California Split 1974

Vincent Canby, New York Times: A fascinating, vivid movie, not quite comparable to any other movie that I can immediately think of. Nor is it easily categorized. Read more

Don Druker, Chicago Reader: Robert Altman's masterful 1974 study of the psychology of the compulsive gambler. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What Altman comes up with is sometimes almost a documentary feel; at the end of California Split we know something about organized gambling in this country we didn't know before. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Altman feels rather than thinks his way into a subject, with a special interest in how people relate to one another in moments of crisis. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: The film is technically and physically handsome, all the more so for being mostly location work, but lacks a cohesive and reinforced sense of story direction. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: California Split has never been heralded as one of the key Altmans. But the few things it does - friendship and disappointment and the drab and desperate thrill of the gambler's life - it does superbly. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: Sold as a comedy, the film scans more like American-century Dostoyevsky, with comp cocktails. Read more