Husbands

Year of Release:  1970

Director:  John Cassavetes

Screenplay:  John Cassavetes

Starring:  Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, John Cassavetes

Running Time:  140 minutes

Genre:  Comedy drama

Following the death of a mutual friend, three middle-aged New York family men: Harry (Gazzara), Archie (Falk) and Gus (Cassavetes) indulge in a days long binge of heavy drinking and soul-searching, including an impromptu trip to London.

John Cassavetes is possibly most familiar as an actor in Hollywood films such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Fury (1978), but his most important legacy rests with the groundbreaking independent films he made as director, writer and sometime actor.  After making a name with his directorial debut Shadows (1959), Cassavetes had his first sizeable success with Faces (1968), which allowed hims some studio backing for Husbands.  While Cassavetes came up with the film's story and scenes, the dialogue and action came out of long improvisation sessions with his fellow actors, and Gazzara, Falk and Cassavetes' characters were more or less based on the actors themselves.  The basic plot of Husbands, three guys go out on a booze filled bender for days on end, could apply to any number of comedies, both good and bad, but few go as dark as this does.  This is a film defined by absence.  It starts with a series of still snapshots of a barbecue or pool party where Gus, Harry and Archie are clowning around with their families and their friend Stuart, whose funeral opens the main action of the film.  We never learn anything about Stuart, but it seems as if he was the lynchpin that kept the gang together.  The other three spend the film seeming unmoored, and despite being very similar, they don't seem to like each other very much.  Also, despite the film's title, we never see much of their family lives.  Harry's wife appears briefly and they have a violent argument, and we see Gus' children, played by Cassavetes' own children Nick and Alexandra, but we see nothing of Archie's family.  It is hard to sympathise entirely with this pretty unpleasant trio of middle-aged, middle-class white guys who are creepy, mocking, violent or rude to almost any woman unlucky enough to cross their path.  Following Stuart's funeral they ride the subway, have an impromptu late-night basketball game and get drunk and sing in a bar, when it comes time for them to go to work and spend some time with their families, the three shoot off to London to drink, go to casinos and pick up women (including Jenny Runacre).  This is a tough film to watch, and it's often very uneven.  It's sometimes profound, often dull, sometimes cruel and occasionally funny.  It all ends on a very inconclusive note.

Peter Falk, John Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara are Husbands