The Neon Ceiling

1971
7.9| 1h40m| en
Details

A housewife and her teenage daughter, fleeing their boring lives, stop in a diner in the California desert. She runs up against the diner's owner, a gruff, beer-drinking artist whose life's work is the neon sculptures he creates and attaches to the ceiling.

Director

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Universal Television

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Reviews

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!
Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.
Cortechba Overrated
Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...
IBronson Several posters have been wondering where a copy of this movie can be found. There is a website called modcinema.com that specializes in hard-to-find films (including made-for-TV movies) from the '60s and '70s. "The Neon Ceiling" is available from that website. The movie is well worth seeking out.The work of all three main characters is first-rate. Gig young just came off of his Oscar-winning role in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They" and here delivers a completely different performance as a grizzled, lonely greasy-spoon diner owner who is effected by the mother & daughter visitors. Lee Grant was at the top of her game at this time. She had just gotten nominated for an Oscar for "The Landlord", then won an Emmy for this movie. 4 years later, she won an Oscar for "Shampoo". She, too, plays a lonely soul looking for an escape. Denise Nickerson was the true revelation here with a performance that exhibits the transition between childhood and maturity. Her next acting job would be as the gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". "The Neon Ceiling" makes the most of its locations, from the clean, white, antiseptic and confining suburbia to the expansive, darker and freeing spirit of the desert.
nelson1018 I saw the movie in 1971, I suppose, on TV and never forgot it. I would very much like to have a copy of it. Can one be purchased from any source anyone knows?Never play cards with a man named pops and never eat in a café called mom's or words to that effect, so you see, even though I am now 71, I remember part of the movie quite well after 30+ years. I remember the driving scene when the girl was learning and the incredible private show that Gig Young's character had arranged for himself and which he did not really care to share with others. It was an unlikely love story that had to end as it did.
stoneyburke This movie haunts my memory. I so remember Gig Young dancing with Lee Grant and making a comment about smelling clean hair. The kid, driving back and forth (she's NOT license-ready but determined,) and the ceiling and of COURSE the story of being lonely, love and how things can happen when it's least expected. It has been some decades since my previewing same but...Perhaps it'll show-up again on some late-night TV station and if it does I'd wager it'd be enjoyed by more NOW than THEN. Maybe those that are interested in unavailable movies can do something? Gig Young was a wonderful actor (Lee Grant is great and still is with us) and in lieu of bedroom farces, see Gig in an understated sensitive movie.
smboullion I was very young when I seen this movie. For years I could not remember the name of the movie. I would talk to my late husband about it and he said he had never heard of it.(this was surprising because he had seen just about every movie made from the 30's to the 90's and the fact that his father was a projectionist in Redondo Beach, Calif). I will never forget two parts of the movie; when Jones would turn on the 'Neon Ceiling' and when he taught the daughter to drive & she dressed up and left to go back to her father. I think this movie is what made me like neon fixtures so much. Great movie, great story line, great actors, just all around great movie. If only they would make movies like this now.

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