Husbands (1970)

          Actor/director John Cassavetes’ cycle of semi-improvised movies reached a new level with Husbands, a showpiece for the acting of Casssavetes and his pals Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. By melding his signature style of spontaneous performance with the specific energies of established screen personalities, Cassavetes achieved a noteworthy synthesis of Hollywood artifice and verité grunginess. Yet while the picture is historically significant as a formative step for the burgeoning indie-cinema aesthetic—of which Cassavetes is now considered the de facto godfather—Husbands is an acquired taste. Like all of the director’s improv-driven pictures, Husbandsis an overlong and repetitive survey of unappealing behavior, presenting endless scenes of self-involved people groping with language and violent physicality as they strive to articulate petty anxieties. The problem, as always, is that Cassavetes fails to explore his fascinations in a balanced way, so there’s no real context around the characters. Thus, viewers are subjected to a world in which men have tacit license to follow every whim, no matter how injurious the results might be to other people—and yet viewers are expected to sympathize with these boors.

          The story is so simple that the film could (and should) have run 90 minutes instead of nearly 140. After a close friend dies of a sudden heart attack, buddies Frank (Falk), Gus (Cassavetes), and Harry (Gazzara) go on a drunken bender as they wrestle with the shocking reminder of their mortality. The first half of the movie comprises the pals meandering from the funeral to various New York dives, drinking and singing and whining all the way. The second half of the picture begins when Harry fights with his wife and impulsively decides to fly to England. Concerned for Harry’s emotional welfare, Frank and Gus tag along, so the pals end up in a London hotel with three women they pick up in a bar. And so it goes from there, up until the inconclusive ending.

          Fans of Cassavetes’ work generally single out the freshness of the acting as a core virtue, but the performances by the three leads in Husbandshardly seem praiseworthy. While it’s true that Cassavetes, Falk, and Gazzara generate verisimilitude by channeling the sloppy way real people move and talk, there’s a reason screen acting generally involves shrinking normal human behavior down to illustrative indicators—watching “real” people in real time is boring. And that, from my perspective, is the best possible adjective for describing Husbands. Sure, critics have spent decades talking about how the picture captures the unchained id of the male animal, blah-blah-blah, and there’s a kernel of truth within that interpretation. After all, the characters in Husbands are as likely to break down in tears as they are to physically and/or verbally abuse women, so there’s nothing flattering in the picture Cassavetes paints. Whether there’s anything interesting in the picture, however, is another matter.

Husbands: FUNKY

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

          I wish I could see the qualities in John Cassavetes’ work that are so obvious to his admirers, but having watched most of the major pictures in the writer-director’s revered canon, I’m hung up on a few things. First, why are the movies so self-indulgently long and repetitive? I get the idea of trying to capture reality in all of its messy rhythms, but since Cassavetes edited his raw footage, why didn’t he keep editing until scenes become concise? Did he really believe everything his actors did was interesting? Furthermore, isn’t there something inherently precious about the whole concept of “capturing reality” anyway, seeing as how Cassavetes’ movies feature actors? How true can pretending be? Finally, why are so many of Cassavetes’ pictures filled with wall-to-wall ugliness? The implication seems to be that the only genuine characters are those who are perpetually at each other’s throats for craven reasons.

          Anyway, I gave up trying to enjoy Cassavetes’ movies a while ago, even though I admire his integrity; there’s no question he showed nerve by shunning nearly everything one associates with Hollywood filmmaking, from brisk pacing to smooth camerawork to tidy resolutions. Consider: Around the time A Woman Under the Influence was made, actresses including Ellen Burstyn and Joanne Woodward were using their influence to make Hollywood movies featuring themes similar to those found in A Woman Under the Influence. Yet while the Hollywood productions starring Burstyn and Woodward offered crisp explanations for why certain women behave erratically, Cassavetes simply depicted a woman succumbing to unnamed mental difficulties, leaving the viewer as bewildered as the afflicted woman’s loved ones.

          Is one approach better than the other? Who’s to say?

          Cassavetes’ wife, Gena Rowlands, plays Mabel, a Los Angeles housewife and the mother of three young children. Her husband, Nick (Peter Falk), supervises a municipal road crew, so he’s often called away unexpectedly. When the story begins, one of Nick’s sudden absences knocks Mabel out of balance, so she cycles through several types of odd behavior. She forgets facts she should know well, like the names of Nick’s co-workers; she flirts recklessly and even brings a stranger home one night; she explodes into screaming rages; and she humiliates Nick by creating scenes in front of his family and friends. As in most of Cassavetes’ movies, these events are shown in long, shapeless scenes filled with seemingly improvised discursions the camera captures with blurry, documentary-style fluidity.

          Rowlands gives a committed performance, but whether her acting choices feel authentic or forced is open to debate. (The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences praised her work with an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.) For me, however, Falk’s characterization is a greater stumbling block than Rowlands’. Watching him berate and lie to his wife, hearing him threaten to kill his own children and those of his neighbor, and seeing him slap Rowlands to the ground on two occasions, I kept wondering why everyone in the movie regarded Rowlands’ character as a lunatic. But then again, maybe that’s why I can’t find a place for myself in Cassavetes’ cinematic world. Between the rampant misogyny and the tiresome preoccupation with unmotivated anger, the director’s vision seems to be focused myopically on the worst parts of the human experience. 

A Woman Under the Influence: FUNKY

Murder by Death (1976)

          Because Murder by Death is a silly riff on vintage detective stories, it’s tempting to think the picture was intended to mimic Mel Brooks’ crowd-pleasing style of throwback spoofery, although it’s just as possible the film merely rode a mid-’70s boom in nostalgic crime films. Whatever the motivation for making the picture, the result is the same—Murder by Death is goofy but uninspired, a harmless romp that never quite achieves liftoff. Fans of detective stories will, of course, get more out of the picture than anyone else, because the film’s characters are gentle caricatures of famous literary sleuths. Casual viewers might simply enjoy the star power of the cast and the occasional glimpses of screenwriter Neil Simon’s signature wit. But, alas, this is a minor effort for everyone involved.

          The plot isn’t really worth describing, since it’s just a perfunctory contrivance, but the gist is that a mysterious millionaire named Lionel Twain (played by author/TV personality Truman Capote) invites a coterie of detectives to his estate and challenges them to investigate a murder that will take place during the detectives’ visit. Whoever solves the crime will get $1 million. The detectives include Dick and Dora Charleston (David Niven and Maggie Smith), based on Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies; Sam Diamond (Peter Falk), based on Maltese Falconhero Sam Spade; Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester), based on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple character; Milo Perrier (James Coco), based on Christie’s Hercule Poiroit; and Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers), based on Charlie Chan.

          Obviously, any film that attempts to put these diverse characters together isn’t striving for consistency or credibility—the Spade-esque character emanates from hard-boiled fiction, for instance, whereas the Thin Man types emerge from a bubbly light-comedy milieu. Rather, Simon and producer Ray Stark (abetted by undistinguished director Robert Moore) concentrate on stringing sight gags and verbal zingers together. Unfortunately, none of the humor is memorable, and the actors give such cartoonish performances that Murder by Death feels juvenile. Falk probably comes off the best, since his version of Sam Spade is fairly close to his Columbo role from TV, and Falk’s rat-a-tat interplay with his secretary, Tess (Eileen Brennan), has some energy. In sum, Murder by Death is exactly as clever and funny as its title, which is to say not very.

Murder by Death: FUNKY

The Cheap Detective (1978)

          Yet another of the myriad film-noir spoofs that proliferated during the ’70s, The Cheap Detective is surprisingly underwhelming given its all-star cast and brand-name writer. Neil Simon, opting for broad farce instead of his usual domestic dramedy, weaves together storylines and stylistic tropes from assorted ’40s detective movies, mostly those starring Humphrey Bogart. Peter Falk stars as Lou Peckinpaugh, a San Francisco private eye who gets embroiled in a plot that’s a little bit Casablanca, a little bit Maltese Falcon, and a little bit of everything else. His partner gets killed, villains search for a cache of super-sized diamonds, and Lou juggles romantic intrigue with several dizzy dames. The movie’s gags are so silly that characters have names like Betty DeBoop, Jasper Blubber, and Jezebel Dezire.

          Based on this movie and Neil Simon’s other noir spoof from the same era starring Peter Falk, 1976’s Murder by Death, one gets the impression that Simon was trying to outdo Mel Brooks at the anything-goes approach to lampooning movie genres, but Simon simply couldn’t match the inspired lunacy that made Brooks’ spoofs so delirious. By trying to keep dialogue crisp and plotting rational, Simon’s attempt at this style falls somewhere between the extremes of proper storytelling and wild abandon. Thus, The Cheap Detective is fluffy without being truly irreverent and goofy without being truly insane—it’s like a second-rate Carol Burnett Show sketch, needlessly extended to feature length. What’s more, the movie is hurt by flat direction, as TV-trained helmer Robert Moore lacks the ability to generate exciting visuals.

          Yet another problem is the all-over-the-map acting. The most enjoyable performances, by Falk and supporting players Eileen Brennan, Stockard Channing, Madeline Kahn, and Fernando Lamas, wink at the audience without tipping into Borscht Belt excess. The most tiresome turns, by players including Ann-Margret, James Coco, Dom DeLuise, and Marsha Mason, fall into exactly that trap. (Though it must be said that Sid Caesar kills during one of the movie’s dumbest scenes, thanks to his legendary comic timing.) Some actors, however, seem completely adrift: Louise Fletcher, John Houseman, and Nicol Williamson strive to find consistent tonalities for their work, apparently receiving little guidance from Moore or the slapdash script. With this much talent involved, The Cheap Detective has a few bright spots, but the total package is quite blah.

The Cheap Detective: FUNKY