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 (film) the novel. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, praising Keaton's performance but lamenting the "many loose ends and dead ends", some of which he blamed on significant alterations to the novel's plot. Gene Siskel also awarded 3 out of 4 stars, writing that "Keaton is absolutely compelling in 'Looking for Mr. Goodbar,' even when the film is not." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" agreed that Keaton was "virtually the only reason" to see the film, calling her "too good to waste on the sort of material the movie provides, which is artificial without in