Husbands

Columbia cut eleven minutes out of the release prints. This violated Cassavetes's contract, but he had neither the money nor the strength to fight it. The excisions are known: the last nine minutes of the singing-contest scene, and the first two minutes of the vomiting scene. The studio hated that vomiting scene, insisting audiences could not sit through it, and some of Cassavetes's own crew agreed. The footage was restored in later editions. The singing contest was invented on the spot. Cassavetes threw away the scripted scene of three men in a bar debating the meaning of life and shot this instead. Four weeks were filmed in New York and ten in London. Three middle-aged men come back from a friend's funeral, refuse to go home, and spend days drinking, brawling and finally fleeing to London. Cassavetes, Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara appear to be playing versions of themselves. Who it is for: viewers who want one of the most merciless looks at male friendship as a form of self-deception. Who it is not for: anyone who needs to like the characters. All three men are frequently unbearable and the film never softens it.