John and Mary | |
---|---|
Directed by | Peter Yates |
Produced by | Ben Kadish |
Written by |
John Mortimer Mervyn Jones (novel) |
Starring |
Dustin Hoffman Mia Farrow Michael Tolan |
Music by | Quincy Jones |
Cinematography | Gayne Rescher |
Edited by | Frank P. Keller |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date
|
December 14, 1969 (US) |
Running time
|
92 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $4.1 million (US/ Canada rentals) |
John and Mary is a 1969 American romantic drama film directed by Peter Yates. It stars Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow in the title roles, directly on the heels of Midnight Cowboy and Rosemary's Baby, respectively (as well as Bullitt for Yates). The screenplay was adapted by John Mortimer from the Mervyn Jones novel.
It was released theatrically in North America on December 14, 1969. It received an R rating upon its original release, which was later downgraded to a PG rating.
John and Mary begins the morning after John and Mary meet in a bar, during a conversation about Jean-Luc Godard's Week End, and go home with each other. The story unfolds during the day as they belatedly get to know each other over breakfast, lunch and dinner. Flashbacks of their previous bad relationships are interspersed throughout when something in their conversation brings the thought up.
Before the release of the film, both Hoffman and Farrow made the cover of Time in February 1969, with the headline "The Young Actors: Stars and Anti-Stars". This marked and celebrated new actors like Hoffman and Farrow (both hot off their successes in The Graduate and Rosemary's Baby respectively) as significant to their generation.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times says, "John and Mary is supposed to be a contemporary movie, I guess, and yet it's curiously out of touch. John and Mary shadow box uneasily with the American language, trying to sound like all people their age without sounding too much like any particular person." John Thompson of the Orlando Weekly calls it "a delectable New Wave–inspired dish for thoughtful viewers tired of the same old menu."Vincent Canby of The New York Times concludes, "There is nothing wrong with the idea of John and Mary, just with its execution."