Taglines: Anything – and everything – can be a weapon in the war between the sexes.
Just Tell Me What You Want movie storyline. Max Herschel, the married, wealthy, vulgar, egotistical, middle-aged head of a corporate empire, is satisfied with the somewhat casual love/hate relationship he shares with his mistress and protegee, television producer “Bones” Burton, just as it is, but she wants a more serious commitment.
The young woman attempts to extricate herself from the affair—or perhaps force her lover into taking the next, more permanent step—by dating a younger man, off-off-Broadway playwright Steven Routledge. Max, however, is not a man to accept defeat in any of his endeavors, and he retaliates with a vengeance.
The two engage in an escalating battle of wits, with Max discovering money can’t resolve everything when he is outsmarted by business rival Seymour Berger and his grandson Mike. It leads to a comic fight between Max and Bones at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman.
Just Tell Me What You Want is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Sidney Lumet. It stars Ali MacGraw, Peter Weller and Alan King, and was also Myrna Loy’s final film. The screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, adapted from her novel, won her the David di Donatello Award for Best Screenplay of a Foreign Film. To date, this remains Ali MacGraw’s last leading-lady film role.
The film features the last motion picture performance of Myrna Loy, who plays Herschel’s confidential secretary.
Interiors of the Warner Bros. release were filmed at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York, with Manhattan exteriors (and the scene inside Bergdorf Goodman) shot on location.
Just Tell Me What You Want (1980)
Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Ali MacGraw, Alan King, Myrna Loy, Keenan Wynn, Tony Roberts, Peter Weller, Judy Kaye, Dina Merrill, Joseph Maher
Screenplay by: Jay Presson Allen
Production Design by: Tony Walton
Cinematography by: Oswald Morris
Film Editing by: Jack Fitzstephens
Costume Design by: Gloria Gresham, Tony Walton
Set Decoration by: Robert Drumheller, Justin Scoppa Jr.
Art Direction by: John Jay Moore
Music by: Charles Strouse
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: January 18, 1980
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