Peter Falk was in a good, playful mood, but he was also properly ticked off about the way Columbia Pictures was dismissing his latest movie, a fine little comedy caper called ”Happy New Year.”
The good mood was evident when Falk was asked his age. ”I don`t want to tell you.”
Oh, come on.
”All right, I`m somewhere between 68 and 72. (He`s 59). Now let`s talk about the movie.”
Ah, the movie. Even if you didn`t blink, you missed it.
”Happy New Year” was released Friday by Columbia Pictures in only 25 cities with a virtually non-existent ad campaign. In Chicago, for example, the film opened in two small theaters with only one small newspaper ad before opening day.
And if that weren`t enough to ensure the film`s commercial failure, Columbia opened it on a movie-heavy weekend against ”Nadine,” ”Who`s That Girl,” ”Back to the Beach” and ”Masters of the Universe,” each having a multimillion-dollar national ad campaign.
Why, you would almost think the management wanted to see the film fail.
”Yes, you would,” Falk said in his famous gravely voice. ”You can`t get the new guys interested in anything made by the old guys.”
Translation: There was a management change at Columbia recently, and as typically happens, the new executives have a twin desire to see films made by their predecessors fail: It makes the old guys look bad, which makes it easier for the new guys` profit and loss statement to look good.
In the case of ”Happy New Year,” it was made under the administration of Guy MacElwaine, who was replaced last year by David Puttnam.
”It isn`t in the budget to promote `Happy New Year,` said a studio spokesman.
”We shot the film,” said Falk, ”I think it was in May 1985. And it just sat there. Partially it was caught in a contractual squeeze that forced the director, John Avildsen, to shoot `The Karate Kid, Part II` (also for Columbia) before he could edit `Happy New Year.`
”So that caused part of the delay,” Falk said. ”But everybody knew that up front. I was told that the studio didn`t think the picture was going to do any business, and that was it.”
In ”Happy New Year” you will see one of Falk`s finest comic performances, a clever caper, a pair of masterful masquerades and a sweet love story. Not bad for five bucks.
The film is a remake of a very good 1973 French film, and this version accentuates the comedy over the love story. Falk and Charles Durning play a couple of high-rolling thieves who set themselves up in a fancy hotel in Palm Beach, where they plan to knock off a branch of Harry Winston, Inc., the famous New York jewelry store.
While watching the store, Falk notices a beautiful woman (Wendy Hughes)
operating a neighboring antique store. Thus he plots a twin theft of Harry Winston`s jewelry and her heart.
”It`s an adult film,” Falk said. ”It`s a solid entertainment. It`s got a great caper. And I think the old man and the old lady are a lot of fun.”
The old folks Falk was referring to are two hilarious characters he plays in rubber mask disguise as part of the heist. He first enters the store as an old geezer and buys a pair of diamond ear clips for his dying wife. Later, dressed as the man`s old sister, he returns the clips for an even more expensive gift, worming his way into the confidence of the greedy store manager (Tom Courtenay). In addition to the laughs, ”Happy New Year” is very much about the battle between greed and loyalty in all the major characters.
”I`m particularly proud of the old lady,” Falk said. ”It was my thought to bring in the old lady, and I wrote those scenes. She wasn`t in the French version.
”What I did was play my mother,” Falk said. ”She`s still alive and quite a character.”
And how old is she, he was asked.
”Oh,” he said, not missing a beat, ”somewhere between 52 and 63.”
Falk said he wanted to pattern the old woman after a real person. ”I started with Bella Abzug, but then I couldn`t think of anybody better than my mother.
”She lives in New York. She spends her afternoons watching rehearsals at the Metropolitan Opera, and then she goes at night and gives them a grade. She`s a helluva critic. She used to help my father run his dry goods store in Ossining, N.Y. Yes, Sing Sing prison is still there.”
Falk was told that his portrayal of the old woman was so convincing that it rivaled, at least for the short time she was on screen, Dustin Hoffman`s classic performance in ”Tootsie.”
”Well, that`s very kind,” he said, ”because I loved that picture and I loved what he did with it. But I could ad lib this part. I wrote my scenes just walking around in my dressing room and on the set, thinking of how my mother would do it.”
The American version of ”Happy New Year” runs 37 minutes shorter than the French version, but Falk doesn`t think that much has been lost.
”I only argued about including three or four minutes. And that was a scene that takes place in jail between me and the girl after he`s caught. I would have liked to have seen it in its entirety. The director didn`t feel that way about it.
You are supposed to learn from that scene that there is now more at stake for both of them, given their feelings for each other. She meant more to him and vice-versa. That sets up his reaction when he gets out of jail and sees her at home for the first time.
”I really like the last scene,” Falk said. ”She is considering my life as a criminal and says, `You could have been anything.` But I like what I say: `I don`t think I missed much. I found you.` That`s nice because they haven`t really communicated with one another up until that point. They`re more like two animals who have been sensing things about each other. They both find words cheap.”
How would Falk rank his performance in the film with, say, ”The In-Laws,” his biggest commercial hit?
”I would rate it higher than `The In-Laws` because it was more demanding.”
Now if that doesn`t pique your interest in ”Happy New Year,” nothing will. In Chicago it`s playing at the Lake Shore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway, and the 400 Theater, 6746 N. Sheridan Rd.
Falk fans will be happy to know that he will appear in three more movies to be released this year.
One is a fantasy film called ”Princess Bride.”
”It could be one of the sleepers of the year,” Falk said. ”I play a grandpa who tells the story to a little 5-year-old boy who is sick. It`s a fairy tale about a beautiful girl who falls in love with a stable boy in a medieval magic land.”
Falk said he has a bigger role in the fine German director Wim Wenders` ”Sky over Berlin,” a film about angels.
”I had seen his picture `Paris, Texas,` with Harry Dean Stanton, and I found it fascinating. A couple years later I got a call from Wenders, who told me: `I want you to come over here and play just what you are, an American movie actor, who, it turns out, is an ex-angel who became disillusioned and converted to acting.`
”Well, that sure as hell sounded different. I had never been to West Berlin. There was no script; so there was nothing to get anxious or brood about. I got on a plane.”
And finally there`s ”Vibes,” costarring Falk with Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Goldblum. ”It struck me as a funny, mainstream comedy. I`m a guy who wants gold, and the gold in the picture is in a lost Incan city. I`m one of the great liars, not that my lies are convincing, but they`re imaginative. The fact that I can get caught lying and double the lie is very appealing.”
In addition to playing a series of instantly likable characters, Falk has also regularly appeared in the challenging, adventurous films of his good friend John Cassavetes, films such as ”Husbands” and ”A Woman Under the Influence.”
For the last year rumors has been floating about that Cassavetes was near death.
”John is great; his liver is lousy,” Falk said. ”He never took care of himself. But he`s a lot better now. He`s going to be directing a play with Gena (Rowlands, his wife). And he`s written a play for Benny (Gazzara) and me. He writes every day. And he even sleeps now and then. He used to never sleep. He never got tired. And he drank. But he gave that up three or four years ago. Tell everyone who cares about him, he`s okay. He`s one of a kind. There`s not a copycat bone in his body. I`ve known him for about 25 years, and I still can`t predict his reaction to anything.”
Falk said he is enjoying his nine-year marriage to his second wife, actress Shara Danese, 37. He also has begun drawing. The day we talked he had just received some engravings of his work–drawings of women, he said, ”some with their clothes on, some with their clothes off.”
You can probably hear him saying those words. He`s so blunt that almost everything he says is funny. He was asked where that speech pattern and attitude came from.
”I think it comes from hating people who are too earnest. It`s my way of not being earnest. Because to me earnest means really boring.”
Which is the last word one would use to describe Peter Falk.
