Cassavetes' Works: A chronology and list of early events in Cassavetes' career (Page 4 of 4)

Gateway

Life

Films

Words

Early Career

Late Career

Acting

Television

Scrapbook

Photographs

Bibliography

Buy a Book

You're in the section of Ray Carney's John Cassavetes Pages devoted to an overview of Cassavetes' career

·
Turn off pop-up blocking to access site pages. Click here for more information.
·
To display the menus for the major areas of the site, click on the tickets below.

·
To read about Ray Carney’s life and work, click on the tickets below.

·
Click below to read letters from students and artists, screening news and events, links to other sites, and thoughts about art and life.

·
For viewing recommendations, click on the ticket below.

·
The site contains only a fraction of Ray Carney's writing. To learn how to obtain the complete books and essays, click on the ticket below.

·
The Mailbag Letters and Replies section (click on the ticket higher up in the margin to go there) has answers to many questions, but to contact Ray Carney, click on the ticket below.

·
Click on the tickets below to access navigation tips, tools, and site tables of contents.

A chronology and list of events in Cassavetes' early career, 1929 - 1968. To access a chronology and list of events covering the last ten years of Cassavetes' life and the seventeen years following his death, click here.

1929 - 1956 / 1957 - 1959 / 1960 -1962 / 1963 -1968

Click here for best printing of text

Faces: 1963-1968

While JC remains at home jobless, GR's acting career flourishes. When she isn't working in a movie, she is doing TV almost every month from 1961 to 1964. Someone has to work - and she does.
During this hiatus, JC does a lot of writing and thinking, but also some TV, such as Dr. Kildare, The Lloyd Bridges Show, Breaking Point and The Alfred Hitchcock Show. He also directs two episodes of The Lloyd Bridges Show. His most important work remains a play in Toronto in September 1963 called Flip Side, where JC is DJ going slightly mad. JC shows his ability to do "voices."
The only film appearance is The Killers by old friend Sam Siegel (from the time of film version of Crime in the Streets). Spiegel offers the job to JC because he knows he needs money and can't find any part to play.
This forced idleness ends in early 1964 when JC meets Steve Blauner who is working at Screen Gems.
His job is to find new ideas for TV programs, but after the scripts come back for the umpteenth time, he starts thinking that new ideas are not welcome anymore.
To avoid madness, he and JC decide to do another movie like Shadows, away from Hollywood and completely independent. JC has written tons of scripts. One is about a conversation between two men and the good old times - about middle age, marriage and infidelity. JC wants to do it as a play, but he switches it to a movie.
There are at least three working titles for the movie: The Marriage, Inside-Out and the Dynosaurs. The last title is dated July 1966.
Faces is originally a two-act play. In the first act, the men perform for a woman; in the second the women perform for a man. McEndree edits the men's scenes while JC edits the women's scenes. And the screenings are divided in men's only and women's only.
The characters in the movie are drawn from JC in real life. Part of Richard Forst is JC himself and part of Chattie is Seymour Cassel. Cassel is used to follow married women and seduce them.
Being short of money, as always, JC takes advantage of his Screen Gems job to fund his project: rehearsals are held around his table in the office and the scripts are typed by Gem's secretaries. JC stays there as long as he can and then goes to Universal to star in two movies. This brings him a movie camera - an Eclair - and film. The movie can start.

1929 - 1956 / 1957 - 1959 / 1960 -1962 / 1963 -1968

A chronology and list of events in Cassavetes' early career, 1963-1968. To access a chronology and list of events covering the last ten years of Cassavetes' life and the seventeen years following his death, click here.