For Pete's Sake
Opened Spring 1974
Director Peter Yates started shooting For Pete’s Sake in Brooklyn, New York in September 1973. “This film is fun,” he declared. “It was made for fun, we had fun making it. You can tell by the fact we start with cartoons that it’s not supposed to be taken seriously.”
“I’d been very impressed by Barbra in What’s Up Doc?,” 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 is really because Barbra likes to eat, I’m glad to say. But I wanted her to show off her figure because, basically, she has a very good figure. And I also felt she was going to look much younger and much more attractive with a short haircut.”
The short haircut was what brought Streisand and future beau Jon Peters together. “I called myself Henry for the character,” Streisand explained to a magazine. “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 elaborated: “When I arrived at her house for the appointment, she kept me waiting for an hour and a half ... I was ready to leave. Then she came down and told me she wanted me to do a wig. I never do wigs. What an insult.”
Streisand ended up wearing a wig in For Pete’s Sake. When the film was over, she was back to wearing her long, straight, blond hair.
“For Pete’s Sake (Don’t Let Him Down)”, the theme song for the film, was composed by Artie Butler with lyrics by Mark Lindsay. Barbra sang the song over the opening credits.
The subway sequence with the dog was “stolen, of course, entirely from French Connection,” Yates confessed. “If you can do it with a dog, you can do it with anybody, I suppose.”
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, much like a French farce. For instance, when Pete’s inlaws visit, the audience can see their conversation at the dinner table in the foreground while, at the same time, Henrietta’s reactions in the kitchen can be seen in the background. “Gene’s whole choice of colors was wonderful,” Yates stated.
The sequence in which the cows get loose in Brooklyn was actually shot on the studio backlot. Barbra’s longtime manager and producer of For Pete’s Sake had a cameo in the film. That’s Marty Erlichman in the movie theater commenting on the “reality” of the movies as the steers come crashing through the movie screen.
Michael Sarrazin, Barbra’s costar, recollected: “I’d heard [Barbra] was temperamental, and everyone said she could be a monster, so I was a little scared. 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!”
(Photos Below: several views of Barbra Streisand filming on Court Street, Brooklyn, in her red hat for the film.)
Below: Barbra Streisand's Pot Roast Recipe Card was a 5x5" promotional recipe given out at local supermarkets at the release of the film.
Below: Look how filmmakers assisted Streisand in “popping a wheelie” on her motorcycle in the film's opening scenes!
Pete's Lobby Cards
Below is a collection of For Pete's Sake Lobby cards — like movie posters but smaller, usually 11" × 14".
End.
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