Just Tell Me What You Want (1980)

the audience applauded

I'll tell you why so serious

Fantastic!

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I enjoyed watching this film because the styles and look of the city made me feel nostalgic for that time. It's a puzzle how the plot of the movie could tie together romance with the character that Alan King plays. Romantic? Not. Even dashing or handsome? Not. Rich. Yes. But once you realize the person you're dealing with, there's just not enough money... OK, you'll find a goofy 21-year-old who will think there is enough money to make this guy attractive. But then: you don't need that much money to impress that young girl. Which is what Alan King's character ends ups with, and you are happy for him. It's quite fitting for someone that shallow to share feelings with someone just out of her teenage years. Then the movie winds to its close and you're shocked. Shocked! There's no accounting for taste.I much enjoyed a part of the movie that takes place in Bergdorf's - a scene in which Ali McGraw's character tried to beat the crap of the old lecher. It was too too short. But very satisfying.

Allen King is one of the richest and most powerful men in the USA, with a finger in everything -- real estate, television, movies, art collections, tax-deductible charities -- and he can have any woman he wants. It isn't just that he CAN have them; he HAS them.He has Ali MacGraw on his staff, as a producer of a TV talk show, and she's been his main squeeze for some time now. He has her set up in her own lavish apartment and she wears more jewels than Cleopatra.Two problems. First, he's too busy to really pay much attention to her. He's always on the phone, threatening people, sometimes for millions of dollars, sometimes for pennies. He calls Hollywood. He calls Switzerland and makes a demand on a Swiss bank that they must observe, otherwise he's going to withdraw his funds -- "Fermez les JAMBS" -- and put the bank out of business.The second problem, not counting King's mentally ill wife who is conveniently stashed away in an upscale "loony bin" in Minnesota, is that Ali MacGraw is a little tired of playing a fiddle in the orchestra and wants to be her own concert master for a change. On top of that she falls in love with a playwright, Peter Weller, and marries him.This distresses Alan King but he's not the kind of guy who's willing to show that he's been beaten. When she gives him the bad news in his office, he tries to talk MacGraw out of the marriage. "We can have it annulled," he says with a smile. But, no. Weller and MacGraw are in love and she'll stick with her decision. She leaves the office when King tells her, okay, whatever she wants, and says that he must now make some important calls. Bye-bye and, really, the best of luck. This leads to the funniest scene in this good-natured comedy.When MacGraw is gone, King's smile fades. The office is utterly silent and King deliberately replaces the phone. He walks to his desk, carefully extracts his contact lenses and put them away in their case. Then he sits down, put his face in his hands, and cries out in an excess of agony, "I'm a DEAD JEW!" He sobs loudly and all his secretaries run in, thinking he's had a stroke or something.He finally recovers and begins snapping out orders that will knee-cap MacGraw and her playwright husband -- canceling her credit cards, doing something nasty with her fancy apartment, reclaiming all his furniture and the millions of dollars of paintings on the wall. "What about my douche bag?", MacGraw demands of the security guards. "Personal effects, okay, but not the furniture or paintings." It leads to the second funniest scene in the movie, in which MacGraw accidentally runs into King in Bergdorff-Goodman's and begins to beat the hell out of him with her purse and her shoes, demolishing half the shop in the process. He manages to shove her away and dashes out the door. And, just when you think the fight is over, you find it isn't. She rushes outside, catches him holding on to his limousine -- "Open the Goddam DOOR!" -- and continues belaboring him, kicking, punching, and pounding while he lies screaming for help on the pavement. When he finally escapes the crowd applauds.In between these very funny moments, it's not so funny. There are moments of tragedy. King's batty wife dies and though he gets over it quickly it's clear that he's been hurt. King's not a bad guy. He's a materialist of course, the kind of man to whom "success" and "money" mean the same thing. But he's sentimental, too, and not uncaring. Most of the humor comes from King's character, authoritarian, demanding, wheedling, sharp as a tack -- as when he's courting a new secretary in a fancy restaurant and describing how he'll send her back to college and get her teeth capped. In the hospital after fainting, he's terrified. Against the advice of his doctors he whispers a demand for a pacemaker, and he gives them the name of a manufacturer of the most expensive devices, as if he were ordering a new Mercedes. He's keenly perceptive too. About Hollywood, he tells MacGraw, "Girls don't get laid after they're twenty-one. Middle age starts at twenty-four." We don't ordinarily think of the director, Sidney Lumet, as a professional who is given whole-heartedly to comedy, and this story has some sharp edges to it. It's confusing too, unless you understand the movie business and some other shenanigans that King is involved in. It's sufficiently confusing that at the end, with King in a hospital bed and the already-married MacGraw demanding that King admits he loves her, I wasn't at all sure which man she wound up with.

This under-rated movie that no one ever saw is worth a look. Alan King and Ali McGraw make a great couple, believe it or not. Dina Merrill is hysterically funny as Alan's wife, Connie. She is out of her mind and his affair is not helping. Myrna Loy, a screen legend, does not disappoint with her small part as Alan's right arm/valuable assistant. Also along for the ride are Keenan Wynn, Peter Weller and Tony Roberts.

This movie became one of my favorites the instant I saw it and I didn't even like Ali MacGraw! But I like her just fine now. This is an absolutely top-notch production from start to finish and the performances are outstanding -- without exception. I mean here you have Alan King, with Keenan Wynn, and Myrna Loy as supporting actors! MacGraw and Peter Weller are very appealing as young lovers and MacGraw gives her perhaps only great performance. She pulls out all the stops in this one and couldn't be better. I just love this movie and can't understand why it wasn't a big hit. Well, I can, actually. It doesn't appeal to immature adolescent boys (including most Hollywood producers).