the audience applauded

Best movie of this year hands down!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I first saw this at the movie theater with my soon to be husband a soldier in the U.S. Air Force), when it was first shown, and saw it again today on t.v. This movie is one of my favorites and just gets better with time. James Caan plays a sweet spirited, kind hearted sailor who takes on responsibility for a prostitute he meets while on Cinderella liberty (a term for a short shore leave) and her son. It is a beautiful story of love and forgiveness and one I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a realistic story about the human condition. Although not listed in Caan's IMDb bio, it is one of his best performances. This movie will stay on my list of great movies.

I've always been a big fan of Caan and Wallach, and all the rest of the superb cast of this superb film. But this time they create honest cinema magic. Devoid of all the phony sentimentality's but keeping its heart fully intact, it brings the lives of two totally divergent people into one, cohesive whole. I not only tried real tears watching this, but real tears for the trash that all of the big budget movies of today have become. Current movies require such impossibly huge budgetary requirements, that they all rely on star power, special effects, and their ability to be turned into endless sequels no better than the first. If you enjoy seeing great performances, if you love character driven films with authenticity and truth, SEE IT.

nothing surprised me more than flicking over the channel and catching this film late last night. it promised to be just the kind of dull fare I needed to watch and cure my insomnia: a sailor up to no good in a sleezy bar with a giggling hooker. but this film did the opposite it woke me up and i will admit made me cry - a lot. It is a small story, a sailor falls for a 'barroom whore' and assumes responsibility for her, her son and her unborn child and that's it really. He is stuck in Seattle waiting for his papers, broke and lost and these two unlikely characters, the whore and her son, hook up with him and somehow they muddle together to make what looks like almost a family. each of them is tentative, protective of the tiny space that makes up their world, yet all three show that despite harsh realities they can express tenderness to each other. what was remarkable was that there was nothing patronising or dismissive in the portrayal of any of the characters, all three of which are the stereotypical stock of cinema, a philandering sailor, a whore, and a illegitimate kid. i was totally convinced by the story and moved by the way that despite the needs expressed for each other, they were pushed apart. i cannot recommend this film highly enough, and hope that anyone reading this will try and watch it.

Granted there are some literary devices which are a tad far-fetched that simply have to be accepted to allow this story to work - for one, the cavalier way in which Baggs is treated while his papers are 'lost', and for so long. None the less, this is, in the end an affecting and inspiring tale. Perhaps one of the reasons for its dubious reception here is that in this extremely cynical and selfish age people have difficulty accepting a tale about someone who assumes so much grief in order to help people ("It makes me feel good," says Baggs, simply and disarmingly.) Perhaps the world would be a better place if we could all be more like the guileless Boatswain, played by James Caan in a good-guy departure from his usual tough guy parts. Of particular note is the fine job Eli Wallach does with the minor part of Baggs' nemesis Forshay. It's a memorable moment when Baggs, asking Forshay, as he is drummed out of the service without benefits or pension, "Where are you going? Home?", hears Forshay reply "THIS was home." The combination of sadness, bitterness, and fear of the future that Wallach puts into these three words is testimony to his power as an actor. A bit of judicious editing might have been called for, as the movie was a tad long (cutting Paul Williams' execrable songs would have been a good place to start), but none the less it's a feel-good movie that rises above its gritty setting.