In its initial Broadway run, Jules Feiffer's pitch-black satire Little Murders lasted a grand total of seven performances. Likewise, Alan Arkin's big screen adaptation, his feature debut and the source of last week's quote, was a box-office flop. However, time has been extremely kind to the film, a hilariously nasty piece of work. Little Murders boasts a perfect early-seventies cast, starting Elliott Gould as the near-comatose antihero Alfred, who takes perhaps the most darkly funny subway ride ever. The ensemble also includes Gould's MASH costar Donald Sutherland as a blissed-out preacher, Arkin himself as a typically Arkinesque police detective, Marcia Rodd (who thereafter worked primarily in television) as Gould's girlfriend Patsy, and Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson as Patsy's bizarre parents. It's Wilson who gets to deliver that last line, which only sounds like something out of Norman Rockwell. Congrats to those of you who guessed it.
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