Gloria (1980 film)

Gloria is a 1980 American neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It tells the story of a gangster's former girlfriend who goes on the run with a young boy who is being hunted by the mob for information he may or may not have. It stars Gena Rowlands, Julie Carmen, Buck Henry, and John Adames.

The film had its world premiere at the 37th Venice International Film Festival, winning the Golden Lion, the festival's top prize, in a tie with Atlantic City by Louis Malle.

Plot
In New York City, in the South Bronx, Jeri Dawn is heading home with groceries. Inside the lobby of her apartment building, she passes a man whose dress and appearance are out of place. The woman quickly boards the elevator.

She is met in her apartment by her husband Jack Dawn, an accountant for a New York City mob family. There is a contract on Jack and his family, as he has been acting as an informant for the FBI. Suddenly, the family's neighbor, Gloria Swenson, rings their doorbell, asking to borrow some coffee. Jeri tells Gloria there is an impending hit on her family and implores Gloria to protect her children. Gloria, formerly a mobster's girlfriend, tells Jeri that she doesn't like kids but begrudgingly agrees. The Dawns' daughter Joan refuses to leave and locks herself in the bathroom. While the family attempts to get Joan, Gloria takes their young son Phil, and an incriminating accounts ledger, to her apartment, narrowly missing the hit squad.

After hearing loud shotgun blasts from the Dawns' apartment, a visibly shaken Gloria decides that she and Phil must go into hiding. She quickly packs a bag and leaves the building with Phil, just as a police SWAT team are entering with heavy weapons. Meanwhile, a crowd of onlookers and news reporters have gathered in front of the building, and a cameraman captures a picture of Gloria leaving the building with Phil.

Gloria and Phil take a cab into Manhattan, where they hide out in an empty apartment belonging to a friend of hers. While Phil sleeps, Gloria has the TV on and hears a news report say that there was a mob hit in the South Bronx, and that the name of the suspected abductor is Gloria Swenson.

The next morning, Gloria and Phil sneak out of the apartment just as a group of gangsters close in on them. The gangsters are old friends of Gloria's, and confront her on the sidewalk outside, exhorting her to give up Phil and the ledger. In desperation, Gloria shoots her revolver at the car of five gangsters, which takes off and flips over. Gloria realizes both her fate and Phil's are now deeply intertwined, and that they will have to leave New York to survive.

Gloria goes to the bank to empty her safe deposit box, and the two settle for the night at a flophouse. She confronts another group of gangsters at a restaurant; she asks for immunity in exchange for the ledger. "Only Mr. Tanzinni can agree to that", says one of the goons, so she takes some of their guns and flees.

The next day, Gloria tells Phil that she plans to send him away to a boarding school. Offended by her intentions, Phil claims he is an independent grown man who can manage alone. Gloria decides to abandon him and have a drink. She is soon filled with guilt for leaving the child and rushes back to look for him; however, he has been captured by some wiseguys. Gloria rescues him, killing one mobster in the process, and fleeing from two others via a taxi and the subway, where several by-standers help her escape.

The two eventually make it to a hotel room, where Gloria laments the mob's strength and ubiquitous presence, explaining to Phil that she was once the mistress of Tanzinni himself. She meets with Tanzinni, relinquishes the ledger, and then flees, killing one gangster as another shoots down upon her elevator car. Phil waits several hours, then flees to Pittsburgh via rail. At a cemetery, Phil and Gloria (the latter disguised as the former's grandmother arriving in a limousine after miraculously surviving her ordeal) reunite.

Cast

 * Gena Rowlands as Gloria Swenson
 * Julie Carmen as Jeri Dawn
 * Buck Henry as Jack Dawn
 * John Adames as Phil Dawn
 * Lupe Garnica as Margarita Vargas
 * John Finnegan as Frank
 * Tom Noonan, J.C. Quinn, and Sonny Landham as Mob Henchmen
 * Lawrence Tierney as The Broadway Bartender

Production
John Cassavetes did not originally intend to direct his screenplay; he planned merely to sell the story to Columbia Pictures. However, once his wife, Gena Rowlands, was asked to play the title character in the film, she asked Cassavetes to direct it. Gloria is John Adames' only film role.

Reception and legacy
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 93% approval rating based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "A comparatively commercial entry from director John Cassavetes, Gloria's pulpy pleasures are elevated by his observant touch and Gena Rowlands' galvanizing star performance."

Reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and described it as "tough, sweet and goofy", as well as "fun and engaging but slight". He believed the overly silly nature of the script is redeemed by "Cassavetes' reliance on a tried-and-true plot construction" and the acting performances, particularly that of Rowlands, who he said "propels the action with such appealing nervous energy that we don't have the heart to stop and think how silly everything is". In a retrospective review, Slant Magazine praised Rowlands' performance and said that "the supporting cast pales in comparison to Rowlands".

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
 * 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
 * Gloria Swenson – Nominated Hero

The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited Gloria as one of his favorite films.

The film was remade in 1999 under the same title with a screenplay by Steve Antin. The remake was directed by Sidney Lumet. It starred Sharon Stone and Jean-Luke Figueroa.

Other films inspired by Gloria include Erick Zonca's 2008 film Julia, starring Tilda Swinton and Luc Besson's 1994 film Léon: The Professional. In 2013, Paul Schrader was planning his own remake of the film, starring Lindsay Lohan. But, it was evidently beat to the box office by 2018's Proud Mary (film) starring Taraji P. Henson.

John Adames
The film is notable for the performance of child actor John Adames (also known as Juan Adames), for which he won the first ever Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor, shared with Laurence Olivier for his role in The Jazz Singer. Adames, who had been cast after an open call, was between five and seven years old when cast, and his character Phil Dawn was six. He did not have any subsequent film roles.

Adames' performance was criticized by contemporary reviewers, who according to critic Ray Carney, expected Adames to be "cute and cuddly", and when he was not, they judged that Cassavetes had failed. Eric Henderson of Slant magazine posited that the criticism was due to Adames' vocal delivery, which he compared to "what Paddy Chayefsky would sound like impersonating Alvin Chipmunk". However, Roger Ebert praised Adames' performance, calling him "well cast". Writing for Film Comment in 2017, Shonni Enelow revisited Adames' performance as the "crucial positive negative" that "makes the film work".