The Lady Gambles (1949)

A desperate husband tries to find help for his wife suffering from addictive gambling.

Director:

Michael Gordon

Writers:

Roy Huggins (screenplay), Halsted Welles (adaptation),

Stars:

Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Preston, Stephen McNally

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Barbara Stanwyck	...	Joan Boothe
Robert Preston	...	David Boothe
Stephen McNally	...	Horace Corrigan
Edith Barrett	...	Ruth Phillips
John Hoyt	...	Dr. Rojac
Elliott Sullivan	...	Barky
John Harmon	...	Frenchy
Philip Van Zandt	...	Chuck (as Phil Van Zandt)
Leif Erickson	...	Tony
Curt Conway	...	Bank Clerk
Houseley Stevenson	...	Pawnbroker
Don Beddoe	...	Mr. Dennis Sutherland
Nana Bryant	...	Mrs. Dennis Sutherland
Tony Curtis	...	Bellboy (as Anthony Curtis)
Peter Leeds	...	Jack Harrison - Hotel Clerk

Storyline

When Joan Boothe accompanies husband-reporter David to Las Vegas, she begins gambling to pass the time while he is doing a story. Encouraged by the casino manager, she gets hooked on gambling, to the point where she "borrows" David's expense money to pursue her addiction. This finally breaks up their marriage, but David continues trying to help her.

---

Plot Keywords:

gambling | casino | clip joint | b girl | guilt | 

---

Genres:

Drama | Film-Noir

---

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 January 1950 (Australia)

Also Known As:

Spielfieber

Filming Locations:

Hoover Dam, Arizona-Nevada Border, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The scene where Corrigan (Steven McNally) tells the girls "No-one uses my first name....because it's Horace" could well have been an in-joke as Steven McNally's birth name was Horace Vincent McNally.

---

Goofs

Reflected in the bus window that Joan is on.

---

Quotes

David Boothe: Have you ever been in Las Vegas?
Dr. Rojac: Where?
David Boothe: Right in the middle of the Nevada desert you bump into a cockeyed oasis. It's a wide-open, 24-hour-a- day carnival that lives off three things - quick marriages, quick divorces, quick money, won and lost. $3 billion changed hands across the gambling table in Nevada last year, 3 billion. Those are the state's official figures and why not? Everybody likes to gamble. It's fun for most people, but for some people, it's a trap. It grabs down deep and won't let...

User Reviews

Stanwyck redeems early peek into Vegas' temptations

Stanwyck's was a curious career. The highest-paid woman in pictures -- actually, in America -- for a while, she made her share of workaday, forgettable pictures. The Lady Gambles is among them, except that it stars Stanwyck. Married to Robert Preston, a reporter doing a feature on Las Vegas, she agrees to help out by getting in on the action. Soon, she's hooked, playing recklessly and compulsively even as her marriage is disintegrating. There's one brutal scene when she's beaten up by thugs in an alley -- not a scene often filmed with a top actress as victim. The film has a historical interest as one of the first to be set in that new Babylon in the desert, Las Vegas. (In the 30s, the only Nevada location was Reno; Vegas was still a chicken run.) Despite its semi-documentary approach, The Lady Gambles sustains interest; as a look at abnormal gambling, it's better than Gambling House (with Victor Mature) or The Las Vegas Story (with Mitchum and Jane Russell).