Most people have at least one person on whom they can depend no matter what happens. There are slight tensions inherent in close friendship, but diehard loyalty will always bring that person running when they’re needed. Or will it?

In 1976, writer/director Elaine May (former comedy partner of director Mike Nichols) asked this question while inspired by the corruption of mid-’70s New York City—the ’75 Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” showed that even the federal government had given up hope on the cesspool the city had become. Coated in a mob-thriller plot and realist filming techniques, this exploration of the nature of friendship continues to be relevant, amusing, and heartbreaking almost 30 years later.

Heavily influenced by the films of indie-pioneer John Cassavetes and starring Cassavetes as Mikey and his frequent star, Peter Falk (Columbo) as his friend, Nicky, May traces one night in New York City among the titular amigos. Mikey is fleeing from the mob he betrayed with the help of the only person he thinks he can trust, his boyhood friend and fellow Mafioso, Nicky. But can Mikey trust Nicky?

He is not sure from the beginning and neither is the audience. In a normal movie, the two friends would decide to protect themselves by destroying the threatening mob, but May’s not looking for the easy catharsis. As the explanation behind Mikey’s situation is revealed and Nicky’s true nature is seen, it becomes clear that neither character is a cinematic hero. They are simply men.

This flick cuts through the friends’ relationship—held together by love and driven apart by jealousy built up over the years of close companionship—while the omnipresent threat of imminent death stands over them. Cassavetes’ frighteningly desperate performance shows him going through the stages of grief for his own life. It is saved from saccharine self-pity by his character’s tragically flawed nature and eyebrows that twitch like those of Jack Nicholson’s Joker in “Batman.”

It would be easy to assign a moral to this story—the amazingly selfish “be good to your friends all the time, because you never know when you might need them” certainly applies—but the real strength is showing that there are no clear morals in real interactions. There’s just life and death, leaders and followers.

How do you interact with your friends? When the desperate times come—as they always do—who can you really depend on? “Mikey and Nicky”’s scary truth: it is impossible to know.

—Staff writer Scoop A. Wasserstein can be reached at wasserst@fas.harvard.edu.