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Griffin and Phoenix (1976)

Griffin and Phoenix poster
Directed by
Daryl Duke
Genre
drama film, romance film
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 37m
Rating
5.3 of 10 from 9 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb

How it feels

Two middle-aged strangers discover they both have terminal cancer and months to live. They meet by chance and fall in love without telling each other about their diagnosis.

poignantbittersweetintimateslow-burnromanticmelancholictendersomber

What happens

Griffin and Phoenix (sometimes subtitled "A Love Story") is a 1976 American made-for-television romantic drama film produced by ABC Circle Films starring Peter Falk and Jill Clayburgh as title characters Geoffrey Griffin and Sarah Phoenix. Written by John Hill and directed by Daryl Duke, it first premiered on the ABC television network on February 27, 1976, and was also released to theaters in select countries under the title Today Is Forever from 1977 through 1980. It was nominated in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography at the 28th Primetime Emmy Awards. It tells the story of two ill-fated middle-aged characters who both face a terminal cancer diagnosis and have months left to live. A chance meeting brings them together and they fall in love, both unaware of the other's shared fate. Notably, Jill Clayburgh developed the same type of cancer her character had in this film, succumbing to it in 2010. Peter Falk died just over six months later in 2011 from complications relating to Alzheimer's disease. Griffin and Phoenix was first distributed on VHS by 20th Century Fox in 1982, but has never been formally released on DVD or Blu-ray. The film was remade in 2006 under the title Griffin & Phoenix, starring Dermot Mulroney and Amanda Peet. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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