The Big Town (1987)

It is 1957. J.C. Cullen is a young man from a small town, with a talent for winning at craps, who leaves for the big city to work as a professional gambler. While there, he breaks the bank ... See full summary »

Director:

Ben Bolt

Writers:

Clark Howard (novel), Robert Roy Pool (screenplay)

Stars:

Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Tommy Lee Jones

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Matt Dillon	...	J.C. Cullen
Diane Lane	...	Lorry Dane
Tommy Lee Jones	...	George Cole
Bruce Dern	...	Mr. Edwards
Lee Grant	...	Ferguson Edwards
Tom Skerritt	...	Phil Carpenter
Suzy Amis	...	Aggie Donaldson
David Marshall Grant	...	Sonny Binkley
Don Francks	...	Carl Hooker
Del Close	...	Deacon Daniels
Meg Hogarth	...	Dorothy Cullen
Cherry Jones	...	Ginger McDonald
Alvaro D'Antonio	...	Prager (as Mark Danton)
David James Elliott	...	Cool Guy (as David Elliott)
Steve Yorke	...	Garage Boy

Storyline

It is 1957. J.C. Cullen is a young man from a small town, with a talent for winning at craps, who leaves for the big city to work as a professional gambler. While there, he breaks the bank at a private craps game at the Gem Club, owned by George Cole, and falls in love with two women, one of them Cole's wife. Infuriated, Cole wagers everything on the craps table, including the Gem Club itself, and he and Cullen have it out.

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Plot Keywords:

el train | female nudity | dice | 1950s | femme fatale | 

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Taglines:

Lady luck is always on his side. Tonight, she's on fire.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 September 1987 (USA)

Also Known As:

Chicago Blues

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Box Office

Gross:

$1,733,017 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Albacore Productions Inc., Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

Although set in 1957, when J.C. and Aggie get off the street car, there is an '80s model Cadillac in the street behind them, followed by another late-model car.

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Quotes

George Cole: Cullen, you're gonna pay for this!

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Connections

Referenced in Ha-Kluv (1991)

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Soundtracks

"C.C. RIDER"
Written by Chuck Willis
Performed by Chuck Willis
Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products

User Reviews

well made but flawed retro-noir

Matt Dillon plays a hayseed crap shooter with unbeatable luck who, in late 1950s Chicago, joins a Windy City syndicate and falls hard for the femme fatale wife of an unscrupulous gambling boss. Despite some errors in casting this otherwise familiar urban crime story is, at least in presentation, a lot smarter than it may first appear. The relative youth of the two leads is fatally inconsistent with the very grown up crime and passion scenario, but director Ben Bolt wisely underplays the neo-Noir mood by refusing to rely on the trendy smoke-and-strobe-light pyrotechnics so common in modern thrillers. The gritty urban setting is instead recreated in all its cheap romantic glamour, and the script has its arcane gambling slang down pat, but the film is something of an anachronism in today's over-hyped market: a competent (if minor) drama, made thirty years too late.