''California Split'' is a 1974 American
comedy-drama
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
film directed by
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and is considered an enduring figure from the New H ...
and starring
Elliott Gould
Elliott Gould (; né Goldstein; born August 29, 1938) is an American actor. He began acting in Hollywood films during the 1960s.
Elliott's breakthrough role was in the ''Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'' (1969), for which he received a nomination f ...
and
George Segal
George Segal Jr. (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. After first rising to prominence with roles in acclaimed films such as ''Ship o ...
as a pair of gamblers and was the first non-
Cinerama
Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporati ...
film to use eight-track stereo sound.
Plot
In
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, a friendship develops between Bill Denny and Charlie Waters over their mutual love of gambling after they are beaten up and robbed by a card player whose money they have won. Charlie, a wisecracking joker who lives with two prostitutes, is an experienced gambler who is constantly looking for the next score. He bets on poker, horse racing, boxing, and anything else that offers odds. Initially, Bill is not as committed a gambler (during the day he does a little work at a magazine while avoiding his boss), but he is well on his way to a full-blown
gaming addiction.
As the two men hang out at Charlie's house, Bill's office, seedy bars, card rooms, and various sports venues, Bill becomes hooked on the gambling lifestyle. He goes into debt to Sparkie, his
bookie, and hocks possessions, including his car, to fund a bus trip to
Reno
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...
. At the track, Charlie spots the man who mugged him and Bill at the beginning of the film, beats him up, and robs him.
On their way to Reno, Bill and Charlie pool their money to stake Bill in a poker game. (One of the players is former world champion
Amarillo Slim, portraying himself.) Bill wins $18,000 and becomes convinced he is on a hot streak. He plays
blackjack
Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...
, then
roulette
Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...
, and finally
craps
Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other (playing "street craps") or against a bank ("casino craps"). Because it requires little equipment, "street c ...
, winning more and more money. When Bill loses after a long streak at the craps table, he is drained and apathetic. Charlie is eager to continue gambling at other casinos, but after they split their winnings ($82,000), Bill tells Charlie he is quitting and going home. Charlie does not understand this but sees that his friend is sincere, so they go their separate ways.
Cast
*
George Segal
George Segal Jr. (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. After first rising to prominence with roles in acclaimed films such as ''Ship o ...
as Bill Denny
*
Elliott Gould
Elliott Gould (; né Goldstein; born August 29, 1938) is an American actor. He began acting in Hollywood films during the 1960s.
Elliott's breakthrough role was in the ''Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'' (1969), for which he received a nomination f ...
as Charlie Waters
*
Ann Prentiss
Ann Prentiss (November 27, 1939 – January 12, 2010) was an American actress.
Early life
Prentiss was born Ann Elizabeth Ragusa in San Antonio, Texas, to Paulene (née Gardner) and Thomas J. Ragusa. Her father was of Sicilian descent. Her eld ...
as Barbara Miller
*
Gwen Welles
Gwen Welles (born Gwen Goldberg, March 4, 1951 – October 13, 1993) was an American actress.
Early years
Gwen Welles was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as Gwen Goldberg. She was the daughter of clothing designer Rebecca Welles and Barton G ...
as Susan Peters
*Edward Walsh as Lew
*Joseph Walsh as Sparkie
*
Bert Remsen
Herbert Birchell "Bert" Remsen (February 25, 1925 – April 22, 1999) was an American actor and casting director. He appeared in numerous films and television series.
Biography
Remsen was born in Glen Cove, New York, on Long Island, the son o ...
as Helen Brown
*
Jeff Goldblum
Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (; born October 22, 1952) is an American actor and musician. He has starred in some of the highest-grossing films of his era, such as ''Jurassic Park'' (1993) and '' Independence Day'' (1996), as well as their sequels.
...
as Lloyd Harris
*
Barbara Ruick
Barbara Ruick (December 23, 1930 – March 3, 1974) was an American actress and singer.
Early years
Ruick was the daughter of actors Lurene Tuttle and Melville Ruick, and grew up acting out scenes with dolls, employing her mother as an ...
as Reno Barmaid
Production
Development
Joseph Walsh had been an actor for over 20 years. Frustrated with the progress of his career and the sorts of roles he had been playing, he wrote a screenplay about his own gambling addiction in 1971. "I knew so much about gambling," he said. "And nobody writes gambling well... I was writing for all the gamblers of the world, people who are going to turn out and watch the movie and say, 'Oh, God, this man is in our heart and soul'," said Walsh later.
[Nobody writes gambling as well: Jeff Haney remembers Reno's old Mapes Hotel as he talks with 'California Split' creator Joseph Walsh
Anonymous. Las Vegas Sun 11 July 2008: 8.]
Steven Spielberg
Walsh was friends with then up-and-coming filmmaker
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
and they worked on the script for nine months. The director was fascinated by the characters and would react to Walsh's script, offering suggestions. At the time the screenplay was called ''Slide'' and the two men had a deal to make it at
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
with Walsh as producer and
Steve McQueen
Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1 ...
in the starring role.
However, the studio began making unrealistic demands, like having the script be an exact number of pages (in a movie script, 1 page = 1 minute), and wanting the whole story to be set at the
Circus Circus casino in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
because MGM owned it.
A month away from filming, the studio experienced a shake-up at the executive level and with it came a new set of changes. MGM wanted the story to be a mafia-related “sting” concept with
Dean Martin
Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor and comedian. One of the most popular and enduring American entertainers of the mid-20th century, Martin was nicknamed "The King of Cool". M ...
as one of the two main characters. Walsh would no longer be the producer. He and Spielberg left MGM and took the script to
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
where they had an agreement with
Richard D. Zanuck
Richard Darryl Zanuck (December 13, 1934 – July 13, 2012) was an American film producer. His 1989 film ''Driving Miss Daisy'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Zanuck was also instrumental in launching the career of director Steven Spielb ...
and
David Brown. Zanuck and Brown then hired Spielberg to direct ''
The Sugarland Express
''The Sugarland Express'' is a 1974 American crime drama film directed by Steven Spielberg in his directorial debut. The film follows a woman (Goldie Hawn) and her husband (William Atherton) as they take a police officer (Michael Sacks) hostage a ...
'', leaving Walsh and his film stranded.
Robert Altman
Walsh's agent, Guy McElwaine, contacted Altman's agent
George Litto
George Litto (December 9, 1930 – April 29, 2019) was an American film producer and talent agent. His production credits included Robert Altman's '' Thieves Like Us'' (1974), Jonathan Kaplan's cult film '' Over the Edge'' (1979), and three Bri ...
to give the script to Altman, who loved it. The new studio chief of
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
was a former agent who knew Walsh's agent and green-lit the screenplay to be produced on the writer's terms.
Walsh was a novice and unaware of Altman's reputation for taking liberties with the screenplays for his movies. Walsh was very protective of his script and argued with Altman numerous times about certain aspects. Walsh remembers, “You know, he actually stormed out of the room many times on me during the picture, during these conversations, but he would always come back and listen as I got to know him more...”
Altman eventually financed the film by forming a production company with
Aaron Spelling
Aaron Spelling (April 22, 1923 June 23, 2006) was an American film and television producer and occasional actor. His productions included the TV series ''Family'' (1976–1980), '' Charlie's Angels'' (1976–1981), ''The Love Boat'' (1977–1986 ...
and
Leonard Goldberg
Leonard J. Goldberg (January 24, 1934 – December 4, 2019) was an American film and television producer. He had his own production company, Panda Productions (formerly Mandy Films, and earlier Daydream Productions when he was working with Jer ...
, Won World Productions.
Casting
George Segal was cast early on and Walsh considered long-time friend Elliott Gould, but saw other actors, such as
Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 – June 23, 2011) was an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the long-running television series ''Columbo'' (1968–1978, 1989–2003), for which he ...
and
Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
. He kept coming back to Gould and finally the actor called him up and convinced him that he was right for the role. Walsh recalls, “because Elliott ''lived'' his gambling, he came out of the box just like in a horse race when a great horse comes out of the box. The first day of shooting, he was ''there'' as that character...After seven days, George Segal came to me and said, ‘This guy’s
ould Ould is an English surname and an Arabic name ( ar, ولد). In some Arabic dialects, particularly Hassaniya Arabic, ولد (the patronymic, meaning "son of") is transliterated as Ould. Most Mauritanians have patronymic surnames.
Notable p ...
unbelievable. He’s an octopus. He is absolutely strangling me to death. I don’t even know what to do.’ The man was pleading for his life.”
Walsh told Segal not to try to keep up with Gould because he had actually lived the life of his character in the film and to continue acting the way he had been doing so far.
Filming
Filming started in January, 1974, and the filming took place mostly in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, with two weeks' location filming in Reno, Nevada.
''California Split'' was the first feature film to use the experimental eight-track sound system, one that allowed eight separate audio channels to be recorded, and helped develop Altman’s trademark of overlapping dialogue. To this end, he gave the supporting actors and extras significant emphasis on the soundtrack. A number of the extras were members of
Synanon
Synanon is a US-founded social organization created by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich Sr. in 1958 in Santa Monica, California, United States. It is currently active in Germany.
Originally established as a drug rehabilitation program, by the early ...
, an organization for ex-addicts. Altman also used champion poker player Amarillo Slim in the movie "to add drama to the poker game for the actors and crew. He elevated the game to a very high professional level."
He had originally considered
Haskell Wexler
Haskell Wexler, ASC (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the Int ...
to be the director of photography on the film, but went with newcomer Paul Lohmann instead. Walsh remembers that Altman defended the choice by saying, "They could create a look together, and he might get into conflict with Haskell or other people about making it a little prettier than it should be."
Altman ended up making the film in
Pomona at
Fairplex Park
Fairplex has been the home of the L.A. County Fair since 1922. Known prior to 1984 as the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, it is located in the city of Pomona, California. The L.A. County Fair is held during the month of May since 2022, but the fac ...
, in Los Angeles, and in Reno, Nevada, with the latter location being very effective in keeping everyone in the gambling spirit of the movie. Altman said in an interview, "Everybody was involved in that atmosphere, and there was a sense of reality because one minute you were downstairs in the
Mapes casino losing money and winning money, and then a minute later you were upstairs on the set filming a crap game."
While on location in Reno, Nevada, actress
Barbara Ruick
Barbara Ruick (December 23, 1930 – March 3, 1974) was an American actress and singer.
Early years
Ruick was the daughter of actors Lurene Tuttle and Melville Ruick, and grew up acting out scenes with dolls, employing her mother as an ...
, who played a friendly Reno poker room bartender, died at the age of 43, of a cerebral hemorrhage sleeping in her hotel room. Her husband, famed film composer
John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who wa ...
, was left a widower with their three children. ''California Split'' was dedicated to her.
The ending of the film was different from originally scripted.
Reception
Critical
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
, in his review for the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'', wrote, "At the end of ''California Split'' we realize that Altman has made a lot more than a comedy about gambling; he's taken us into an American nightmare, and all the people we met along the way felt genuine and looked real." Lauding the film as "a great movie and
..a great experience, too," he awarded it a full four stars.
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called it "a fascinating and vivid movie, not quite comparable to any other movie that I can immediately think of." He praised the film for being "dense with fine, idiosyncratic detail, a lot of which is supplied by Mr. Gould and Mr. Segal as well as by members of the excellent supporting cast." He put it on his year-end unranked list of the best films of 1974.
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...
liked most of the film and awarded three out of four stars, but disliked the ending for "events too pat and a moral that's banal." A review by Arthur D. Murphy in ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' reported that "the film is technically and physically handsome, all the more so for being mostly location work, but lacks a cohesive and reinforced sense of story direction. The stars have done better comedy before."
Charles Champlin
Charles Davenport Champlin (March 23, 1926 – November 16, 2014) was an American film critic and writer.
Life and career
Champlin was born in Hammondsport, New York. He attended high school in Camden, New York, working as a columnist for the '' ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' was negative, writing that "for the most part, 'California Split' seems one very long and very loud actors workshop improv, done in card parlors and casinos instead of on a bare stage. The garbled, stomped-on, incomprehensible dialogue which was annoying in the early stages of '
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
''McCabe & Mrs. Miller'' is a 1971 American revisionist Western film directed by Robert Altman and starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. The screenplay by Altman and Brian McKay is based on the 1959 novel ''McCabe'' by Edmund Naughton. Ma ...
' here seems so self-indulgently and needlessly overdone as to give a whole new dimension to the splitting headache." Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' called it "a slight but cheerful and beguiling episodic comedy."
Penelope Gilliatt
Penelope Gilliatt (; born Penelope Ann Douglass Conner; 25 March 1932 – 9 May 1993) was an English novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and film critic. As one of the main film critics for ''The New Yorker'' magazine in the 1960s an ...
of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' wrote in a positive review, "It is sometimes very funny, in a mood of not caring whether you find it so or not ... Altman again shows that he has a mysterious feeling for the low-toned energy of American humor. His films have a supple genius for the awkward in speech."
John Simon said of ''California Split'', "In Altman's 111 minutes we haven't the time to go mad, only to be thoroughly exasperated".
Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann (April 24, 1916 – October 9, 2013) was an American writer, editor, and critic of film and theater.
Career
Kauffmann started with ''The New Republic'' in 1958 and contributed film criticism to that magazine for the next fifty ...
of
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...
wrote of ''California Split'', "The film ambles along trying to set up an adult Huck and Tom story escape from 'straight' life, and it has some amusing scenes, but it fails: the two men are insufficiently interesting. And it tells us zero about the gambling compulsion".
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds a rating of 87% from 30 reviews and an average rating of 7.5/10. The consensus summarizes: "Aimless yet amiable, ''California Split'' is minor but rewarding Altman, elevated by the chemistry between leads Elliott Gould and George Segal." In a retrospective review ''
New York Magazine
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'', ...
s
Vulture.com'' praised it as the greatest film about gambling ever made.
Box office
The film reportedly grossed over five million dollars at the box office despite the studio pulling it early from theaters. Altman said of the reaction to his movies, “I just have to hope that the film I do falls in with the mass audience and they will go see it. But one reason I have problems is that they don’t advertise the films I make because they don’t know where to put them...They don’t quite know where it is, so consequently, they try to advertise it as a different film. And it still doesn’t succeed.”
Accolades
It was nominated for a Best Comedy (Written Directly for the Screen)
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers:
* The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO
* The Writers Guil ...
award a year later.
Home media and alternate cuts
The film was released on DVD in 2004, but music rights problems forced Sony/Columbia to exclude almost three minutes of footage and make several soundtrack changes. The DVD is already out of print. In 2020, the original cut of the film with its soundtrack restored was released on
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...
.
Planned sequel
In 2021, Walsh completed the screenplay for a sequel entitled ''Lunch with Bill & Charlie'', with a concept inspired by the 1981 film ''
My Dinner with Andre''. The film would have reuinited Segal and Gould as their characters from the original film, but, upon Segal's death, Walsh instead posted the screenplay online and released a tribute video to Segal with Gould.
Joseph R. Walsh official website - link to screenplay
/ref>
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{Aaron Spelling
1974 films
1974 comedy-drama films
Films set in 1974
American comedy-drama films
Columbia Pictures films
1970s English-language films
Films directed by Robert Altman
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Reno, Nevada
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films shot in Nevada
Gambling films
1970s American films