Poor Marsha Marson. All of her relationships end in failure. The guy simply walks out. She has a precocious daughter, devilishly played by Quinn Cummings. The latter received a supporting actress nomination and faded from the movie scene real fast. Where are you Quinn darling?

Forced to share an apartment with a stranger, Mason may finally be on the right track. Richard Dreyfuss is that man and in a surprise Oscar winning performance (Richard Burton was also up for Equus that year), he is perfect in the role as the charmer.

By movie's end Dreyfuss has to go off to somewhere but unlike the other men in her life, will return. How do we know he is coming back? Just see this delightful film and find out.

It is starting to feel like another planet when you think about the time that has passed since Neil Simon was cranking out comedies like this one in the 1970's. What makes it feel longer is - Marsha Mason is 70 years old this year 2012 Richard Dreyfuss is 65 years old this year.

Their daughter who was a newcomer in this movie is 40 years old this year.

Dreyfuss won an Oscar for this one and deservedly so. His character is extremely energetic and in a time before it is fashionable has to play a gay King Richard.

As for Mason, she is delicious and bitchy all in moments.

Neil Simon is 85 this year and his last writing credit was in 2007. In the 1970's Simon was doing scripts like this, The Odd Couple and The Sun Shine Boys.

While the Goodbye Girl is not quite as well done as the others, this is still a pretty solid script for it's era. What seems strange is that this one just was shown on The Essentials on TCM. I am not used to having a movie that came out when I grew up being honored in that Saturday night slot. Still, it deserved the recognition.

We need films like this one to remind us people and movies are not perfect.

Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss exudes lots of kooky, ego-fed charisma and has energy to spare in "The Goodbye Girl" but there's nothing here to keep his character together with Marsha Mason's--except a few plot contrivances. Mason plays a single mom trying to find work as a dancer on Broadway, Dreyfuss is a burgeoning stage actor who has been promised her apartment. They pick at each other until one night he kisses her and that seems to change nearly everything between them. Once their romance begins, almost every scene thereafter is a bummer. Mason harps on redoing her apartment ("Go be a movie star," she tells Dreyfuss, "I'll be here hanging up my wallpaper."). What is her irrational need to find a man and set up house? It's more important to her than finding work. Mason looks smashing in a pixie cut that accentuates her big gummy smile, but her character's insecure, moody behavior is enough to drive any reasonably sane man away. Thank goodness for daughter Quinn Cummings' smart mouth, Dreyfuss may never return. **1/2 from ****