Don't Gamble with Love (1936) User Reviews

Routine Tale of Gambling and Romance

[robluvthebeach · 6/10 · 6 June 2015]

This is a standard tale of husband and wife live a party lifestyle and he works in a gambling hall and she occasionally models and sings. Because they want to start a family, wife feels the need to change their situation. Situation is changed and husband gets a new job, and then a promotion, but is tricked into a bad business deal and wants to go back to his old life. Husband returns to gambling and loses wife and son. Wife goes into fashion, gets a new boyfriend and does well for herself until she hears about her husband's shady deals. Ann Sothern is always a delight in any role and she performs with her usual panache and verve. Bruce Cabot is wooden throughout the entire film and incapable of expressing any emotions (has the same look on his face whether happy or sad). Irving Pichel was the bad guy with a conscience and was just adequate. Look fast for the Nicholas Brothers do a dance routine in the club.

Make it one for my baby...

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 29 December 2018]

Certain occupations and fatherhood do not mix. That is what Bruce Cabot discovers in this marital drama with elements of crime featuring Ann Sothern as his devoted wife who leaves him after he reopens a gambling establishment that he had closed after the birth of their first child. He tries to be a normal businessman but becomes involved in a company where supposed friend Thurston Hall embezzles company money and leaves him holding the bag. That makes him decide to return to the only business he felt comfortable in, and that puts a great risk on both his marriage and the lives of everybody he loves.

There are delightful elements of comedy in this mostly dramatic film, one featuring Franklin Pangborn as a baby buggy salesman and the performance of veteran actress Elizabeth Risdon as the housekeeper whom Sothern describes as a lovable old grouch. Spooky looking character actor Irving Pichel ("Dracula's Daughter") play see crooked Gambler who buys Cabot's old establishment and then turns against him when Cabot decides to go back in the business. There are many thrilling moments here involving the crime elements, but it is the human story between Sothern and Cabot that remain the strongest..