Richard Brooks "Bite the Bullet" (1975) was Brooks' return to the western. He based his original screenplay on the endurance horse races popular at the turn of the century. In 1977, he released another controversial film, an adaptation of Judith Rossner's 1975 novel "Looking for Mr. Goodbar." It starred Diane Keaton as a Catholic school teacher who searches for sexual satisfaction in singles bars. Brooks made the film on a tight budget, and its frank treatment of sex and its horrific storyline brought praise and condemnation and sold tickets. He ended his career with "Wrong Is Right" (1982), a satire about the
Looking for Mr. Goodbar a rare kind of book: both a compelling 'page turner' and a superior roman à clef." "Newsweek" found the book to be a "hard, fast, frightening read." "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" was also a commercial blockbuster: on June 22, 1975, it entered the "New York Times" best seller list, and would remain there for 36 weeks, three of those weeks at #1. It sold over four million copies, becoming the fourth highest-selling novel of the year. Paramount Pictures purchased film rights to the novel for $250,000. The film, written and directed by Richard Brooks, was released in 1977, and starred