Up The Sandbox is a 1972 American comedy

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Irvin Kershner

Irvin Kershner

Irvin Kershner was an American film director and occasional actor, best known for directing quirky, independent films early in his career, and then Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. -Background:...

.

Paul Zindel

Paul Zindel

Paul Zindel Jr. was an American playwright, author, and educator.-Early years:Zindel was born in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York to Paul Zindel,Sr., a policeman, and Beatrice Frank, a nurse; his sister, Betty Hagen, was a year and a half older than he. Paul Zindel, Sr...

's screenplay, based on the novel by Anne Roiphe

Anne Roiphe

Anne Roiphe is an American writer and journalist. She is best-known as a first-generation feminist, and author of the novel Up The Sandbox , which was filmed as a starring vehicle for Barbra Streisand in 1972. In 1996, Salon called the book "a feminist classic."-Background and education:Roiphe...

, focuses on Margaret Reynolds, a young New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 wife and mother who, neglected by her husband and bored with her daily existence, slips into increasingly bizarre fantasies that involve, among other things, armed robbery, tribal fertility music, and a terrorist plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...

.

The cast includes Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

, David Selby

David Selby

David Lynn Selby is an American character and stage actor. He has worked in movies, soap operas and television. The naturally black-headed Selby is best known for playing the roles of Quentin Collins on the ABC-TV serial, Dark Shadows , and as the evil and compassionate...

, Paul Benedict

Paul Benedict

Paul Benedict was an American actor who made numerous appearances in television and movies beginning in the 1960s...

, George S. Irving

George S. Irving

George S. Irving is an American actor, known primarily for his character roles on Broadway. Born George Irving Shelasky in Springfield, Massachusetts, he made his debut in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!, only to be drafted days later to serve in World War II...

, Conrad Bain

Conrad Bain

Conrad Stafford Bain is a Canadian-American actor. His television credits include a leading role as Phillip Drummond in the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes and as Dr. Arthur Harmon on Maude.-Personal life:...

, Isabel Sanford

Isabel Sanford

Isabel Sanford was an American actress best known for her role as Louise "Weezy" Jefferson on the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family and The Jeffersons .-Career:...

, Lois Smith

Lois Smith

Lois Smith is an American actress whose career in theater, film, and television has spanned five decades.Smith was born Lois Arlene Humbert in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Carrie Davis and William Oren Humbert, who was a telephone company employee...

, and Stockard Channing

Stockard Channing

Stockard Channing is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its...

in her film debut.

Critics in general were impressed by Streisand's performance but thought the film itself was a confusing mess. Audiences avoided it in droves, and it proved to be one of her lowest-grossing films ever.

Up The Sandbox was released in a Region 1 DVD on October 5, 2004 as a part of the Barbra Streisand Collection.