For Pete's Sake 1974

Streisand / Movies

For Pete’s Sake

Opened June 26, 1974

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Scene from For Pete's Sake

  • Credits

    • Directed by Peter Yates
    • Written by: Stanley Shapiro, Maurice Richlin
    • Produced by Martin Erlichman, Stanley Shapiro
    • Executive Producer: Phil Feldman
    • Production Manager: Jim Di Gangi
    • Music by Artie Butler
    • Song “For Pete's Sake (Don't Let Him Down)” composed by Artie Butler; lyrics by Mark Lindsay
    • Director of Photography: László Kovács
    • Film Editor: Frank P. Keller, A.C.E.
    • Production Design by Gene Callahan
    • Titles Designed by Sandy Dvore
    • Casting: Marion Doughtery Associates
    • Additional Casting: Jennifer Shull
    • Ms. Streisand's Hairstyles Designed by: Jon Peters
    • Camera Operator: Robert Byrne
    • Assistant Film Editor: Cliffe Oland
    • Special Effects: Ira Anderson, Jr.
    • Costume Designer: Frank Thompson
    • Ladies Wardrobe: Shirlee Strahm
    • Mens Wardrobe: Seth Banks
    • Script Supervisor: Betty Crosby
    • Set Decorator: James I. Berkey
    • Properties: Richard M. Rubin
    • Assistant Director: Harry Caplan
    • Second Assistant Director: Stu Fleming
    • Makeup: Don Cash
    • Hairstylist: Kaye Pownall
    • Sound: Don Parker
    • Sound Effects: Sunset Editorial
    • Re-Recording: James R. Cook, C.A.S.
    • Unit Publicist: David Horowitz
    • Assistant to Producer: Daniel Grodnik

    Running Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

    Aspect Ratio: 1:85:1

    Filmed with Panavision equipment

    MPAA Rating: PG

  • Cast

    Barbra Streisand .... Henry

    Michael Sarrazin .... Pete

    Estelle Parsons .... Helen

    William Redfield ... Fred

    Molly Picon .... Mrs. Cherry

    Louis Zorich .... Nick

    Heywood Hale Broun .... Judge Hiller

    Richard Ward .... Bernie

    Ed Bakey .... Angelo

    Peter Mamakos .... Dominic

    Vivian Bonnell .... Loretta

    Joe Maher .... Mr. Coates

    Vincent Schiavelli .... Check-out Man

    Anne Ramsey .... Telephone Lady

    Jack Hollander .... Loanshark

    Gary Pagett .... Assistant Bank Manager

    Wil Albert .... Cop Dressed as Woman

    Herb Armstrong .... Insurance Man

    Fred Stuthman .... Loan Officer

    Bella Bruck .... Lady in Supermarket

    Stuart Wagstaff .... Man in Chandelier Store

    Joseph Hardy .... Second Cop

    Sidney Miller .... Drunk Driver

    Martin Erlichman .... Man in Theatre

  • Purchase

“Hello? Hi. This is Henrietta Robbins, your cousin from Brooklyn. Hi, I hate to bother you here, but I'm desperate. See, the bomb blew the bus up and I need $7,000 or else I'm gonna become a cattle rustler.” 

Synopsis:

Henrietta Robins works out of her home and her husband Pete drives a cab to try to support her. When Pete gets a tip from one of his fellow drivers that a deal will be made by the Americans and the Soviets over pork bellies, he decides to invest in the market, but needs $3,000 to invest. Henrietta then goes to extreme lengths to get the money by dealing with first a loan shark, then a Madame, then the mob and finally cattle rustlers. All this in the name of love.
The novelization movie tie-in from Avon Books.
For Pete's Sake movie posters

By 1973, Barbra Streisand was strategizing about her next film role. She had just come out of two back-to-back drama films: Up the Sandbox , which was made by her production company, First Artists; and The Way We Were for her Funny Girl producer Ray Stark. For her next film, Barbra was looking for some lighter material.


Barbra’s manager, Marty Erlichman, was also looking to produce his first film. In April 1973, it was reported that they were considering a property called With or Without Roller Skates for Paramount Pictures. With Marty producing, Streisand would play a New York nurse who worked in war veterans’ hospitals. “Barbra and I met with the nurse from the book twice,” Erlichman told the press. “She is a fascinating woman – hilariously funny and very realistic about her running battle with hospital authorities over what she considers the rights of her patients.”


But by June, it looked like Marty and Barbra had settled on a film comedy unfortunately titled July Pork Bellies. 


With a screenplay developed specifically for Barbra’s talents by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin, Erlichman told the press, “Barbra will play a cab driver's wife who becomes terribly involved in money matters and other things when she tries to help him, after he's invested in pork bellies on the futures commodities market, in an effort to better their lives,” he stated. “The picture may be shot here in New York, but that hasn't been decided.” 


Shapiro, who was set to co-produce July Pork Bellies with Erlichman, won an Academy Award for the Doris Day film Pillow Talk, which he shared with his writing partner, Richlin.


Erlichman took the picture to Ray Stark at Columbia Pictures where Barbra had made Funny Girl. “I felt more secure; that everything was being looked after, since it was my first picture as line producer,” Erlichman said. “So, Stanley and I coproduced it under Ray’s auspices.”


British director Peter Yates was hired to helm July Pork Bellies. Yates had impressed audiences in 1968 with the big car chase he staged for his film, Bullitt. Yates said Barbra & Marty “wanted to make a comedy where she didn’t sing. Because up until now she’d only made films where she had to sing because people felt that’s why people went to see Barbra Streisand. So, the whole idea of this film was that she never sing.”

Streisand and Sarrazin share a laugh on the set of the movie.
Michael Sarrazin and Barbra Streisand film a scene in Pete's bathtub

As for an appropriate costar for Streisand, “It's very difficult to cast somebody in a film opposite Barbra,” Yates said, “because unless you have a major star, you're going to have problems of balance. But no major star wanted to play it...It was like the girl's part in almost any other film. Instead of the girl following two paces behind the guy, it was the other way around. So, we had to find somebody who was a strong personality who could act...and get along with Barbra.”


That person was Michael Sarrazin, who had starred in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972). “I’d heard [Barbra] was temperamental, and everyone said she could be a monster, so I was a little scared,” Sarrazin confessed. “But we got along fine right from the beginning. I’d like to think it had something to do with me, but I don’t know. Maybe it was because the picture was a comedy. Whatever the reason, we sure had a lot of fun. We laughed all the time. She has the greatest sense of humor! Really funny!”


Streisand’s film comedy moved forward, scheduled to begin filming in Brooklyn, New York on September 24, 1973.  It also went through two title changes.  During filming, it was called For the Love of Pete.  A few months later the title was changed to For Pete’s Sake.


“He’s one of the few directors with no great ego,” Streisand stated about Yates. “Ideas should be free. They usually aren’t, but here they are. If I make a decision intellectually, I’m usually wrong. If I decide by instinct, I’m right. Peter uses instinct, too.”
Peter Yates and casting director Marion Dougherty put together a fantastic supporting cast for the film, made up mostly of New York stage actors.

ESTELLE

PARSONS

Estelle Parsons had an impressive stage resume, but also won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Of course, most people now know her for portraying Roseanne’s mom on the ABC sitcom. Cast as the bitchy wife of Pete’s brother in For Pete’s Sake, Parsons recalled working with Streisand. “Sometimes, we would ride to the set together, and she would ask me about acting. I thought: Holy cow, here is this woman who's overwhelmingly gifted in every possible way, and she's asking me about acting. I liked her very, very much.”

MOLLY

PICON

Molly Picon was a star in Yiddish theatre and film and had a prolific career before being cast as Mrs. Cherry in For Pete’s Sake. “They had a different kind of part for me, a madam, and I found it more amusing than offensive,” Picon wrote in her autobiography.  She recalled that “Barbra was very helpful and tried to give me extra lines” during an un-funny read-through of the script. “Yates was nervous, Barbra was late, and the studio work tiring. Barbra was a strange girl to work with. She was a very private person, never outgoing or warm. When she finished a scene, she’d go right to her dressing room without so much as a ‘so long.’  However, when she was acting, she was intensely professional.”

VIVIAN

BONNELL

Vivian Bonnell portrayed Loretta – “the colored woman” – who was Henry’s housekeeper in the film.  Peter Yates spotted Bonnell in a cat food commercial and cast her in For Pete’s Sake. “I told him [Yates] that I saw Loretta as a young and flighty person, somebody who was just killing time with the job, didn’t really need it.”  She and Streisand hit it off during a reading of the script in New York. “She started talking about the differences between New York pizza and Los Angeles pizza. She loves New York pizza. Then, I told her I like Breyer’s ice cream, and we become bosom buddies.”

JOSEPH

MAHER

Joseph Maher was cast as Henrietta’s first date, Mr. Coates – the man who wanted to pretend he was the T.V. repairman, and who ended up getting hit in the nose when Henrietta struggled too hard. He recalled rehearsing the scene with Streisand, who “kept asking me, ‘What do you think of this? How do you think that can be improved;’ Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but she said, ‘No, no, don’t worry. What do you think?’ So, I gave her some suggestions, and she calls over to Peter Yates, ‘Hey, he thinks we should do this!’ and I thought that was just hilarious. The bit about my having an icepack on my nose when I leave her apartment – that was one of my ideas.”

ANNE

RAMSEY

Most audiences know Anne Ramsey from her hilarious portrayal of the mean mother in Throw Momma From the Train.  In For Pete's Sake, she has a brief scene with Streisand as the lady who works for the telephone company. Ramsey also has a small role in Streisand's Up the Sandbox. Ramsey played another “mean mother” in The Goonies, alongside Streisand's future step-son, Josh Brolin.

Streisand’s Look

“I’d been very impressed by Barbra in What’s Up Doc? ,” Peter Yates said. “I’d wanted to have her hair cut because up until now she’d always had that long, long hair, and she’d always worn—except in What’s Up Doc?—clothes that hid her figure. This was really because Barbra does like to eat, I’m glad to say. But I wanted her to show off her figure because she has, basically, a very good figure. And I also felt she was going to look much younger and much more attractive with a short haircut.”


Streisand saw the exact hairstyle she wanted to wear in the movie when she was at a party thrown by her friend Mitzie Welch. “Well,” Welch said, “before the party I had had my hair done at a chic beauty salon in Beverly Hills owned and run by Jon Peters. So had Donna Korman.”


Donna Korman, married to the comedy actor Harvey Korman from The Carol Burnett Show, was spotlighted in several West Coast newspapers in a photo in which she wore “the butterfly hairdo,” created by hairdresser Jon Peters. The newspapers reported that Peters’ “clientele numbers among the top screen stars in the country, created the closely-cropped hairstyle that he says will lead the way for short styles for the next two years.”


“I called myself Henry for the character,” Streisand explained. “Short for Henrietta. The hair was perfect—half an inch all over the head. Meanwhile, I got a message from a friend that Jon Peters wanted to meet me.”


Jon Peters was a maverick – an entrepreneur who, at 28 years old, had opened a successful chain of high-end beauty parlors in Beverly Hills, Encino and Woodland Hills, California. According to reports at the time, the parlors grossed $100,000 a week and Peters had acquired an impressive list of Hollywood clients.


Peters recalled, “[Barbra] told me she was doing For Pete’s Sake and she wanted a new style for her hair. That was easy because I was good and I could do that for her. Then we started talking about the clothes she’d be wearing in the film. She showed me some pictures of them, and I said I didn’t think much of them. ‘I hate them, too,’ she said. ‘Okay, let’s go shopping,’ I said. Two days later, I picked her up in my car and we went shopping. We bought the clothes together and after that I used to go on the set with her. For four months we worked together, and we became closer and closer. First in a work sense, then in a total way.” 


“She was going through a phase where she wanted to wear muumuus,” Peter Yates said. “And I found Jon extremely helpful because he helped persuade Barbra that she in fact could look marvelous in jeans and tighter clothes.”


Peters ended up styling a short wig for Streisand to wear in the film and also received screen credit for it. Their personal and professional relationship produced Barbra’s Butterfly album as well as the 1976 blockbuster film she made with Peters, A Star is Born.  

Beautiful head shot of Streisand wearing her wig in For Pete's Sake
For Pete's Sake location in Brooklyn Heights

Filming “For Pete’s Sake”

For Pete’s Sake was allotted three weeks of location shooting in New York, followed by eight weeks back in Hollywood at Burbank Studios in California.


“We did all of our location work in New York and ended up a week ahead of schedule,” Yates admitted. “Then we came to sunny California where it rains and we get behind schedule.”


In Brooklyn, the filmmakers chose the apartment building at 125 Prospect Park West to stand in for the exteriors of Henry and Pete’s residence. Henrietta jumped on Pete’s motorcycle in Brooklyn, and also ‘popped a wheelie’ on the bike.  Peter Yates explained, “I wanted to be able to see her actually go into the wheelie and the only way to do that was to have a special motorbike built on elastic – a complete mockup.”


Barbra had a stunt double named J.N. Roberts who rode the motorcycle in a couple of scenes.


For a picturesque view of the Manhattan skyline, the crew filmed Streisand at the Promenade and Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights.


The cameras also captured Streisand as Henry, incognito, wearing a blond wig in front of Brooklyn’s historic Borough Hall.
Local newspaper has photos of For Pete's Sake crew shooting in their neighborhood.

Streisand, Sarrazin and a film crew of about 100 people moved to Paramus, New Jersey on September 26, 1973 to film scenes at a suburban home that stood in for Pete’s brother’s residence. In the final film, Helen and Henry have a scene together on the back porch, and Pete and Fred talk together while doing lawn work.


In actuality, John Bonaparte rented his house at 272 Cornell Road for the filming. “The producers said they wanted a typical suburban neighborhood and our house filled the bill,” Bonaparte told the press.  The crew showed up three days before the actual shoot and removed all the furniture and drapes from the Bonaparte home and substituted new ones that matched the interior set, which was back in Hollywood. “The studio is completely efficient,” Mrs. Bonaparte said. “They brought everything they need with them, even lunch.”


The subway sequence in which “Buddy the Dog” (who was trained by Lew Burke) stalked Streisand was “stolen entirely from French Connection,” Yates confessed. “If you can do it with a dog, you can do it with anybody, I suppose. The dog is marvelous.”


That scene was filmed at Brooklyn’s Court Street and Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway platform. The city closed the platforms and tracks in mid-1940s because of poor ridership.  However, in the 1970s the city decided to rent the tracks to filmmakers. “It was perfect,” Joseph Brennan wrote, “because trains could be put in it, and moved in and out as required for movie scenes, with no interference at all to regular train service.”
The crew of the movie filming at Brooklyn's Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway platform.
After the movie company wrapped filming in New York, they moved to sets in Hollywood. The bulk of For Pete’s Sake’s studio filming took place at the Burbank Studios, which Warner Bros. and Columbia jointly owned at the time. The lobby and interior of Henrietta’s apartment was built there.  

Production designer Gene Callahan worked closely with Peter Yates to design the apartment set so that doors could open and close and reveal the characters. For instance, when Pete’s in-laws visit, the audience can see their conversation at the dinner table in the foreground while Henrietta’s reactions in the kitchen can be seen in the background.

“This was a wonderful set built on the stage,” Peter Yates exclaimed. “[Gene Callahan] and I had to develop [this set] because later on it becomes a bit like a French farce, with one person coming through one door and another person going through another door and just missing each other. And so, the design had to be such that you could film and see both parties at the same time. As in a French farce you can see all the doors opening and shutting and wondering whether they are going to get caught or whether they are going to get seen. Gene’s whole choice of colors was wonderful. Obviously, no one in the circumstances that our hero and heroine are in would ever live in such grandeur. But that’s what used to happen in the old Hollywood movies. This was really a film to promote Barbra, to make her look great and for people to enjoy her – which they did, I’m glad to say.”
Wide shot of the apartment set, meant to function as a French farce.
Marty Erlichman's cameo in For Pete's Sake

The cattle and Brahma bull scenes were filmed on Warner’s New York Street set.


“It’s the only way, really, we could not lose the cows,” Yates said. “Just imagine using these cows in the middle of Brooklyn. I don’t think you’d get many back again. But all this was shot in Los Angeles on the backlot. I was always worried that the light was going to be different. It’s amazing, it really is acceptable. A lot of that’s got to do with Lazlo Kovacs and how he managed to balance the lighting.”


Marty Erlichman has a cameo during this part of the movie. That’s him in the movie theater, turning to the person behind him and saying, “Now that’s what I call realism!” as the bull crashes through the movie screen.


Then there was the “bull in the china shop” or chandelier shop scene.  Streisand follows the cattle into a delicate shop branded as “Chandeliers, Lamps and Fine Crystals.” When she sees the shop is completely unharmed by the large animals, she asks, “Nothing broke?” The nervous shop owner replies, “It’s a miracle.”  And Streisand says, “Knock on wood.” Then, when she exits the scene, all of the chandeliers crash to the floor.


“Well, we only got one go at that shot,” said Peter Yates. “Poor Barbra was really worried before we shot. That’s why she disappeared so quickly when she said, ‘Knock on wood.’ That was the sign for it all to drop. She wanted no part of it, and she was right. Thank God we only did it once. We didn’t have to re-rig it.”
The chandelier shop scene.

Song & Animated Titles

Frames from the animated opening credits of the movie.

For Pete’s Sake has a title sequence at the beginning of the movie. Streisand sings an up tempo theme song that plays over a cute, animated sequence in which Barbra is a cartoon character.


Peter Yates stated, “This film … well, it’s fun. It was made for fun, we had fun making it, and you can tell by the fact we start with cartoons that it’s not to be taken seriously.”


Pete ’s theme song was composed by Artie Butler with lyrics by Mark Lindsay, and Streisand sang the song. Despite the desire to have Streisand in a film in which she did not sing, “They couldn’t resist having her sing the song under the titles,” laughed Peter Yates, “and I’m glad she did, I think it’s a lovely song.”


Artie Butler recalled, “I wanted to write a much more contemporary song for the main title, but the producers needed to have ‘For Pete’s Sake’ in there. I tried to explain to them that ‘For Pete’s Sake’ wasn’t a contemporary phrase to use in the title song, but they wanted it. I remember specifically playing the song for Barbra, and she said to me, ‘I know the records you’ve made, and I know ‘For Pete’s Sake’ shouldn’t be there. I know it and you know it, right?’ I said, ‘Right.’ I remember her saying it with a smile … Working with her is many times a challenge and always a thrill.”


The animation was created by Sandy Dvore, an Emmy-winning logo and title designer best known for the title animation on TV’s The Partridge Family .


The song “For Pete’s Sake” has never been commercially released, nor has it appeared on a Streisand album or collection.

Opening and Promoting Pete

Streisand poses next to a poster for her movie.

Columbia “sneak previewed” For Pete’s Sake on May 25, 1974 at the Kachina Theater in Scottsdale, Arizona. Phil Strassberg reported that the entourage who attended included director Peter Yates; Marty Erlichman and his wife Miko; executive director Phil Feldman; Columbia’s Peter Guber; and main title animator Sandy Devore. Streisand did not attend.


When For Pete’s Sake opened across America in June 1974, it was a sizable hit for Columbia Pictures, earning around $11 million dollars for the studio.


Publicity


  • Production Short: For the Love of Pete (“See it’s the kind of part I’ve always wanted – an intelligent, refined, sophisticated woman of the world. A woman who always travels first class.”)
  • Production Short: Barbra’s Brooklyn: A Funny Place
  • Novelization: Avon Books, written by Bradford Street


Frames from a production short
Streisand and Marty Erlichman film a production short

Here are some frames and a behind-the-scenes photo from the production short For the Love of Pete. Notice that Marty Erlichman and the other producers are posing behind Streisand for the short film.


For the Love of Pete was shown in movie theaters months before the film came out (and before the title was changed to For Pete's Sake .)

Streisand on the Columbia backlot with her son, Jason Gould.
Click the arrows to view photographs (many behind-the-scenes rare shots!) from For Pete's Sake, below ....

SOURCES USED ON THIS PAGE:


 

  • “Abandoned Stations” by Joseph Brennan. Court St, and Hoyt-Schermerhorns Sts platforms. Retrieved November 14, 2018.http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/court.html
  • "All-time Film Rental Champs," Variety , January 7, 1976, p. 44.
  • “An Interview with Joseph Maher: Mr. Coates in ‘For Pete’s Sake.’ The Best of All About Barbra Vol. Two. AB Publications.
  • “And Now, Ladies, The Butterfly Hairdo” by UPI. October 28, 1973.
  • “But He Won’t Rat it” by Jean Cox. Cincinnati Enquirer , March 17, 1974.
  • Earl Wilson: It Happened Last Night column, Courier Post , June 23, 1973.
  • Earl Wilson: It Happened Last Night column, The Morning News , August 27, 1973.
  • Earl Wilson: It Happened Last Night column, The Morning Call , October 13, 1973.
  • “Film preview has surprise” by Phil Strassberg. Arizona Republic , June 1, 1974.
  • Films of Barbra Streisand, The by Christopher Nickens and Karen Swenson. Citadel Press Books, 2000.
  • For Pete’s Sake DVD by Columbia Pictures, 2000. Peter Yates Director’s Commentary (Special Features).
  • For Pete’s Sake IMDB page. Retrieved November 9, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071514/
  • “Glamor Gets Down in Mud for ‘Pete’s Sake’” by Wayne Warga. Los Angeles Times , December 2, 1973.
  • Hit and Run by Nancy Griffin & Kim Masters. Simon and Schuster, January 12, 2016.
  • “Hollywood Visits Paramus” by Barbara Venon. The Ridgewood News , September 30, 1973.
  • “Luckiest People in the World: People Who’ve Worked with Barbra, The” by Peter Cosenza. All About Barbra magazine, issue 14.
  • Molly! An Autobiography by Molly Picon with Jean Bergantini Grillo. Simon & Schuster, 1980.
  • STAGE TO SCREENS: Chats with Estelle Parsons, Mary McCormack and Bryan Batt by Michael Buckley, Playbill.com, July 28, 2008. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
  • Streisand: A Biography by Anne Edwards. Little, Brown and Company, 1997.

 

END / For Pete's Sake 1974
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