If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good movie but grossly overrated

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

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.

Remember the Saturday Night Live faux advertisement for the US Navy, way back in the late '70s? It was their gentle jab at the Navy's advertising slogan, "It's not just a job, it's an adventure!" The phony ad showed sailors doing what sailors do--chipping and painting a matronly and decidedly unglamorous replenishment ship. It was a funny ad, a stark contrast to the real one that showed bluejackets breezily enjoying the sights of exotic ports of call.Jump forward to the late '80s and catch a CBS "48 Hours" episode about the lives of sailors on a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It was a good, solid piece of expository work that showed the violent excitement and danger of a carrier's flight operations contrasted with the much, much more mundane doings below decks, in the galley, the engineering spaces, etc. Said one sailor, covered with grease and saturated by sweat, "You're never gonna see a movie titled "Top Engineer." I've always held a deep, abiding respect for our Navy (I even considered joining at the start of the Reagan years), but the tedium of swabbing decks somewhere down there in the large intestine of a flattop just didn't grab me.And I said no.Which brings us to Cinderella Liberty, a not-really-a-chick-flick with James Caan as a career swabbie, a guy who joined because he needed a steady gig, and Marsha Mason as the non-Hollywood-traditional whore he befriends in Seattle. I say non-traditional because she is NOT Julia Roberts but a chemical-saturated and beaten-up-by-life hooker who is trying to figure out how to take care of her adolescent son, keep a roof over their heads, and not get too involved with Caan. This proves difficult for Caan because he--like me--finds Mason imperfectly lovely, sexy, and appealing.CL is such a (and I hate to use this cliché, but I will) slice of life (under the waterline, that is) with Caan having no great ambition other than to maintain his rank and his dental integrity while helping Mason and her son, not to mention his friend Eli Wallach.Caan is a essentially a skilled grease monkey--no deep thinking here-- and he turns the hooker cliché on its head. He's the one with the heart of gold, not Mason. As you watch, she becomes less and less appealing. Her self-destructive impulses overwhelm her prettiness. Bad decisions blot out a perky nose, coy overbite, and non-fashion-model curves.To add an extra layer of quality to the story, there's Seattle herself, here more matronly and replenishment ship homely than in your travel brochure. The Emerald City is rendered by the locale choices to feel working class, not flight-deck glamorous.In closing, I recommend Cinderella Liberty because it is an honest film with nice, believable people and a story that shows rust streaks and all. It's a fine entertainment.

I remember seeing this movie as a kid at the movies. I really liked this movie because it didn't candycoat anything to make the storyline more digestible. It was sailor meets hooker, sailor falls for hooker, hooker does sailor wrong. It wasn't doctored up like Pretty Woman was years later. It was very sad in parts, had some funny and happy moments. Most of all, I found myself drawn in by all four main characters. You could actually find yourself caring about what happened next to them. That is rare in a movie nowdays. I liked the ending, however, it would not be likely to happen nowdays with all the high-tech identity trackers that are used now. It was probably feasible back then in 1972 or 1973, though. This is probably James Caan's best movie.

This movie was made in 1973, and I thought it was a great movie for several reasons. It depicts the gritty, boring life of a career enlisted serviceman. Military heroics are replaced with human heroics at a time when civilians had a dim view of anyone who spent time in the service. The movie turns all the trite plots about saintly prostitutes and sailors on its head. Caan plays a real sailor, and Marsha Mason, a funny but can't help herself hooker. Her young son by an unknown black father is slowly drawn into a friendship with her mother's "honky" john. This unlikely threesome is what makes this movie worth watching. In my opinion, it is a better movie than "From Here to Eternity", which has too much of the recruiting version of the military. Cinderlla Liberty is stripped raw of the poster Navy. This movie shows life in the real Navy about a real human being, who happens to be a sailor.