Cinderella Liberty (1973)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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

How sad is this?

Good start, but then it gets ruined

James Caan and Marsha Mason star in Cinderella Liberty, which is a service term for a liberty for a day that ends at midnight. While Navyman Caan is on his liberty in New York City, I believe, he goes to a local hangout/bar and discovers Marsha playing pool with guys. But it's evident right away she practically lives there and does more than flirt with the guys. When James wins a game of pool, she takes him to her place. Long story short, through meeting her son and seeing her soft side, he takes a liking to her. Then, he discovers she's pregnant. Through a series of highs and lows, they decide to get married. But there's a hitch. The service lost his papers and he can't get married or any of his pay without his id #, etc. The son who is black had an attitude, but then the boy warms up to James. This is one of those rare films that you just don't want to end, like Annie Hall; you could go on watching these likable and complex people, if the movie didn't have to end. So what happens? This doesn't end quite the way you expect. But it does end with good closure. Cinderella Liberty is shown on Fox Movie Channel from time to time. So next time it comes on, don't miss this great film.

The film's title refers to a real-life temporary "pass" or "leave" issued to navy personnel. In this fictional story, John Baggs, Jr. (James Caan) is one such sailor, stuck in Seattle on leave, a man who doesn't know what to do with his time, or his life. He ends up at a beer joint where he meets Maggie (Marsha Mason), a part-time hooker and pool hustler. "Cinderella Liberty" is the story about how these two lonely people meet, and their on-again, off-again romantic relationship.Baggs is a low-key sort of fellow. But he doesn't take any guff from anyone. Maggie is on welfare. She lives with her eleven-year old son, Doug, in a dingy apartment in a dingy tenement building. Baggs tries to help the kid, but Doug has lots of emotional baggage, as does his mother.The main characters are somewhat tragic. Baggs is certainly no war hero. Indeed, he's rather ordinary, but very caring. Yet, despite his best efforts to unite the three of them into a family, things don't always work out. But the film has a surprise ending that helps offset earlier distressing plot points.Mostly downbeat and depressing, "Cinderella Liberty" is very 1970ish. Cinematography conveys an evocative mood, dark and dreary, and some of the images have a reddish tint. Post Viet Nam, the military is portrayed as somewhat bumbling. There's an obvious absence of military bravado and swagger, which engenders the story with a sense of realism.Casting and acting are fine. The chemistry between Caan and Mason seems genuine. The film was shot entirely on-location in Seattle. No film studios were used.This is a story of dashed hopes, of opportunities lost. Although not for everyone, mostly because of the very slow plot pace, "Cinderella Liberty" is a realistic, character driven story, the kind that's rarely made by contemporary Hollywood.

I have never forgotten this film for a second after seeing it on VHS years ago. 2 of my favorite actors of the 70s, Mason and Caan....Marsha needs to be better represented on DVD; why isn't this film and "Only When I Laugh" on DVD yet? Who do we complain to? There were so many surprising elements to this film...i was shocked to see the nudity in this film, and also the mixed race of her son, if my memory serves me correctly, and played by an interesting child actor. The movie was just more than i was expecting it to be, a very pleasant surprise. I just read that she beat out Babs for this part, and i really can't see her playing this part the way Marsah did, tho i do love her as well.

You can't necessarily tell by the cinematography, but this fantastic movie is the best film ever shot in Seattle - the pre-Microsoft, real Seattle. The acting is understated to the point where the camera and the actors almost playing a game of who holds the shot the longest. It is not a story about losers at all - that is Sleepless in Seattle - Cinderella Liberty is a beautiful love story in the real world. Cinderella Liberty is a story about the possibilities that can exist between humans in even the most low-life of worlds. I love it because it is the Seattle I knew and offers its characters many of the choices I had offered to me at a certain point in my own life. And that's what heart-gripping cinema is all about, to me.