RIP Ryan O’Neal
By no defensible critical standard is THE MAIN EVENT a good movie, but I have watched it many times because I love Barbra Streisand and boxing movies both. And it has a scene that I constantly quote around my gym mates. Ryan O’Neal is in the midst of a hard fight and Streisand is in the corner between rounds.
Several times I’ve told buddies in their fight prep “this is very important … try to hit him more than he hits you.” It’s usually funny enough and only with some have I been able to muster the courage to tell them that I am quoting a Barbra Streisand movie.
By any defensible critical standard, BARRY LYNDON is a great movie and Ryan O’Neal was the ideal actor to embody him — handsome, rough-hewn, roguish and ambitious with a puppy dog look in his eyes. When he walks after a freshly broke Marisa Berenson to Schubert, the desire is palpable, even through the chalky makeup and the gavotte of proper courting.
Rightwing Film Geek 
Similarly, chasing up some of the lesser known O’Neal’s this morning. The Main Event must be one of the least remembered hits of all time.
Comment by film-authority.com | December 9, 2023 |
They were great together in WHAT’S UP DOC, and you could certainly make a screwball comedy with these two and the basic storyline of a female manager with no boxing experience and a fighter who doesn’t want to fight. The script was just too thin, reducing O’Neal to put-upon whininess in a way believable in a musicologist but not in a fighter and leaving Streisand to her own worst buffalo-ing tendencies (Judy Maxwell is a clueless jinx … very different).
Comment by vjmorton | December 11, 2023 |