A Woman Under the Influence ***** (1974, Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper) – Classic Movie Review 10,327

John Cassavetes’s savage dissection of the American family, the brilliant 1974 drama film A Woman Under the Influence, stars his wife Gena Rowlands as a disintegrating housewife and mother.

Writer-director John Cassavetes’s savage dissection of the American family, the brilliant 1974 drama film A Woman Under the Influence, stars his wife Gena Rowlands as a disintegrating housewife and mother and Peter Falk as her no-more-sane husband, noisily wrestling with money worries, demanding offspring and the shocked disapproval of the neighbours.

It is a movie that strips away social niceties to focus on a relationship in turmoil, and the two principals turn in fittingly shrill, agonised performances. Peter Falk is very persuasive and Gena Rowlands is superb. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and was Oscar nominated as Best Actress.

Cassavetes’s high-risk, improvisational style gives the movie a wonderfully loose-jointed energy and makes for a ride, which, while admittedly perhaps overlong at 155 minutes and occasionally uneven, is altogether unique and totally exceptional.

It was nominated for two Oscars: Best Actress and Best Director. Rowlands won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

Also in the cast are Katherine Cassavetes, Lady Rowlands, Fred Draper, Matthew Cassel, Matthew Labyorteaux, Christina Grisanti, George Dunn [O G Dunn], Mario Gallo, Eddie Shaw, Angelo Grisanti, Charles Horvath, James Joyce, John Finnegan, Vince Barbi, Cliff Carnell, Frank Richards, Hugh Hurd, Leon Wagner, Dominique Davalos, Xan Cassavetes, Pancho Meisenheimer, Sonny Aprile, Ellen Davalos, Joanne Jordan, John Hawker, Sil Words, Elizabeth Deering, Jackie Peters, Elsie Asmes and Nick Cassavetes.

A Woman Under the Influence is directed by John Cassavetes, runs 155 minutes, is made by Faces International Films, is released by Faces Distribution, is written by John Cassavetes, is shot by Mitch Breit and Al Ruban, is produced by Sam Shaw, is scored by Bo Harwood, and is designed by Phedon Papamichael.

Release date: November 18, 1974.

Never, ever do this! Don’t mortgage your home for a movie!

When Cassavetes looked for funding, he was told: ‘No one wants to see a crazy, middle-aged dame.’ So he mortgaged his house and borrowed money from family and friends, including Peter Falk, who invested $500,000. The crew came from the American Film Institute, where Cassavetes was first film-maker in residence at its Center for Advanced Film Studies. To save money, he shot scenes in a real house near Hollywood Boulevard, and Rowlands did her own hair and makeup. Cassavetes was unable to find a distributor, so he called cinema owners and asked them to run the film. It was screened in art houses and college campuses, where Cassavetes and Falk discussed it, and was shown at the San Sebastián Film Festival, where Rowlands was named Best Actress.

The good news is: on a budget of $1 million, it took $6.1 million at the North American box office.

The film was selected in 1990 for preservation in the US National Film Registry as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, as one of its first 50 films.

The film was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by Gucci and the Film Foundation. The world premiere of the restored print was held at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on April 26, 2009, as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. Gena Rowlands was in attendance and introduced it.

Virginia Cathryn Rowlands (June 19, 1930 – August 14, 2024).

Virginia Cathryn Rowlands (June 19, 1930 – August 14, 2024) is a four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner. Her work with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films includes A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980), gaining her Oscar nominations as Best Actress.

She won the Berlin Silver Bear for Best Actress for Opening Night (1977) and is also remembered for Woody Allen’s Another Woman (1988), The Neon Bible (1995) and her son Nick Cassavetes’s film, The Notebook (2004),

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,327

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