The co-presenter of Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review picks his top 10 gambling films of all time
1. The Sting (1973)
The film that beat The Exorcist to the Best Picture Oscar in 1974, George Roy Hill’s gem reunited Butch and Sundance (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) as Depression-era hustlers attempting to take down Robert Shaw’s poker-playing racketeer. Taking its thematic inspiration from David W. Maurer’s book The Big Con and its visual cues from the magazine Saturday Evening Post, this proved a winner with audiences and critics alike, buoyed up by an infectious Scott Joplin ragtime soundtrack.
2. Casablanca (1942)
“I’m shocked – shocked – to find that gambling is going on in here!” So says Claude Rains, as Captain Renault, in Michael Curtiz’s wartime classic, immediately before the Croupier hands him “your winnings, sir” (“Oh, thank you very much …”) A reluctant hero, Bogart’s Rick ran arguably the most famous gambling and drinking establishment in all the towns in all the world – certainly in all of cinema.
3. Eight Men Out (1988)
John Sayles’ brilliant account of baseball’s so-called ‘Black Sox Scandal’ (documented in Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book), during which players infamously conspired with gamblers to fix the 1919 World Series is one of the director’s finest works. An extraordinary ensemble cast includes John Cusack, Michael Rooker, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn and Christopher Lloyd.
4. Hard Eight (1996)
Paul Thomas Anderson’s first feature stars Philip Baker Hall as a lifelong gambler who takes John C Reilly’s broken man under his wing and drives him to Vegas to learn the tricks of the trade. “Writer-director Anderson has us so hooked that we’re watching for the sheer pleasure of the acting and the dialogue,” wrote Roger Ebert, spying a master craftsman in the making. Anderson would go on to make such classics as Boogie Nights, Magnolia and There Will Be Blood.
5. Bob le Flambeur (1955)
Jean-Pierre Melville’s noirish cult classic about an ageing former high roller was a stylistic forerunner of the French New Wave, and clearly served as an inspiration for Anderson’s Hard Eight. Godard hailed it as Melville’s finest film, with Quentin Tarantino similarly (and inevitably) singing its praises.
6. Guys and Dolls (1955)
“Luck Be a Lady Tonight” sang Marlon ‘Mumbles’ Brando in Joseph L Mankiewicz’s screen-musical hit, to the chagrin of co-star Frank Sinatra who wanted the role of Sky Masterson for himself. Instead, Sinatra wound up playing Nathan Detroit, convener of an illegal crap game, who bets Masterson $1,000 he can’t take ‘Save a Soul’ missionary Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons) to dinner in Havana.
7. The Gambler (1974)
No, not the insipid Marky Mark remake but the 1974 James Caan original, directed by Karel Reisz from James Toback’s semi-autobiographical script. Caan is Axel Freed, a university professor who inspires his students with talk of Dostoevsky but finds himself unable to quit while ahead when gambling. The role earned Caan a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination.
8. Smart Money (1931)
Edward G Robinson and Jimmy Cagney teamed up for the first and only time in this tale of a small-town barber who heads to the big city in search of a high-stakes poker game and gets more than he bargained for. Nominated for ‘Best Story’ at the 4th Academy Awards.
9. The Cincinatti Kid (1965)
Steve McQueen is Eric ‘The Kid’ Stoner, an upcoming poker player facing Edward G Robinson’s Lancey ‘The Man’ Howard in Norman Jewison’s enduring classic. Sam Peckinpah was originally slated to direct but was fired for allegedly “vulgarising the picture”. Ha! The film’s final hand has passed into cinematic folklore.
10. The Lady Gambles (1949)
“What was the truth about Joan Boothe?” Barbara Stanwyck is dynamite in Michael Gordon’s melodrama about a woman who accompanies her husband to Vegas – a town of “quick marriages, quick divorces, and quick money won and lost” – and promptly develops a dangerous taste for the tables. “Once she was someone’s wife” screamed the tagline. “Now, she’s just someone’s luck!”
Mark Kermode is a film critic and author. He is chief film critic for The Observer and co-presenter of Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, the BBC’s flagship weekly film programme on Radio 5 Live.
