The novel and movie of the 70s titled “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” seem to have no connection that I can see to a Hershey chocolate confection. I haven’t read the novel or seen the film, so maybe the reference is made clear there, but in reading about the novel and film I don’t get the Mr. Goodbar reference.
Can anyone explain?
Mr. Goodbar is one of the places she hangs out looking for sex, at least in the book. It was a comfortable place with old gumball-machines for table lamps and one wall covered entirely with a shellacked montage of candy wrappers.
I never knew about this movie until now. It looks great. I’m going to have to watch it now. Thanks, OP.
Consider also the phallic suggestiveness of “good bar”
One should also consider that Mr. Goodbar has nuts.
I remember seeing the film in the '70s and thinking it was just awful. Hope you enjoy it more.
Very true!
The name also tied in to her body issues.
I was about 11 when I read it. It may have gotten me started on my love of A&E’s Cold Case Files.
Thanks, all. I wonder if Hershey was ever bothered by the reference.
You’re a kid. It’s Halloween. The lady down the street holds out a bowl with a variety of Hershey’s products (the tiny ones) and invites you to take one. Won’t it be a Mr. Goodbar?
You may have a tough time on that. I don’t believe it was ever legally released on DVD.
Fortunately, one of my DVD players also has a VCR, and I still use it sometimes.
It was something of a triple pun. The place, of course. The candy bar and she was looking in the bars of the time for a good man to be her “Mr,” although claiming all the time she was above all that.
This was based on the real life murder of Roseann Quinn in 1973. A school teacher that lead a double life picking up violent guys in seedy bars.
Nah. I hear their CEO rides the Hershey highway every morning on the way to work.
It is great, I think. It’s pretty faithful to the book if my memory serves me. I went through a brief fascination with the book, movie, soundtrack and the true story it was based on. Besides the movie as a whole being good, IMO, Diane Keaton is at her most beautiful (or maybe second to Reds from a few years later), the young Richard Gere is fun to watch, a young Tom Berenger is terrifying to watch, a young William Atherton is interesting to watch, TUESDAY WELD is in it! and the soundtrack is absolutely killer. At that time I thought I hated “disco” and was firmly in the “DISCO SUCKS” camp, yet I owned the soundtrack (on 8-track because my car had an 8-track player) and listened to it over and over. They really did use the cream of the crop of songs.
I like the scene where Theresa (Keaton) is sitting at the bar reading The Godfather when she first meets Tony (Gere) and he riffs on it a bit, saying something like “I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” Of course, Keaton had already starred in The Godfather Pts 1 & 2 by that time. I can’t remember now if Theresa was reading it in the book or not, or if the filmmakers threw that in as an in-joke.
I was already quite familiar with young William Atherton from the great miniseries Centennial. Everyone should watch this, it’s fantastic.
The real murder, book and movie was a powerful reminder of the dangers of singles bars in the 70’s.
Those were the great days before Aids and the pill made casual sex possible. STD’s were around but a shot in the ass cured them. The Singles scene was really big in the 70’s. At least that’s what I heard while I was stuck in elementary school. 
Time I got old enough for hooking up the Aids scare had hit.
Another good movie about the 70’s single scene is An Unmarried Woman. A recent divorcee enters the singles scene and the movie does a good job showing how shallow and artificial it was.
It was an ugly, depressing, deeply anti-sexual film, kind of of a piece with Joel Shumaker’s “Hardcore” from 1979, showing sex as something that drives you from one ugly, nasty situation to another. If this is the nature of your sex life, I feel for you. And if sex was really as bad as portrayed in these films, the population problem would consist of people having sex often enough to have a population.
And the name? A pun. “Looking for Mr. Good Bar.” Looking for Mr. Right (i.e., Good) in a bar.
Gimme a wholesome porn flick any day.
Hardcore is a great movie, even if the premise is somewhat flawed. It has great aesthetics, and also - ironically - contains probably the most detailed explanation of Calvinism in any movie ever made. Anything with George C. Scott is worth seeing at least once.