Gloria

Cassavetes wrote this script to sell, not to direct. In his own words it was written strictly to sell, he had reservations about it, and he did not want to make it. Columbia set two conditions: he would direct, and his wife Gena Rowlands would star. A woman with mafia connections is forced, unwillingly, to protect a Puerto Rican boy whose family has been killed. The ledger the boy carries holds the organisation's accounts. Gloria does not like the child, and because he needs her she is never required to develop any affection; the film keeps that reluctance intact to the end. Cassavetes picked six-year-old Juan Adames from three hundred and fifty candidates at an open casting call in New York; he is billed as John Adames. The film shared the 1980 Golden Lion at Venice with Louis Malle's Atlantic City. That same child actor was named worst supporting actor at the first Golden Raspberry ceremony. Who it is for: viewers who want Rowlands at her toughest and the New York streets of the late 1970s. Who it is not for: anyone looking for Cassavetes's own cinema. This was deliberately written as a genre picture and has far less of the improvised texture of his other work.