Mr Halpern and Mr Johnson

Mr. Halpern and Mr. Johnson is a 1983 television film produced for HBO featuring Jackie Gleason and Laurence Olivier and was directed by Alvin Rakoff. The film is set at Halpern's (Olivier) wife's gravesite after the funeral. Halpern, a working class British Jew, is incensed when Johnson, a dapper American (Gleason), turns up with flowers for the deceased, rather than stones as in Jewish custom. When Halpern demands to know how Johnson knew his wife, a long conversation ensues that reveals one has been in love with the other's wife for 30 years.

There are two locations in the movie, a New York hotel and a New Jersey cemetery. The hotel scene was filmed at the HTV West studio on Bath Road in Bristol, England and the cemetery scenes were filmed outside Bristol.

The screenplay was written by Lionel Goldstein. Rabbi Kenneth L. Cohen was the religious advisor.