Even Robert Altman's lesser-known films have their merits...well, perhaps if you exclude mid-'80s low points OC and Stiggs and Beyond Therapy. California Split takes a very simple premise - casual gambler befriends professional gambler and nearly has his life destroyed- and turns it into something special. Credit must be due to not only Altman, but to George Segal and Elliot Gould.
First off, Gould - the professional gambler Charlie. The performance is so natural you'd swear Gould is improvising some or most of his lines (maybe he did). After M*A*S*H, this is probably the loosest, almost jazz-like, performance from Gould. Bill, the casual gambler played by Segal, is stiffer, a lot more serious, and in serious trouble with his bookie "Spark." Bill apparently has a job at an L. A. magazine but all evidence of his job is gone by the film's second half.
Bill meets Charlie at a low stakes back room poker game in L. A. Charlie lives with two hookers (including one played by the late Gwen Welles, who a year later played the hopelessly untalented singer who ends up stripping in front of politicians in Altman's Nashville). Besides these two women, a few women at the poker games and in the casinos, and Bill's secretary, those are the only females that we encounter in the film. This is pure dysfunctional male bonding; Altman channeling John Cassavetes.
The ambiguous ending is something that we would never see now. All in all, California Split is a product of its time, and belongs on that list of "other classics" in Altman's resume (alongside Thieves Like Us, The Long Goodbye, 3 Women, A Wedding, and Cookie's Fortune).
First off, Gould - the professional gambler Charlie. The performance is so natural you'd swear Gould is improvising some or most of his lines (maybe he did). After M*A*S*H, this is probably the loosest, almost jazz-like, performance from Gould. Bill, the casual gambler played by Segal, is stiffer, a lot more serious, and in serious trouble with his bookie "Spark." Bill apparently has a job at an L. A. magazine but all evidence of his job is gone by the film's second half.
Bill meets Charlie at a low stakes back room poker game in L. A. Charlie lives with two hookers (including one played by the late Gwen Welles, who a year later played the hopelessly untalented singer who ends up stripping in front of politicians in Altman's Nashville). Besides these two women, a few women at the poker games and in the casinos, and Bill's secretary, those are the only females that we encounter in the film. This is pure dysfunctional male bonding; Altman channeling John Cassavetes.
The ambiguous ending is something that we would never see now. All in all, California Split is a product of its time, and belongs on that list of "other classics" in Altman's resume (alongside Thieves Like Us, The Long Goodbye, 3 Women, A Wedding, and Cookie's Fortune).