Word: falke
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...funeral of a close friend, Gus (Cassavetes), Harry (Ben Gazarra), and Archie (Peter Falk)-the best of country club buddies-suddenly feel death crawling under their neatly suburban tuxedos. And after the service, they find themselves unable to go home because home is where every day reminds you that you're not the professional basketball player you meant to grow up to be. So they set off on a monumental weekend drunk that runs from barroom to men's room, from basketball court to swimming pool. And then Monday morning it starts out as back to work and home...
Husbands. John Cassavetes' dynamic portrait of three middle-aged men on a desperate tear also featured some of the year's best acting by Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and Cassavetes himself...
There is no plot to Husbands, just a premise. Archie (Peter Falk), Harry (Ben Gazzara) and Gus (Cassavetes himself) are three reluctantly middle-aging men who go off on a bender after the death of a friend. For two days they stay away from home, drinking, horsing around, trying to forget. But the carousing only reinforces their sense of loss and their feelings of entrapment. In a final act of rebellion, they fly off to London, do some gambling, pick up some girls and discover that instead of escaping, they have only come up against another boundary...
...convenient to speak of Husbands as Cassavetes' film, since he is its author as well as director and costar. The contributions made by Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara, though, must have been enormous. Cassavetes works in a very personal, freewheeling style that draws heavily on the inspiration of his actors. The performers are so supremely good in their roles that they wipe out any distinction between the actor and the character. The virtuoso feat may be unnoticed by audiences who prefer to assume that the three are merely playing themselves...
...Falk has a splendid time either muscling the opposition in Vegas or quaking before the elegant threats of a capo from New York. Gena Rowlands (Mrs. Cassavetes outside the movies) does the tough-but-tender-broad routine with such wistful sexiness that her heart of gold is almost 24-carat. When she and Cassavetes play a boisterous reunion scene, the film, however briefly, is transformed from flyweight entertainment into something true and touching...