I love rewatching California Split (1974). Even though it is ultimately a sad movie about gambling and addiction, it is a hang out movie with Elliott Gould and George Segal in peak 1970s charismatic handsomeness. Director Robert Altman creates such a sense of place and vibe with the widescreen lensing (cinematography by Paul Lohmann) and multi-microphone technology for the actors (the test run before Altman would make Nashville). Watching it again recently, I was appreciating how whenever one of the two main acharacters walked into a scene, there would be other characters arguing or haggling or dealing in the foreground/background. You just feel that the world is lived in and vibrant with incident. It’s a plotless float through card playing joints, race tracks and dingy bars, interiors that feel both cosy and soul-deadening, the backdrop to a love story between two enablers in Gould and Segal’s characters. Gould has such hip energy and timing with his talkative, spontaneous character, a full time gambler, which is balanced by Segal’s measuredness, a magazine writer whose personal life is in shambles, crystallising into strong moments near the ending. I think the other thing is that, even though there are serious stakes, it’s not as fraught or violent as other gambling films – it’s not an intense thriller. Written by Joseph Walsh, a gambling buddy of Elliott Gould’s who based the two characters on their relationship from what I gather – he also plays Segal’s bookie. Great barroom blues songs soundtrack in the second half, provided by lounge singer Phyllis Shotwell who appears in the movie when the boys hit Reno. California Split is a low-key buddy comedy that feels like it could only have been made in the 1970s, and stands as one of my all-time favourite films. Currently available to stream on the Criterion Channel; can also rent/buy on iTunes. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 