Madeline Kahn is taking the week off, and I want to re-up Elon Green’s wonderful piece about the greatest, most horrifying episode of the Dick Cavett show in history, when John Cassavettes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazarra turned up on-set too drunk to discuss the movie they were there to promote.
“I had no idea how long it was gonna go on, whether it was ever gonna stop. If they were ever gonna snap out of it. Most people felt sorry for me, which kind of embarrasses me, because I remember sitting there thinking, I don’twant to come off as the victim of this. The sad thing, Elon, is I could see the faces in the audience. And they were delighted, at first, and then the smiles disappeared.”
The original embedded link is no longer working, but here’s their appearance in three parts:
“John, are you still looking at me?”
I also like the bit right after the one you quoted:
And then they looked just sort of grim and horrified and disapproving. And I had one redeeming, refreshing thought at that moment, which was, Ha, ha. These louts are gonna have to watch this sometime.
In the wings, afterwards, their producer grabbed the three of them, like three kids who are acting up. He got them in a group and said, “I really have to congratulate you. You probably unsold more tickets to this movie than most movies get.” It was a wonderful line. They stood there looking at him, and they started to get shorter.
I got halfway and had to stop. What supreme dicks.
I only made it two minutes into the second clip. PETER FALK I AM DISAPPOINT
I watched the rest of the second clip. They straight up lie about being drunk, then continue to act like toddlers on a no nap juice high.
It reminds me a bit of the time Shelley Winters dumped a glass of whiskey over Oliver Reed’s head on the Johnny Carson show back in 1975. (https://youtu.be/wyV3DlvKYmA) I wonder if The Toast could establish a Shelley Winters Saturday? She was so marvelous. When I was a kid I remember being really upset when her character died in the film The Poseidon Adventure.
I agree with Dick Cavett. I would have liked to see Joan Rivers deal with them.
I would cut off a finger to see that if I got to pick the finger.
Dick Cavett sure had a big head.
He is handling himself with admirable aplomb, though, I must say.
Also, my goodness, Ben Gazzara’s tie. You could fly that thing like a kite.
Is this really what 40 used to look like? Or did they just age rapidly because of the alcoholism?
Pre Botox?
The film, titled “Husbands” for glob’s sake, already sounds like the most boring of the “White Guys Do Stuff” genre, and then they go and act like this, and i feel like i already know everything there is to know about not just it, but, say, all three “Hangover”s that I’ve never seen.
Meanwhile, though, Cavett plays Any Sane Person, with his not-at-all-hidden-except-to-the-guests disgust, like a friggin’ champ.
I had to look it up but YES, it is indeed yet another dudely installation of The Unbearable Whiteness of Being. Seems when it came out, opinions were quite divided – TIME gave it a glowing review. OTOH Roger Ebert’s review is quite shadenfreudlicious, and I could put the line “… seldom had TIME given a better review to a worse movie” on a plate and sop it up with a biscuit!
The range of tie widths on display, from Cassavetes’ slim number up to Ben Gazzara’s mile-wide monstrosity, is fascinating. Ah, the 70s!
Is that tie even knotted or just folded over? I couldn’t tell.
THIS WAS APPALLING.
Thank God they were too drunk and distracted to ever get around to giving their Views on Women’s Lib. /couldn’t stay gone
This seems like the place to mention that, courtesy of William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade, I just learned that Peter Falk once starred in a movie about female wrestlers.
This seems like the place to mention that, courtesy of William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade, I just learned that Peter Falk once starred in a movie about female wrestlers.
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xl7pv5YyrVw/T-Ty9_xpc8I/AAAAAAAAAac/dL7kEhbu-Gw/s1600/-All-the-marbles-peter-falk-24786140-525-400.jpeg">
My Uncle’s brother was once a screen stand in for Peter Falk. I didn’t know him very well or see him very often. However every time I did; he would tell his “the time I was a stand in for Peter Falk” story.
Am watching this from convalescent HQ directly underneath the tasteful Peter Falk mural I commissioned, grimacing faintly and reconsidering my life choices. Though also feeling a not insignificant nostalgia for the part of my early childhood insomniac memories that can be categorized as, “Late night talk show guests, drunk”, and, “late night talk show guests, obliterated.”
John Cassavetes is god. If he did it, it must be ok.