I Never Sang for My Father

“A motion picture the whole world has taken to its heart.”

Gene Garrison (Gene Hackman) is a widowed college professor who wants to marry Peggy (Elizabeth Hubbard) and move with her to California. Doing it means leaving his aging father, Tom (Melvyn Douglas), a domineering man who has never stopped running his son's life. Gilbert Cates keeps the camera on the two men across the table, where a son's duty and a father's demands sit unspoken between them.