I Never Sang For My Father (1970)

A New York writer and teacher (Gene Hackman) puts his plans for moving away to California on hold when his mother (Dorothy Stickney) dies. Left alone with his cantankerous father (Melvyn Douglas), he must finally come to grips with their tenuous relationship. Based on the play by Robert Anderson (TEA AND SYMPATHY) and directed by Gilbert Cates (SUMMER WISHES WINTER DREAMS). Anderson adapts his play for the screen and his Oscar nominated screenplay doesn't veer from the source material. It's a well constructed script that touches on the dynamics of a father/son relationship and should hit home for many sons. Anderson is tough and there's little room for sentimentality and when it's over, you may feel devastated as well as empty. But the material is good enough for good actors to sink their teeth into it and boy, do the Oscar nominated performances of Hackman and Douglas bristle and shine! With Estelle Parsons as the banished daughter (because she married a Jew), Lovelady Powell, Elizabeth Hubbard, Conrad Bain and James Karen.