Very Cool!!!

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

In Paris, matronly interior decorator Ingrid Bergman (as Paula Tessier) fears, at 40, she's getting old. Playboy businessman Yves Montand (as Roger Demarest) cancels a dinner date with Ms. Bergman. After their next engagement, Mr. Montand doesn't stay for sex with Bergman. Instead, he goes out to pick up a younger woman. Obviously, their five year affair has lost its luster. Later, Bergman meets a wealthy client's son, bubbly law student Anthony Perkins (as Philip Van der Besh). He's 25-years-old. Immediately attracted to his mom's decorator, Mr. Perkins takes Bergman for a ride in his fast sports car and invites her to lunch...Produced and directed by Anatole Litvak, "Goodbye Again" features a trio of stars who certainly looked better on paper. We don't see much for Bergman to find attractive in either Perkins or Montand. Frankly, Bergman isn't especially attractive to either man, either. There is little passion in either pairing. Bergman is morbid. Perkins too silly. Montand seems disinterested even in the sexpots that appear in his bed. Other than having the younger heads popping in front of the camera, Mr. Litvak's dance scene near the end looks good. He uses automobiles to parallel his characters; at one point, Bergman's tears cover her car's windshield.**** Goodbye Again (5/61) Anatole Litvak ~ Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins, Yves Montand, Jessie Royce Landis

High class soap opera with Ingrid, stylishly dressed and becomingly coiffured, looking wonderful. She of course gives the best performance with Anthony Perkins a close second. The main problem is that her longing for Yves Montand, a stolid lout, is puzzling. In a sign of how the times have changed the enchanting beautiful Ingrid, who states that she is forty, considers herself old and seems desperately afraid of being alone and is willing to settle for crumbs from a man whom she is clearly to good for. Still as these sort of pictures go this is a fine diversion, competently directed with handsome black and white photography. Jessie Royce Landis is fun in a small part as Tony's mother.

This is an excellent movie well worth viewing. As the film opens, you hear the Brahms theme and it triggers memories of the 1946 film "Undercurrent" starring Katherine Hepburn and Robert Taylor. I hoped the film would equal it in quality. It does. Well written, beautifully shot in France, and well acted, it clicks on all cylinders. Surprising for me (and maybe it should not have been) was Ms Bergman, 20 years after "Casablanca," looking as gorgeous as she did 20 years prior and demonstrating the acting separation that distinguished her from the mere pretty-faced Grable, Turner, and Gardner. I may be late to the dance, but I am now convinced as an actress she stands on the front line with Hepburn and Davis. She can really bring it.For some strange reason, many have unfairly criticized Tony Perkins in his role as the young infatuated lover, often referencing his then recent (and to be definitive) role in "Psycho". This is nonsense. Perkins was an actor of great breath, which included the New York dramatic and musical stage. Check him out in Stephen Sondheim's 1966 Stage 67 TV special "Evening Primrose." You wouldn't get cast to premiere Sondheim material in 1966 if you didn't have your sh*t together. Perkin's character in "Goodbye Again" does demonstrate some quirky love-driven behavior (like stalking), but its reflective of the adolescent character he is playing and has NOTHING to do with his performance in "Psycho." Who knows, the script writer could have in fact added some of this quirkiness expressly to play off of his recent Psycho role. Remember, Perkins didn't write the script, he merely acts it out well.Also of note is the a brief cameo role played by Diahann Carroll as a Paris jazz club chanteuse (jazz aficionados will recognize American jazz expatriates Kenny Clarke on drums and Eli 'Lucky' Thompson on tenor sax, both major modern jazz associates of Gillespie and Parker in New York in the 1940's and 1950's). Carroll was in Paris in 1961 for this movie and her next released the same year, "Paris Blues." These two roles were seen by Broadway composer Richard Rodgers and it influenced him to write his next Broadway musical, "No Strings" (opened in NYC March 1962) expressly for Ms Carroll. Coincidentally, the musical was about love in Paris. Both Ms Carroll and Mr. Rodgers won Tony awards for this musical.This is an excellent love story without the usual forced, corny Hollywood happy ending. Bergman is so appealing in this film that you wonder how Yves Montand could be sleeping around with other women. But when you see the willing, delectable young women he sleeps with, you can understand if not excuse his behavior. Love is always complex.

I absolutely loved Anthony Perkins in this film! To see him smile and be so charismatic and sneaky none of the eerie, psychotic Norman Bates and I welcomed this departure. Some have posted that Anthony Perkins was too skinny to play the role. What the hell does that even mean? We can all relate to having fallen for someone who was "not what we want" and there is noting wrong with that! By the way it is completely believable that Ingrid's character would be intrigued by him. His youth, his brazen attitude, openness and desire for this older woman. Oh and what of the lovely Ingrid Bergman. Need I say more? The woman is fantastic. Yves Montand is sexy and awful at the same time. A great performance. There were some lovely supporting roles throughout the film. And the back drop of France makes this a beautiful film visually. I feel this is a great film to see.