When I first saw this particular poster for Cinderella Liberty, I didn't know what the film's name really meant (leave time for a soldier/sailor that starts at revielle and ends at midnight). Or that the girl in the photo was a hooker.
What I also failed to see - at age 13 - was the street James Caan and Marsha Mason are walking along. Its gritty, dirty; it's Deuce-like (New York City's infamous 1960s/1970s Times Square area was called the Deuce. Cinderella Liberty was filmed in Seattle and most big cities during that time had similar Deuce-like environs) string of theaters. The theater marquees behind Caan and Mason advertise illicit movies. At age 13, I missed all that - at least overtly - but that stuff wormed its way into my unconscious mind.
Another poster for the film included this (which barely resonates on any kind of psychological level):
She's 32.
She drinks too much.
She hustles pool.
She's got a 10-year-old mulatto son.
She's got a different boyfriend every night.
She's in trouble.
And he's in love.
It simply says too much.
I've never seen the film, directed by Mark Rydell and released in 1973. I've only seen clips. I've always had the feeling that this is one of those movies probably best lived in a long ago adolescent mind.
Says Roger Ebert, Cinderella Liberty "wants us to take these people and their situation seriously, but it keeps finding Norman Rockwell solutions to its problems. It suggests complexities and then never resolves them. It never surprises us with truth."
But the poster is great.
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