{"id":13851,"date":"2026-01-19T21:20:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13851"},"modified":"2026-01-19T21:20:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:20:37","slug":"all-night-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/01\/19\/all-night-long\/","title":{"rendered":"All Night Long"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"All Night Long <\/strong>(1981)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, sexual content, adult situations)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jean-Claude Tramont\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: W.D. Richter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Richard Hazard and Ira Newborn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Lathrop\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 6, 1981 (US)\u00a0 \u00a0 Cast: Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Diane Ladd, Dennis Quaid, Kevin Dobson, William Daniels, Ann Doran, Terry Kiser, Vernee Watson, Chris Mulkey, Annie Girardot, Tandy Cronyn, Charles Siebert, Richard Stahl, Faith Minton, Jessie Lawrence Ferguson, Bonnie Bartlett, Hamilton Camp.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $4.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0The late 70s\/early 80s saw the release of several adult-oriented comedies like All Night Long<\/strong>. You know the ones I\u2019m talking about, the ones that deal with adult topics like adultery, divorce and the ever popular mid-life crisis. Off the top of my head, I remember Middle Age Crazy, The Last Married Couple in America, Just Tell Me What You Want, Starting Over, A Change of Seasons and An Unmarried Woman (the best of these titles).<\/p>\n

\u00a0I remember watching All Night Long<\/strong> at my grandparents\u2019 house one afternoon in April \u201982 and thinking that it was just okay. At 14, I obviously couldn\u2019t relate to the protagonist\u2019s issues but I wasn\u2019t about to pass up watching an R-rated movie that I wasn\u2019t allowed to see the year before. I recently revisited this movie and discovered that while I could now understand the main character\u2019s problems better, I didn\u2019t think the movie was all that funny. As a matter fact, it\u2019s pretty lame. I may have chuckled once or twice during it, but I found the overall movie a rather forgettable affair.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only memorable thing about All Night Long<\/strong> is the complete lack of chemistry between the two leads. I\u2019m not even sure what Barbra Streisand is doing in such an inconsequential movie that began life as a low budget comedy. Lisa Eilbacher (An Officer and a Gentleman) was originally supposed to star opposite Gene Hackman (Superman II) until Streisand\u2019s agent (the director\u2019s wife) suggested her client for the role. The movie\u2019s weak box office take just about covered Babs\u2019 $4 million salary. It\u2019s since been suggested that the singer\/actress fired her agent because All Night Long<\/strong> flopped at the box office. I just can\u2019t imagine what attracted her to this project, especially since her character is a singer\/songwriter with absolutely no talent. Having Barbra Streisand play somebody who can\u2019t sing is like having Sylvester Stallone play a pacifist. It\u2019s a total waste!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Corporate executive George Dupler (Hackman) finds himself demoted to overnight manager of an all-night drugstore after flipping out in his boss\u2019 office (he throws a chair through a window) about once again being passed over for a promotion. This bit of misfortune doesn\u2019t go over well with his wife Helen (Ladd, Wild at Heart) seeing that their marriage is already on the rocks. Then he finds out that his oddball 18YO son Freddie (Quaid, Breaking Away) is having an affair with an older, married woman. Her name is Cheryl Gibbons (Streisand) and she\u2019s married to a fireman (Dobson, Knots Landing) with a volatile temper. She also happens to be Helen\u2019s sister-in-law (Cheryl\u2019s husband is the brother of Helen\u2019s sister), but the movie doesn\u2019t really call attention to this fact. It\u2019s a bit icky when you think about it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Anyway, Cheryl develops an interest in George after he voices his disapproval of her relationship with Freddie. At first, he resists her eccentric charms, but eventually starts to develop an interest in Cheryl. Freddie soon finds out about their affair and creates a scene at home that results in George moving out and Helen filing for divorce. Meanwhile, things aren\u2019t going much better for him at work with his less-than-capable staff, the weird customers (one of whom tries to rob the place) and the corporate executives constantly breathing down his neck. If George wants to straighten out this mess that is his life, he\u2019s going to have to make some pretty serious decisions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If it weren\u2019t for all the profanity, All Night Long<\/strong> could just as easily have been a made-for-TV movie. It\u2019s about as mediocre as a movie can get and still be considered a feature film. It\u2019s hardly the worst movie I\u2019ve ever seen, but this isn\u2019t the kind of movie that will likely be placed on any type of list other than one listing the most egregious wastes of talent.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have to admit that I don\u2019t worship at the altar of Babs; I haven\u2019t liked every single thing that she\u2019s done. I couldn\u2019t stand Yentl or The Mirror Has Two Faces. But I do think that she has a tremendous singing voice. Everybody knows this which makes me wonder why director Jean-Claude Tramont thought he could pass her off as somebody who can\u2019t sing. Ms. Streisand has a gift for comedy, but you wouldn\u2019t know it based on All Night Long<\/strong>. Even though she sports a blond do a la Marilyn Monroe, she doesn\u2019t come off as particularly scatterbrained like the 1950s sex symbol.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hackman does his usual professional job and comes off as likable even though he\u2019s fooling around on his wife. But like I said, there\u2019s no chemistry between him and Babs which renders this movie somewhat pointless, don\u2019t you think? As for the rest of the cast, they do fine but Quaid\u2019s character is both weird and annoying.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The best parts of All Night Long<\/strong> are when Hackman attempts to deal with the weirdos that come into the drug store on a nightly basis. That might actually make for a decent comedy, but Tramont drops this plotline about midway through the movie to focus on less interesting things. My final verdict? Although it runs only 87 minutes, the movie only feels like it lasts all night long.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All Night Long (1981)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, sexual content, adult situations)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jean-Claude Tramont\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: W.D. Richter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Richard Hazard and Ira Newborn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Lathrop\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 6, 1981 (US)\u00a0 \u00a0 Cast: Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Diane Ladd, Dennis Quaid, Kevin Dobson, William Daniels, Ann Doran, Terry Kiser, Vernee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/All-Night-Long-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13851"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13917,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13851\/revisions\/13917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}