I had little interest in seeing "Butterflies Are Free" but am glad I did. I expected very little but was very impressed by the acting and intelligent script. Also, as I watched i mt became pretty apparent due to the film's style that it was originally a play and it must have been a dandy one.

In the movie there are essentially three main roles with a couple of other small, supporting roles. Don (Edward Arnold) is a young blind guy who moved in to a grubby apartment a month ago. His kooky neighbor, Jill (Goldie Hawn),is a real free spirit...sort of like a hippie and the sort of woman you might expect to meet in early 70s Haight-Ahsbury, San Francisco. The final role is Don's mother. Mrs. Baker (Eileen Heckert) is a real helicopter mother....not wanting to let go of her son and babying him as well. What's to come of all this? See the film...and be prepared for some surprises.

What I liked about this film is that the characters seemed at first like caricatures...simple, one-dimentional beings. But over time, each shows amazing depth you never suspected and many surprises. Amazingly well written and acted...it's a much better film than its odd title might suggest.

This film version of Leonard Gershe's Butterflies are Free which ran for 1128 performances on Broadway from 1969 to 1972 transfers the location from Greenwich Village in Manhattan to the hippest areas of San Francisco circa the Seventies. Eileen Heckart and Paul Michael Glaser, later Starsky on Starsky&Hutch retain their original roles.

Replacing Keir Dullea and Blythe Danner in the leads are Edward Albert and Goldie Hawn. This was Edward Albert's film debut and Hawn was following up the Oscar she won for Cactus Flower. Both of them fit their parts perfectly.

But I can hardly see anyone else in the role of Albert's overprotective Mama than Eileen Heckart. Though she's only in the film in the second half, Heckart really dominates the proceedings. So much so she got an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress that year. Heckart also avoids the usual stereotyping as the mom, but she does register real concern for her kid going out in the world.

Edward Albert is her twenty something son who is trying to break free from his mom and is now living in an apartment that has a connecting door to the next apartment which is occupied by free spirited hippie chick, Goldie Hawn. Of course the key here is that Albert is blind, blind from birth. They develop into quite the romance that Heckart tries to break up.

Do love Goldie's fashion sense. See the episode where she takes Albert out of the apartment and clothes shopping. Remember those seventies fashions? Straight off the rack or the body of Barry Williams as Greg Brady.

Blinded since birth, Don Baker (Edward Albert) has a place in San Francisco. It's the first time he's living away from his overprotective mother (Eileen Heckart). His free-spirit neighbor Jill Tanner (Goldie Hawn) visits and is surprised by his blindness. She's a 19 year old aspiring actress divorcée. They get together and then his mother visits.

Goldie Hawn is the definition of free-spirit IT girl. It's a fine pairing that heightens when they are joined by Heckart. Her entry just elevates the humor to another level but it becomes more than a comedy. Goldie takes a turn that takes the story into good emotional drama. Heckart rides this roller-coaster role. This has a bit of characters-stuck-in-a-room feel from its source material as a play. Nevertheless, these are compelling characters.