CALIFORNIA SPLIT

title: CALIFORNIA SPLIT

year: 1974

cast: George Segal, Elliott Gould

rating: ****1/2

Robert Altman delves smoothly into the world of low-rent gambling with George Segal as a debt-burdened writer and Elliott Gould as a jobless loser playing poker, betting on horses, sharing women and spontaneous conversations. From their humble beginnings in California, to their misadventures in Nevada, to the conclusion in Reno, this is a grand odd-couple character-study where gambling is more than a device, but a character in itself: the phantom antagonist. At times Altman's loose, improvisational style is wonderfully voyeuresque, and there's always a new street-savvy, bickering situation to struggle through. Segal proves once again he's not just a funnyman banjo player. And for Gould, it's the perfect follow-up to Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE, only he's more hyperactive and troublesome, while Segal provides the base. Highlights include the random confrontations between the boys and mustached bully Edward Walsh, brother of actor Joseph (THE DRIVER) Walsh, who wrote the script and plays a crippled bookie.