California Split
Carefree single guy Charlie Waters rooms with two lovely prostitutes, Barbara Miller and Susan Peters, and lives to gamble. Along with his glum betting buddy, Bill Denny, Charlie sets out on a gambling streak in search of the ever-elusive big payday. While Charlie and Bill have some lucky moments, they also have to contend with serious setbacks that threaten to derail their hedonistic betting binge.
Critics Sentiment
Bill's blackjack and craps winning streak ends when a woman bets on seven
Bill pawns his car and possessions to fund the bus trip to Reno
The film's biggest swing runs from the mid-film doldrums of Bill pawning his car and drifting through seedy bars (score 6.0) up to the electrifying craps table sequence in Reno where his streak peaks and then collapses via the birthday woman's seven (score 8.5), a rise of 2.5 points driven by the shift from plotless meandering to visceral, darkly comic gambling tension.
California Split opens with strong audience goodwill for its immersive poker parlor world and the immediate chemistry of Gould and Segal, then dips through a deliberately loose and episodic mid-section that divides viewers between those who find its plotless texture hypnotic and those who find it irritating. The film surges to its emotional peak in the Reno casino sequences, where the craps streak and its hollow aftermath deliver the film's most praised and thematically resonant moments, before closing on a bittersweet, anti-climactic note that most reviewers ultimately respected as an honest portrait of addiction's joyless endgame.
Full cast
Showing 20 of 36
George Segal
Bill Denny
Elliott Gould
Charlie Waters
Ann Prentiss
Barbara Miller
Gwen Welles
Susan Peters
Edward Walsh
Lew
Joseph Walsh
Sparkie
Bert Remsen
Helen Brown
Barbara London
Lady on the Bus
Barbara Ruick
Reno Barmaid
Jay Fletcher
Robber
Jeff Goldblum
Lloyd Harris
Barbara Colby
Receptionist
Vincent Palmieri
First Bartender
Alyce Passman
Go-Go Girl
Joanne Strauss
Mother
Jack Riley
Second Bartender
Sierra Pecheur
Woman at Bar
John Considine
Man at Bar
Eugene Troobnick
Harvey
Richard Kennedy
Used Car Salesman
Crew
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