The chances are that, if or whenever you hear the name 'Peter Falk', you instantly associate it with the excellent award winning TV detective series, 'Columbo'. If you stretch your mind a bit, you may even recall that he appeared in a couple of films such as 'The Great Race' or 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'. If that's the extent of your knowledge of this actor, then you are missing out on a number of excellent performances, one of which appears in this film. Essentially 'Husbands' covers the unravelling self-confidence of three close friends, who suffer the loss of their close fourth friend, and the plot effectively deals with the subsequent fallout. It is, by turns, humorous, black and difficult to watch at times, but for me, it was a brave attempt to capture this subject on film. John Cassavetes, who not only stars in the film but also directs, was known as a pioneer of American cinema - particularly for using the POV genre - and with films such as this, it's easy to see why. In terms of the main three actors, each brings a depth, but not only that, a true tragi-comedic element, to their characters, which are highly believable. It would be difficult to single one of the main three actors out for particular praise, such is the balance and interplay. Highly recommended, not only for men of a certain age but also for women seeking insight on the mind of men.

Here, I continue with Cassavetes and my look at presence and jazz time. I think this can only work when you see it a second time. I have to feel like I know these people as well and deep as they know each other. And know them long enough for their quirks and peculiarities to stop annoying and become part of the damaged self I embrace in the life and time that we've seen go together. In fact, I think the film is structured in two halves for a reason, the first half so we can know them at some length, and the real film is the second half once they land in London. The idea? A fourth friend has died as the film begins, but death, how we treat death, is a formal, symbolic rite empty of life. And they can't go back to their wives, that'd be the same as every other day. It can't be either the formal or everyday time, it has to be a moment extended in time with a bit more clarity. Here we're looking to have transcendent insight. So they basically go out because that is the only way. They get drunk, sing with others, snigger and run in the streets, tease and grab and abuse each other and strangers. As I got to know them, they were all three annoying to me. Jackasses. They're not cute, nor noble, nor particularly idealistic or smart about anything; this isn't a Woody Allen film. They're not even your average guy on the street, if such a thing exists. Here's where Cassavetes' limitations kick in and the film all but loses me. He was an actor first, grew up artistically in the Actors Studio. We know the school as going for a natural embodying of character after Brando and the likes, but its actual roots are Soviet and go back to constructing room around a self. A Studio actor's job is to go into that room and toss the furniture, tear at the walls a bit. What we see here are three actors, all very good ones, all lovable in other projects, deeply immersed in trying to construct the fact they are not acting. They are, we can tell. It's an alienating effect, because they expect us to not know it's feigned. We want to not know, because that would be tearing through their craft, but the scaffold is all there. They mechanically repeat lines and pause for effect, they act manic and loud all the time, they come up with artificial small talk and repetition; it's all a bit off, calling attention to the eccentric, actorly tearing of wallpaper.If that were all, I'd rate this low, there's just nothing particularly useful to me about this ideal of realism. I'd much rather have nonactors. But there is something else— let's say time and consciousness. It's not different in tone once they reach London, but something happens. We already know them. Now we know them as other people are getting to know them, mostly girls. We know them as friends know each other in a crowd. It's a strange and slow effect at work, because it works against what we knew of them so far—away from home, they're a bit more lonely and desperate. Is the zest of connection more real now, next to strangers? Strangely, it begins to work and that changes everything. We have memories of having spent time. Look, many great works are this way, split in two parts which are time and present consciousness of that time —Lolita, Vertigo, Mulholland Dr. Time is never a lone abstract, there is no yesterday outside where you were doing what you were doing. It is rooted in space and self so we conjure all three in memory, we always do. It is a film about the memory of departed friends, but it's all in the fabric of our experience. It plays against a larger void, the one where eager, mysterious London girls come from, there they are in the room and gone again. The transcendent insight is, of course, that there is only now and the place you are, but that space of mind is always loaded with the consciousness of having known everything else, jazz time in constant improvisation.It's a strange and difficult experience, because as in life, the larger point becomes apparent in reflection. It may be a film that'll stay with me for a long time, getting better in memory. But is it an important cinematic step? Of course!

What can i say? Brilliant! "Husbands" its a genial movie. Full of reality, comedy, drama and love. Its an ecstatic portrait of three man,three best friends, each everyone of them represents a stereotype of an average western society middle-age man. Its a portrait of their crisis, ideals, beliefs, valors and fears. The actors John Cassavattes ( also the director), Ben Gazzara, and Peter Falk make a superb, wonderful, incredible realistic roles. "Husbands" is unbelievable truthful and honest. Once again John Cassavettes make me with a Jaw-dropping! If you like this one i recommend: "Woman under the influence" (john Cassavettes - 1974)

I began watching this awful mess on TCM tonight at 9:45 and found myself clicking for something better about 15 minutes into it. In fact, I checked my e-mail while I was watching and found a message from a friend discussing the ancient religious philosopher Pelagius. He wrote: Pelagius was an early advocate of the doctrine of salvation by works, as opposed to the doctrine of salvation by faith.I immediately declared myself a Pelagian and promised to go to this website and warn others not to watch this movie in order to do a good work--in order to avoid any further suffering that might be endured by anyone who might tempted to watch this train-wreck in the future.Gazzara, Falk and Cassavettes were good friends, I believe. How they got some studio to finance their time in New York and London is something we'll all never know. The first hour of the movie is dominated by an interminably long scene in a New York City bar that could have only been there to jack-up concessions sales for the theaters back in 1970 that had the nerve to screen this nonsense. They must have been flooding the lobby in droves searching for candy, popcorn or poison with which to kill themselves.I can't tell you anything about the second hour of the movie, because I didn't have the stomach to watch it through to the end.