John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara on "The Dick Cavett Show" in 1970, promoting Husbands. If you get tired of their hijinks, I suggest jumping to Part 3, where they say a lot of insightful things. It's hard to imagine a talk show segment like this happening now. Lawyers and "Entertainment Tonight" are currently winning the battles. It's their world now. But it doesn't have to be.
It's always hard for me to imagine John Cassavetes being dead. It doesn't seem biologically possible. It's like imagining Humphrey Bogart, William Shakespeare, William Faulkner, Keith Moon, or Louis Armstrong dead in their graves, rotten, covered in dirt. It just doesn't make sense, given the evidence.
3 comments:
I can't believe that this surfaced on YouTube! I had been searching it for months, and then kind of gave up. I saw it four years ago and Carney's class and almost kicked Mitchy in the balls to create a diversion while Sean stole the tape and made a run for it. It is brilliantly funny and fun! hooray. Way to stay on it.
I saw a link to it on YouTube a month ago, and when I clicked on it, it had already been removed. I happened on it by accident the other day when I was looking for something else. So glad to finally see it. I saw another talk show appearance they made that same year on a British talk show. (I saw this at the Museum of TV and Radio in Beverly Hills, by the way, kind of weird.) They're sitting in high-backed chairs that are pretty far from the floor, but Cassavetes keeps tipping over backwards. He did it the first time accidentally, then keeps doing it over and over. I think they end up repeatedly hugging and kissing the host. He seems less nervous than Dick Cavett, but they still freak him out.
Well, upon second viewing, I must say...one, I wish julia dressed me, and that she had the same fashion sense as Gazarra's wife (that is the widest tie I ever saw!); two, that Dick Cavett handles them beautifully; and three, that the first two thirds of the interview ARE what the movie's about, much more so than any Letterman style clip plus interview could do. At the risk of romanticizing some asshole moves (they did ruin the rug), it really shows that the relationship of the three is what makes the movie so sincere and rough. They constantly analyze and try to top each other's comments and moves, and are bombastic and shitty to anything that gets in its way (a famous talk show host, a studio audience). It's not pretty, but what is beautiful is that they try so hard for each other. There is a lotta love there, and that's what keeps the movie constantly interesting. To really live the philosophy that they are espousing (stop fearing your job, family life, etc.), certainly you need some love and support. And they are that for each other. No matter how long it has been since Gus and Archie Harry have seen each other, they are that pipeline in each other's lives that dare to live that life of the moment, absent of fear. No matter how irrational it may seem the day after. I wonder what they thought the next day they woke up and half remembered making asses of themselves on the Cavett show.
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