Mini Movie Marathons

Mini Movie Marathon: Ryan O’Neal

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Ryan O’Neal is an American actor that made him start his career in film making in 1960 with various appearances on television shows like The Untouchables, Peyton Place, and Bones. This is a list that will focus on a few of his films from his career.

What’s Up Doc? (1972)

A stiff nerdy music professor with an interest in studying rocks meets a mischievous talkative woman in a San Francisco hotel. While staying at the hotel with his domineering fiancee he gets in situations with his associates, the hotel staff, the woman stalking him and criminals trying to steal a bag of unguarded jewelry that really puts him out. This film is funny and very much a screwball comedy.

Screen shot from What’s Up Doc? – (1972) Warner Bros.

Paper Moon (1973)

This film he stars alongside his daughter Tatum O’Neal who won an Oscar for her performance. This film was filmed in black and white and has a 1930’s feel through the picture. After a con man failed to con a young child out of 200 dollars he is unsuspectingly forced to take her from Kansas to Missouri to relatives. Along the way there are swindling and multiple attempts to get her 200 dollars, they discuss the possibility of them being related.

Screen shot from Paper Moon – (1973) Paramount Pictures

Love Story (1970)

This is one of the quintessential romantic dramas to watch from the 1970s. A rich law student falls in love with a working-class Classical Music student. He gets cut off financially from his father. He gets married to his love. He lives a working-class life while struggling to finish his studies in law school while she works as a teacher. They get the news that she is dying of a terminal illness after failure to conceive a child. The directing and the acting makes the story work since it’s a little “sugary sweet”. It has some of the most quoted lines from films that in What’s Up Doc? Ryan O’Neal pokes fun at what he said in the film.

Chances Are (1989)

A romantic comedy about a man reincarnated into a younger man’s body after a car accident and bypassing Heaven to go back to Earth to be with his pregnant wife, help his best friend in his life and his job. Two decades pass and he not only figures out that he is back on Earth but life moved on without him with his daughter grown up attending in university and his former best friend in a relationship with his widowed wife. It’s a very lighthearted comedy film that has a nice 80’s soundtrack.

Movie Poster of Chances Are (1989) TriStar Pictures
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