CLASSIC MOVIES: ON GOLDEN POND (1981)

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Brief Movie Synopsis [courtesy of Turner Classic Movies]:

During a summer holiday, an elderly couple comes to grips with aging and their troubled relationship with their adult daughter. Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn both won Academy Awards for their roles in this film.

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REVIEWS:

"As a successful Broadway play, Ernest Thompson's 'On Golden Pond' was processed American cheese, smooth, infinitely spreadable and bland, with color added by the actors. .... The movie...is still American cheese, but its stars -- Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Fonda and Dabney Coleman -- add more than color to this pasteurized product. 'On Golden Pond' now has the bite of a good old cheddar. .... As Norman Thayer...Mr. Fonda gives one of the great performances of his long, truly distinguished career."

-- Excerpt from The New York Times; December 4, 1981

"On Golden Pond is a treasure for many reasons, but the best one, I think, is that I could believe it. I could believe in its major characters and their relationships, and in the things they felt for one another, and there were moments when the movie was witness to human growth and change. .... Those achievements are small miracles for any movie, but especially for this one, which began as a formula stage play. .... 'On Golden Pond' transcends its predictability and the transparent role of the young boy, and becomes a film with passages of greatness. .... This is the first film in which Hepburn and the two Fondas have acted in any combination with one another. Some reviews actually seem to dismiss the casting as a stunt. I believe it adds immeasurably to the film's effect. If Hepburn and Henry Fonda are legends, seen in the twilight of their lives, and if we've heard that Jane and Henry have had some of the same problems offscreen that they have in this story, does that make the movie simple gossip? No, not if the movie deals honestly with the problems, as this one does. As people, they have apparently learned something about loving and caring that, as actors, they are able to communicate, even through the medium of this imperfect script. Watching the movie, I felt I was witnessing something rare and valuable."

-- Roger Ebert; 1981

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