Review of Opening Night (1977) by Kenr — 07 May 2021

Opening Night – Won’t last The Season More massive 'home movies' overindulgence from Cassavetes. Again, this one appears to have been made to provide work for his drinking buddies and immediate family – it also seems to play out more like an extended commercial for Booze and King-size cigarettes. Within his predictable formulaic approach, his pals and family consume massive quantities of alcohol, courtesy of J& B, with endless shots of the bottle labels placed in prime positions of each shot (often with the label facing directly to camera to make sure you get the message) They also smoke back to back, endless cigarettes and whatever else – in fact, it looks more like these movies might have been designed to keep everyone in free grog and smokes (this, from what we are constantly told, is a sadly accepted, excessive pastime in Hollywoodland).

The scripts for any one of these films would be lucky to have handfuls of fully written dialogue pages, yet most all painfully run for well over two hours - with endless repetitive scenes that could easily have been wrapped up far more convincingly in 80-90mins maximum. Those who don’t mind spending time with a chap who sadly drank and smoked himself into an early grave – might last the distance, others might be warned to seek more ‘accessible’ entertainment. Apologies to the fans but ticket sales suggest John was actually a better actor than movie-maker, and it’s a pity we did not see more of him in quality mainstream shows such as ‘Edge Of the City’, etc.