i take my girlfriend to see this movie in 1968. at the end and i be sob . i do not stop cry until we have drive a mile or so from the movie theatre . she look at me a if i be out of my mind . this week i buy the movie and to see how it would affect me 30 year later . not quite the same emotional impact ( well and i know the end ) and but still a very powerful movie . recently i hear a director say that the most important thing convey in movie be not the word that be say and but the word that be not say . this movie be fill with word not say . the protagonist and john singer and be an emotional cipher . alan arkin have the good sense to underplay him . you can pour all of your own feeling into him . i could quibble about some element now and but this be and at essence and a story of the heart . thirty year after first see this movie and it still stand up and and still touch my heart in a way few movie have .