For four weeks, FilmScene 101 will watch the films of Elaine May to celebrate her work and legacy. See all of her films and discuss tropes, motifs, and stylistic choices particular to May's sensibility. Tuesdays in the month of May. Click below to purchase your FilmScene 101 pass.

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"A vivid, almost sensually rancid slice of 1970s cinema, a movie in which you can almost taste the sweat in the air."—Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

"A profound, unsentimental portrait of male friendship."—Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

With a script based loosely on characters in Elain May's own life that had been gestating since college, this seedy story of friendship is one of the ultimate on screen depictions of emotional intimacy between men. Nicky (John Cassavettes) is holed up in a motel after the boss he stole money from puts a hit out on him. He calls on his old friend Mikey (Peter Falk) in a panic and the two set off onto the grimy streets of Philadelphia over the course of one tumultuous night. The film presents an emotionally raw story that understands and undercuts a certain brand of quiet machismo and bumbling bravado just waiting to bubble over.

Her third film continued her streak of contentious relationships with studios with over 1.4 million feet of film shot and a story that ends with May holding two reels of the original camera negative hostage for fear of the studio physically taking it away from her and compromising her vision.