The Night John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, and Peter Falk Wrecked ‘The Dick Cavett Show’

“There’s something a little frightening about this because you guys each have a kind of, what I was talking about earlier, animal intensity on the screen that has more than once given me gooseflesh up and down the upper arms. To have you three here kind of staring at me this way… Is, uh, really quite an exciting experience.” —Dick Cavett to Cassavetes, Gazzara, and Falk on The Dick Cavett Show, September 11, 1970

One of the best things about Criterion’s beloved Closet Picks video series is not knowing who will show up next. Sure, sometimes guests appear as part of a promotional cycle, but other times visitors to the Criterion Closet seem to stop by for no particular reason. Last week, for instance, featured an appearance by Dick Cavett, the TV personality famed for his quick, dry wit. That remained very much in evidence in the short video, which opened with Cavett expressing his annoyance and being asked to name his favorite movie (relatable) before revealing his answer: The Third Man (a fine choice). This leads into some reminiscences about Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Jean-Luc Godard and finally Husbands, a John Cassavetes film that has a particular meaning for Cavett.

“That’s the movie that these three guys came on and made total asses of themselves,” Cavett says, referring to the September 11, 1970 episode of The Dick Cavett Show in which Cavett played host to Cassavetes and the actor-director’s Husbands co-stars Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. “You can find it online as ‘The Worst Show Dick Cavett Ever Did,” Cavett adds. What Cavett may or may not realize is that the chaotic, booze-drenched episode is also included as a supplemental feature on the Blu-ray edition of the film he’s holding his hands. It’s a fitting choice. Most talk show appearances serve to promote guests’ current projects. By contrast, the trio’s assault on TV decorum feels bound up in the themes and content of Husbands. It’s as if they were still making the film and just happened to roll into Cavett’s studio.

To be fair, Cassavetes, Falk, and Gazzara might simply have forgotten they had completed the film, which took two years to make on the heels of a years-long lead-up. Though their names have become entwined as a kind of moviemaking gang, thanks to their extensive collaborations in the ‘70s and beyond, the three didn’t know each other particularly well when they began work on Husbands, Cassavetes’ follow-up to the 1968 film Faces. A return to the independent filmmaking he’d first explored with Shadows in 1959, filmed partly in the home Cassavetes shared with his wife (and frequent star) Gena Rowlands*, Faces depicts a marriage in crisis and cemented the intense, intentionally rough-edged, acting-first, improv-friendly style that would define Cassavetes as a filmmaker.