His Greatest Gamble (1934) User Reviews

Two Unjustly Forgotten Actresses!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 27 July 2012]

Erin O'Brien Moore was a well known stage actress but Hollywood couldn't find much for her to do. There was the supportive wife of "Black Legion", a small but effective part as the inspiration for "Nana" in "Life of Emil Zola" and the lovesick nurse in Shirley Temple's "Our Little Girl". She was given almost as much fanfare (said in a sarcastic manner!!) as the very understated Dorothy Wilson. Wilson was a secretary to director Gregory La Cava when he cast her in "The Age of Consent" and until she retired (too soon) she very really conveyed the angst and sensitivity of troubled teenage girls.

Phillip Eden (Richard Dix) has a gambling problem but he also has a little daughter who thinks he is the moon and the stars. Sometimes they are "in the dough" but more often subsisting on leftovers, but Alice (Edith Fellows) wouldn't have it any other way. When a discarded mistress (Shirley Grey) seeks to get even by informing his ex-wife, aloof, haughty Florence (Moore) of the whereabouts of his child, Phillip ties her to a chair and beats a hasty retreat, with Alice, to Italy. The police soon catch up with him and he is charged with murder!!! It seems that while Berenice was tied to the chair a faulty gas jet caused her death and he is sentenced to 15 years.

Years later Jennie, Alice's old nurse, visits Phillip with bad news about Alice. True to her nature, Florence is making her life a misery and in addition to forbidding her to marry the boy she loves, she has sapped Alice's spirit, leaving her a bed ridden invalid. It's a pretty preposterous story but Richard Dix, as usual, brings believability to his role of the irresponsible dreamer. He escapes from prison and as "Uncle John" tries to help the melancholy Alice (Wilson) recapture her "joie de vive". He also meets Alice's young man (Bruce Cabot) and at the end stakes "his greatest gamble" in an effort to help them find happiness.

In the wrong hands it could have been maudlin but with the always excellent Dix, Moore and Wilson, the gamble pays off!!

There's a kernel of a really good movie here...

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 18 September 2016]

This is a frustrating film because so much of it is so good and with a simple re-write it could have been an exceptional film. Too bad...as Richard Dix is quite good with the material he's given.

When the film begins, you see a Phillip (Dix) on the run with his daughter, Alice. It seems that he and Alice's mom recently divorced and he took Alice despite a court order. Why is this? Is it because Phillip is a jerk-face? Well, not exactly...and this is one of the problems with the film. Although Alice's mother is god- awful, Phillip is hardly father of the year material--he's a dreamer and gambling addict and hardly would provide a stable home for the kid.

During the course of their wanderings, the pair are discovered by a woman who knows Phillip and what he's done. Impulsively, Phillip ties her up and leaves her...not realizing that in the process he'd accidentally kill the woman. Soon he's captured and imprisoned for murder and Alice is forced to be raised by her wretched mother.

Many years pass and Alice has lost touch with her father and doesn't realize he was sent to prison. But, when the housekeeper comes to prison to tell him how miserable Alice is doing, he is determined to save her and soon escapes (if it was THAT easy you'd think he'd have done it long before!). And, soon he sees Alice is being kept like an invalid...all because her mother is determined to crush her spirit and keep her that way. What's next? See the film.

The best thing going for the film is Dix and his magnificent performance. With just a little smoothing out of the plot, it would have been a terrific picture. As is, it's still worth seeing but difficult to truly love.

Pretty good, with some credibility stretches

[marcslope · 6/10 · 29 September 2016]

A father-love story shaped like a mother-love story, with irresponsible but charming Richard Dix going through some plot implausibilities that would have tried Madelon Claudet or Madame X. As dad to the charming, unaffected Edith Fellows, he accidentally murders an unsympathetic old flame (implausibility #1), is sentenced to 15 years in French prison, easily escapes and travels to America (implausibility #2) and poses as his own brother (implausibility #3) to catch up with his daughter, who's now miserable, doesn't remember him at all (implausibility #4), and has been cowed by her awful mom into being a non-walking invalid (implausibility #5), all the while loving impoverished newspaperman Bruce Cabot. Dix sets everything aright, in ways that are similarly truth-stretching but do carry some emotional resonance, and Erin O-Brien Moore, a major stage star who didn't register a lot on film, is good as the uptight bitch he once married (implausibility #6). Dix is fine, and if the story doesn't make much sense, it's watchable and affecting. Nicely shot, too.

Dix Fine -- Less Bogus Philosophy Would Have Been Nice

[alonzoiii-1 · 4/10 · 23 August 2006]

Richard Dix, a down on his luck fellow with a small daughter and a gambling problem, is on the run from his stuffy ex-wife, who was awarded custody of his daughter. Through a set of circumstances that make up the best part of this movie, Dix ends up sentenced to 15 years in jail. Meanwhile, his daughter grows up, miserably unhappy, thinking her father abandoned him. When Dix hears in jail that ex-wife is destroying his daughter's chance at love, how will he be able to save his daughter from a fate as a hypochondriac spinster? The answer involves Dix taking HIS GREATEST GAMBLE.

The characters in this movie spouts an awful lot of pseudo-philosophic twaddle about living life rather than fearing it. The main character swipes his daughter after his divorce, gambles away his last sou, and steals money from his old flame without evidence of regret. But, since he lives life to the fullest and talks about reaching for the stars, we are supposed to find him a fine role model for his daughter. Nevertheless, Dix does justice to the role, and gives the character the air of irresponsibility and desperation he'd have in real life. The acting from other characters is what you'd expect.

There is a twist in the first 15 minutes or so of the movie that is worth seeing (and well filmed). After that, it's an average soap opera where everyone wears tuxedos and behaves in accordance with their designated stereotype. Frankly, this plot would have worked better as one of the entries in Dix's "Whistler" series for Columbia.

Beautiful, heart warming and lovely

[elaine-328-211703 · 10/10 · 27 March 2012]

Wow, what a deeply beautiful movie! It really spoke to my heart, I loved how moving and real the characters portrayed such wildly deep emotions. It wasn't "flat" with "psycho-babble", that's crazy! This was a story of a man wrongly accused who paid his debt to society with a longing in his heart for his child, I don't think this kind of raw emotion comes from male characters like this anymore. This is worth seeing if you ever question how far one will go for love, and the power of will, determination and the legacy we are for our parents and the future we owe it to make for ourselves. I can't believe this movie debuted in 1934, all the actors are genuine, raw, beautiful, true and lovely. The costumes, sets, are simple enough so the story shines through.

Dix as father of this and many years

[eospaulding · 9/10 · 2 May 2022]

Up front confession: I don't know how many reviewers fall into the Postwar Baby Boom period . . . And how many are decades younger (wish I was).

I sense some of the negatives on HIS GREATEST GAMBLE are from younger viewers. Because . . . While there are some plot flaws, I find this a terrific film.

I've seen maybe 25 films with Richard Dix -- I doubt he was ever better than he is here. Credible, firm, dedicated, delivers the goofy "world traveler" dialogue brilliantly.

In reviewing more than 10,000 movies over 30 years, I occasionally use the notation "hidden gem". This generally refers to lesser-known films that have been semi-forgotten or that have been rated so-so by sources like Maltin, VideoHound, this one.

Great as in great depiction of a caring father!

Given it's nearly 90 years old, HGG gets a definite hidden gem designation.

Talkie, but kind of feels like a silent. Good story.

[ksf-2 · 8/10 · 20 September 2016]

Richard Dix is "Phillip", who likes to gamble, as the title implies. His daughter is Alice (Dorothy Wilson), and they are just getting by. Friend Bernice (Shirley Grey) has money, and wants to help, but Phillip doesn't want it. He and Alice run off, and some terrible things happen, landing Phillip in trouble, and in jail. The years go by, and Phillip is very sad to lose track of Alice, who has now gone to America. Good tight story and script. Moves a little slow, with lots of talking, but this one probably started out as a play.

Directed by John Robertson, for RKO. This was one of the last films he directed before retiring. He had started in the silents, but appears to have stopped in the 1930s. Not a lot of info on him in wikipedia, but they DO have links to some old time newspaper articles, describing what he and his wife were doing. Story by playwright E. S. Field. Apparently his wife was the daughter of Robert L. Stevenson, another famous writer!