The Lady Gambles (1949)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Michael Gordon

Writers:

Roy Huggins (writer)
Lewis Meltzer (story)

Release Date:

12 January 1950 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

When Joan Boothe accompanies husband-reporter David to Las Vegas, she begins gambling to pass the time while he is doing a story...

Plot Keywords:

Gambling | Compulsive Gambler | Husband Wife Relationship | Faithful Husband | Female Protagonist

Cast

Barbara Stanwyck	...	Joan Phillips 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 Benson
Leif Erickson	...	Tony
Curt Conway	...	Bank Clerk
Houseley Stevenson	...	Pawnbroker
Don Beddoe	...	Mr. Sutherland
Nana Bryant	...	Mrs. 'Ducky' Sutherland
Tony Curtis	...	Bellboy (as Anthony Curtis)
Peter Leeds	...	Jack Harris, Hotel Clerk

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15

Company:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

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:

Crew or equipment visible: Reflected in the bus window that Joan is on.

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).