Up the Sandbox (1972) on Netflix
Margaret Reynolds, a wife and mother in Manhattan, is bored at home and neglected by her husband Paul, a history professor. An unplanned pregnancy sends her into outrageous fantasies.
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- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb5.8/101,853 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
Paul Reynolds teaches history at Columbia University, and his research absorbs him. His wife Margaret spends her days on the Upper West Side with their two young children, and her critical, overbearing mother keeps pressing her to persuade Paul to move to New Jersey, which Margaret does not want. When she learns she is pregnant again, she keeps the news from Paul, and finds refuge in fantasies: a Central American dictator who pursues her, arguments with her husband and mother, a journey to an African people whose ritual promises childbirth without pain, and a plot to carry explosives into the Statue of Liberty.
Cast
- Ariane Helleras Elizabeth
- Terry Smithas Peter
- Gary Smithas Peter
- John C. Becheras Mr. Koerner
- Pearl Shearas Aunt Till
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Up the Sandbox (1972)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Barbra Streisand filmed a kiss with a black revolutionary in the Statue of Liberty fantasy scene, but the studio ordered the footage cut from the final film because of social attitudes at the time.
- Days into shooting, director Irvin Kershner admitted to Barbra Streisand that they had begun filming with a weak script; he had been warned not to tell her, and she replied, "That's ridiculous! If a script isn't good enough, let's work to improve it."
- Kershner had planned to shoot on a backlot at MGM, but Streisand persuaded him to film scenes on location in East Africa and he convinced producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler; Samburu tribesmen played the Masai.
- In Kenya, Streisand became friends with a Samburu woman despite sharing no language with her; the woman showed her how to dress in fabric held together with safety pins so nothing had to be sewn.
- Kershner hoped to work with Streisand again, but she turned down the title role in Eyes of Laura Mars, which eventually went to Faye Dunaway.
- Up the Sandbox was the first film Streisand made with First Artists, the production company she formed with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier.
