‘Husbands’ is dreck
but pop culture gold
It has to be rare that a movie’s awfulness precedes itself. Sometimes, word of mouth isn’t so hot, but usually those conversations are confined to critical circles and Hollywood publications. To create some kind of buzz, producers will not only put together slick trailers and ads but enlist a few of the stars on a mission — making appearances on talk shows.
John Cassavetes in 1970 was a famous actor and acclaimed independent director whose best work was still ahead of him. That year, he wrapped up “Husbands,” a buddy/road-trip movie purportedly about “life and death and freedom.”
In September, months before the film’s release, Cassavetes and his co-star friends Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara offered a sneak preview on “The Dick Cavett Show” — a performance so wretched, it’s been deemed the “worst show” of the Cavett franchise, which spanned decades.
The three guests, almost certainly intoxicated, trampled Cavett’s earnest, if not naive in this environment, questions about the movie. “It is the greatest film ever made in the history of the world, I promise you,” Gazzara actually bellowed to the audience.
Cavett wondered barely a couple minutes into it, “Is the bar open backstage yet?”
The three practiced leaping onto the floor, talked over each other and Cavett, and giggled, and that was before Gazzara took off a shoe and sock. “Are you guys all smashed? Seriously,” Cavett asked, not receiving an answer and even bailing on the set for a moment.
It was so bad, a few in the audience applauded Cassavetes for merely (barely) explaining what the movie’s about in a couple of coherent sentences.
About 20 minutes in, things actually did get semi-serious. Cassavetes told Cavett, in a sort of apology-in-progress, “You’re a terrific sport, and we were clowning around an awful lot, and heavily, and I think that you’re great.” Everyone applauded.
In a tremendous observation at the wrong time, Gazzara actually offered a beautiful tribute to Cassavetes that seemed to catch the director by surprise. “The man is the most open filmmaker I’ve ever known,” Gazzara told Cavett and the audience. “The most humble, open and uh, and tenacious and remorseless, in trying to find a way to make the picture work.”
Cassavetes curiously said, in seriousness, that “Husbands” reflects how “we all get so chicken ... we live too much from one point of view ... too worried about the way we’re gonna appear. We always appear to be something that we’re not.” But minutes later, he was referring to “that dumb picture.” Gazzara said it’s the “first picture ever made” in his opinion that shows “male love.” Most eloquent was Falk, who explained that the film has “genuine” emotions, not sentiment. “Don’t you find at the age of 40, those of you who are 40, that you get the feeling that you’ve seen everything, that nothing is new, nothing is interesting anymore. Isn’t it nice to find out that there’s something different? That’s what I found out. That there is something different.”
Too late. Cavett told The New Yorker’s Elon Green in 2014 that the movie’s producer, presumably Al Ruban or Sam Shaw, was on hand and berated the actors for this performance’s likely effect on the box office: “In the wings, afterwards, their producer grabbed the three of them, like three kids who are acting up … They looked awful. And he really laid into them.”
Nevertheless, the “interview” was on the mark. Months later, in her review of the film, Pauline Kael mentioned the Cavett episode and wrote that “Husbands” was “very much like” the talk-show disaster.
Indeed. One thing viewers learned from both is that people who can’t stop laughing are incredibly annoying. Funny for a moment or two, then no. The movie was widely faulted for its perceived improvisational and faux-cinema-verite approach, but there are bigger problems. The death of the trio’s friend occurs at the beginning, before viewers have any reason to care that he’s gone, though Cassavetes to his credit depicts the good times in a series of photos with an appealing drum score before launching into funeral scenes. “Husbands,” like some other productions, suggests that grief is a valid excuse for debauchery and underachievement. (An alternative view is that maybe these guys are doing this because they like it and need an excuse.)
The trio somehow finds a nice, clean, open and empty gym to play basketball. This should be silly and kinda looks that way, but these non-athletic-looking artisans pull it off with their willingness to be filmed on the court. Chalk it up to the tenaciousness, and fearlessness, of Cassavetes.
Unfortunately, the Cavett interview and certain scenes from the film suggest a good chunk of “Husbands” might’ve been performed by intoxicated actors. How these characters wouldn’t be at least a little tired defies belief. This kind of foreign road trip, complete with tuxedoes, through customs and long flights, doesn’t square with the impromptu timeline. Boring female pick-ups in London come across as extras who wonder what they’re supposed to be doing. It rains the whole time the characters are in England, but Cassavetes hasn’t established the locale as significant; they might as well be in Tacoma. Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times that Cassavetes “lets every scene continue long past closing time, as if in hopes of grabbing, perhaps accidentally, some found truth.” The conversations with women in London make about as much sense as the dialogue with Cavett.
“There are long passages of dialogue in which the actors seem to be trying to think of something to say,” wrote Roger Ebert.
Kael wrote that the boyishness of these “buffoonish hardhats” that Cassavetes intends to show as creative is “just infantile and offensive.”
“I think I gave my all by sitting through it,” wrote Kael.
So, it’s a complete flop? Well, no. In fact, there is some great acting within “Husbands,” from about the 30-minute mark to the 90-minute mark. Cassavetes’ instinct at times surfaces, such as when Gazzara attacks his wife in the form of a passionate kiss. A dental patient is so nervous, she can’t stop laughing. A call by Cassavetes for room service is hilarious. Falk enhances an emotional parting, leaving a huge question unanswered, by dividing up the presents he and Cassavetes bring home. The concluding driveway scene is so simple, it’s beautiful.
These are three of the greatest actors who ever lived. “Considering the talent,” Roger Ebert lamented in his 2-star review, “it is surprising that so little was made of such material.”
Some critics were actually impressed. Ebert complained that “the Luce magazines apparently decided by fiat that it was superb.” But Richard Brody in 2010 deemed “Husbands” an “amazingly influential” film.
While the three actors seemed on Cavett’s show to be longtime buddies, the casting of “Husbands” was not unlike a big studio production. One writer citing a book excerpt reports that Cassavetes, in debt from “Faces,” sought to make “Husbands” with Lee Marvin and Anthony Quinn, but the latter two did not get along. So Cassavetes summoned two actors he admired. Gazzara said during the Cavett interview, “I was never a friend of John’s or Peter’s. And neither were they of each other. So it was kind of a fan thing. We liked each other’s work.”
The trajectory of the film is curious, to say the least. Cassavetes told Cavett that “We spent two years making” the film and “aren’t finished yet.” The three actors had somehow made the cover of Life magazine as far back as May 9, 1969, in a story referred in the index with the teaser, “Dead-on dialogue as their cash runs out.” Cassavetes indicated to Cavett that the actors were partners in the production and that if the film loses money, it’s Columbia’s money. Gazzara said that’s the tradeoff for not being paid for two years.
There are highly regarded films (think of Kenneth Lonergan’s “Margaret”) that were dogged by serious trouble at the business level. But the backstory of “Husbands” undeniably is a typical sign of doom. When there are heated arguments over deep cuts, when it takes this long for a film to be released, something’s not working. The actors appeared on Cavett’s show in September 1970, but according to the Internet Movie Database, the film wasn’t released in New York until December. Kael, whose review appeared on Jan. 2, 1971, wrote that the version she saw had 16 minutes cut from it and that the project “went considerably over its original million-dollar budget.”
Attempting to be trailblazing, “Husbands” is less about male friendship and more of the cinematic same in its observations of suburban life. “The Graduate” came out a few years prior; “The Hangover” was released decades later. Usually these movies end with the enlightened protagonists realizing they’re in the right place, having had enough adventure, as the “Husbands” characters presumably learn.
But what did they, and the rest of us, learn from Cavett? The episode was many things: An embarrassment of the actors, a trivializing of their work, an insult to the host, but also an interesting stiff-arm to all those interviews that movie actors don’t want to give but are forced to do to promote their films. To this day, you’ll catch actors on any given night on late-night TV attempting to look interested in making small talk about their personal lives while taking a bow over this weekend’s new release.
Many actors in fact have appeared “in character” for TV talk shows. The guess here is that Cassavetes, Gazzara and Falk earnestly decided to do the same and surmised that those characterizations should include alcohol, which was a bad decision.
Boorish behavior is no roadblock to film work, at least not at this level. Cassavetes continued to make films and received an Oscar nomination for his 1974 masterwork, “A Woman Under the Influence.” Falk thrived on TV as “Columbo” and received a host of Golden Globe nominations. Gazzara seemed to never lack for work, landing scores of notable film, TV and Broadway roles, most famously portraying Brad Wesley, one of the three or four greatest villains in movie history, in “Road House.”
Could the Cavett show have been worse? Absolutely. It was reduced that night to 45 minutes (from Cavett’s usual 90 at the time) because of the debut on ABC of a pop-culture juggernaut — “Monday Night Football.” The “MNF” announcers even touted the upcoming Cavett broadcast during the game. Someone knew what to expect, because the Cavett show had actually been taped on the previous Friday. Cavett says at the beginning of the broadcast that it’s “my first 45-minute show” and notes that a new station, WLUK in Green Bay, Wis., is airing his program, and in either a mistake or the type of fudging that media could get away with back then, he incorrectly stated, “they’re getting this live now at 10:30 there.”
As Brody observed, it’s rather “amazing” that “having seen it, the network (ABC) chose to air it anyway.”
Not many actors’ appearances on talk shows are remembered 50 years later. This episode is like Cassavetes’ works: independent, explosive, unpredictable, unforgettable. It’s raw truth, but this performance is nothing more than the alcohol, by a genius who sadly died way, way, way too young because he drank too much and couldn’t avoid it on national television. A mesmerizing actor, he is the underdog, the upstart who did it his way and informed generations of vigorous and open-minded filmgoers, either a tragic figure or his own worst enemy. His films are powerful because he has something to say. On “Cavett,” more or less, he told us that this movie of lofty, intimate aspirations did not work, so let’s all go have a beer.
2 stars
(July 2019)
“Husbands” (1970)
Starring
Ben Gazzara
as Harry
♦
Peter Falk
as Archie Black
♦
John Cassavetes
as Gus Demetri
♦
Jenny Runacre
as Mary Tynan ♦
Jenny Lee Wright
as Pearl Billingham ♦
Noelle Kao
as Julie ♦
John Kullers
as Red ♦
Meta Shaw as Annie ♦
Leola Harlow
as Leola ♦
Delores Delmar
as The Countess ♦
Eleanor Zee
as Mrs. Hines ♦
Claire Malis
as Stuart’s Wife ♦
Peggy Lashbrook
as Diana Mallabee ♦
Eleanor Cody Gould
as ‘Normandy’ Singer ♦
Sarah Felcher
as Sarah ♦
Bill Britten ♦
Arthur Clark ♦
Gwen Van Dam
as Gwen - “Jeanie” Singer ♦
John Armstrong
as ‘Happy Birthday’ Singer ♦
Chas. Gaines ♦
Antoinette Kray
as “Jesus Loves Me” Singer ♦
Lorraine Macmartin
as Annie’s Mother ♦
Carinthia West
as Susanna ♦
Edgar Franken
as Ed Weintraub ♦
Joe Boley
as Minister ♦
Judith Lowry
as Stuart’s Grandmother ♦
Joe Hardy
as Shanghai Lil ♦
Fred Draper ♦
David Rowlands
as Stuart Jackson
Directed by: John Cassavetes
Written by: John Cassavetes
Producer: Al Ruban
Associate producer: Sam Shaw
Cinematography: Victor Kempner
Makeup: Robt. Laden, Tommy Manderson
Production supervisor: Fred Caruso
Production manager: New York: Robert Greenhut