there is another aspect to it that I love. It is one of the few serious films I've seen that shows the effect of a character being viewed as the salt of the earth, heroic and charming by outsiders, but who is nasty, judgmental and selfish with his own family. Whatever has happened due to Douglas' character aging and beginning to lose his mental faculties, you know that this particular pain has been part of his children's lives forever.

Such a relationship is always difficult -- it is especially so with an older relative who has truly done heroic things, and who is respected and loved even by those he abuses. It puts everyone who knows his darker side in a bizarre and awkward position, seeming like villains for ever saying a word against a much-admired person.

This movie captures the agony and poignancy of such a relationship perfectly, and shows the various levels of maturity with which one's family can choose to respond. The character's daughter needs to stay away, his son takes it with a grain of salt, as evidenced by his wry smile and mild answer when his fiancée finds his father "charming." This is a must-see film, for more reasons than I can list here.

Gene Hackman plays a former marine who's wife had died not too long ago for cancer. His parents live close by and he visits every so often. Hackman has never really gotten along with his dad, played by Melvyn Douglas, but gets along better with his mother. His mother dies and his sister, played by Estelle Parsons, comes home and we find out that Douglas had banished her several years earlier and she's never come back since. Hackman and Parsons have to decide what to do with dad, which is either hiring a full time nurse or moving him into a nursing home or letting him move in with one of them. Both Gene Hackman and Melvyn Douglas were nominated for best actor but lost out to George C. Scott for Patton. Several people have called this movie very depressing but i don't think it is, but just like what Roger Ebert said, a good movie is never depressing, only bad movies are.