California Split

I worked on the set of this one and it was a wonderful experience. This gambling tale is light and sad with ensemble acting all around. George Segal (always good) and Elliott Gould (sometimes good) make a great team of "losers" who just can't resist their addiction. Bert Remsen has a great supporting role, along with Ann Prentiss and Gwen Welles - ditzy hookers.

An 8 out of 10. Best performance = Mr. Segal. I don't think this made a dime unfortunately. A must for all Robert Altman fans. I'm sure this is available now on DVD, so seek it out for an American tale that never quite spins out of control. You won't regret it.

Why California Split remains among the most obscure of Robert Altman's extraordinary 1970s oeuvre is a mystery. Its stars -- Elliot Gould and George Segal -- were at the top of their form, free and comfortable working in Altman's off-the-cuff, low-key style. Its supporting cast -- Ann Prentiss, Gwen Welles and especially Bert Remsen, as the cross-dressing old jane "Helen Brown," -- is memorable. And its full gallery of extras (many drawn from the therapeutic community Synanon) populate a surreal gambling netherworld in California and Nevada. Altman is working in highest gear with the layered, semi-improvised and alluringly murky style he pioneered. As in Altman's best work, the story just sort of happens, without much distinction between foreground and backdrop, principal characters and walk-ons. Lacking the rigid and didactic "dramaturgy" of its competitors, California Split endures as one of the most probing examinations of the soul and psyche of the abnormal gambler ever filmed.

As usual, the greatness in Altman comes in the unexpected nuances: the perfect Las Vegas lounge act, with Elliott Gould putting in his repartee like joining a musical theatre number onstage. George Segal "getting down to the oldies" may date the film, along with his sweaters, but this is an enjoyable and surprising movie that exposes the hollowness and joylessness of compulsion without getting all holy about it. The younger working girl's search for feeling with her endless succession of tricks is a more easily noticeable parallel to what emerges as the film's core: George Segal's character finding his capacity for change. The shenanigan with Gould, Segal and the cross dresser strays dangerously close to outtakes from MASH. The film's greatest moment, aside from the surprisingly shattering denouement coming two minutes later, is when Segal has run from $2000 to $82,000. He's rolling everything right at the craps table when this little pea brained moron comes up and puts $1 on the seven. Elliott Gould offers to throw a hundred dollar chip at her to make her go away (if you don't know, the seven ends the streak and betting on it in the middle of a streak should be punishable by water torture). Sure enough, Segal rolls a seven and the streak ends. Everyone looks at the little moron and she says, "I don't care, it's my birthday and I won!" and picks up her $2. That is classic. Looking at Segal's performance you can see shades of what Ben Gazzarra would do decades later in Todd Solondz's "Happiness" as another man who doesn't feel anything.

Now I really thinks that this is an amazing good movie. Amazing both for the story and for the actors: they produce a common effort in saying some real true things about gambling. Great directing, too, and great places to shoot the story (how clever to choose the depressing Reno instead of Las Vegas! Atlantic City would have been a good choice, too). Gambling is what people do when they have anything else left to do. Gambling is all about losing, feeling sad, and loneliness. And it's the same if you win or if you lose, no difference. Other films usually show winners, when they solves their common life problems through gambling, or losers, when they ruin their own common life trough gambling. What is shown by California Split is that, if you are a gambler, then there's no space for anything else, say life, love, or hope. And that's both for winners and for losers.

I was fortunate enough to see California Split this past weekend on the big screen. The American Film Institute (AFI) Theater in the Kennedy Center is currently (February '02) having a retrospective of Altman's 70s films, and, while I had never heard of the film, I was mysteriously drawn to it. I'm glad I went. The chemistry between Gould and Segal is amazing. It's is if they've been friends their whole lives. They seemed very relaxed and care-free. The story is sad yet exciting, the dialog witty and almost innocent, and the direction is, of course, great. Plus, there is a brief scene with a very young Jeff Goldblum, who plays Segal's boss.

If you happen upon this film on TV one late night, or it's shown in a theater near you for some reason, please see it. It's a lost treasure.