User Reviews

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).

There were three primary reasons for wanting to see 'The Lady Gambles'. The biggest one being the wonderful Barbara Stanwyck, despite her filmography being hit and miss her performances were a lot more consistent and helped make the misses just about watchable. Two being my love of classic film. And the final one being the subject, it is always worth addressing any kind of addiction on film and that is including gambling (big at the time and still a big problem now).

Despite the potential, 'The Lady Gambles' doesn't completely live up to it. It starts off very well and had all the makings of a great film, but the second half or so is less good or compelling with the very late stages feeling like a different film. 'The Lady Gambles' is definitely worth the look and Stanwyck, as expected, makes things a lot better than it had a right to be, but this was an interesting and heavily flawed affair as an overall whole.

Stanwyck is the best thing about 'The Lady Gambles', she did steely and vulnerable better than a lot of actresses at that time and to this day long after her death she remains one of the best ever at those. Both of those can be seen to intense and moving effect and she really does give it everything she's got. The other acting standout is the genuinely intimidating Stephen McNally, goodness does that man have a menacing presence here and the drama does really come alive with him. Enough of the direction is competent.

It is a well shot film and Frank Skinner's music avoids being overly-melodramatic and is not sugary. 'The Lady Gambles' starts off very well with an intriguing and suitably tense first half, that has edge and one does care about how things are going to go.

Which is why it was a shame that to me 'The Lady Gambles' wasn't as compelling later on, where the film became rather predictable and lacked the tension it should have had. Where the dialogue can be on the soapy side and it gets very melodramatic.

As does Robert Preston's performance, which does get too over the top, and his character is too naive that one wants to give him a shake and scream "wake up" in his face. The ending is very corny and far too soft for the subject, like the film had run out of ideas or something.

Concluding, worth seeing for Stanwyck but could have been more. 6/10

In this B-picture that shows a woman's discovery of gambling, Barbara Stanwyck shines in the leading role. Released the same year as Gregory Peck's gambling movie The Great Sinner, this is the female version of the dangers of gambling. Robert Preston costars as the long-suffering husband, and Stephen McNally is a very realistic villain who entices Barbara to start trying her luck. If you keep your eyes peeled, you can catch a very young Tony Curtis in his third film appearance! He plays a bellboy and is onscreen for less than ten seconds, but he has an interaction with the legendary Barbara Stanwyck; not bad!

The opening scene is incredibly engaging and shocking. Barbara walks out into an alley, then gets beaten by a group of thugs and left for dead. Next, Robert Preston runs into a hospital, demanding to know how his wife is. He tells the doctor in charge, and the audience, the story of how she ended up this way. While the storytelling method is a little cheesy, Barbara's performance more than makes up for it. She's fantastic, and completely in her element as she's given the opportunity to show off every human emotion throughout the film. She's innocently curious as she tags along on her husband's business trip to Las Vegas, and her slow descent into addiction is riveting. She's deceitful, ashamed, devious, desperate, and completely unable to stop. Her eyes light up when she wins, and she feels like her life's over when she loses. If you've never seen a Barbara Stanwyck movie, this is a great place to start.

From 1949, The Lady Gambles stars Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Preston, and Stephen McNally.

Stanwyck plays Joan Boothe, who accompanies reporter husband David (Preston) to Las Vegas where he is working on a story about the Hoover Dam. Left to her own devices, she becomes interested in gambling to the point where it becomes an addiction. Though she tries to fight it, she can't, and ultimately loses her husband and falls into the clutches of Horace Corrigan, who runs the casino and has her number.

Stanwyck does well showing Joan's downward spiral. The film dabbles in psychology in Joan's relationship with her older sister Ruth (Edith Barrett) for whom she takes responsibility, though her husband objects.

Good performances all around, as well as some brutal and scary moments. Definitely keeps your interest.

Watch for Tony Curtis in one of his first speaking roles as a telegram delivery boy. The director told him, "All you want is a tip." He's adorable.

Despite some of the reviews here that characterize TLG as trite and dated, I only thought this film was a directorial surprise, way ahead of its time for 1949.

First you start with a flashback by Preston's character that isn't quite a flashback, because we are more interested in who this man is and what the circumstances of his plight are, than the past per se. Virtually all Hollywood flashbacks seem to involve some grand police confession or some need to explain the confessor (such as "D.O.A.")but the flashback here seems to add to the convolutedness of the characters, and the surrealism of the situation. Does Preston really understand his wife? If so when? The flashback reminds us that there is more to explain than the "what",but also the "why" which neither Preston nor the audience yet understand (gambling is a disease, but the matter of guilt and personal responsibility for misdeeds remain open).

More convolutedness in the photography. Carefully cropped chest-up body shots, with swirling camera movements amid authentic but claustrophobic interiors. Remember, only Max Ophuls was supposed to have done this sort of thing at the time! I remember "Leaving Las Vegas" attempted the same themes in slightly different ways (misery and anomie in a spectacular setting) but that was a miserable film.

Finally you have a not so sweet resolution to depict insanity, but in a much subtler way than "The Snake Pit" and other entries in the growing body of 'social consciousness' films. Stanwyck was a tough-soft actress, and the scenes where she rolls before a throng a gamblers rarely came tougher in her films. A work to just watch.

Robert Preston (David) tracks down his wife Barbara Stanwyck (Joan) in hospital after she has been beaten up. He pleas with John Hoyt (Dr Rojac) to let her go home with him after she has been treated rather than hand her over to the police where she has several outstanding charges. In flashback, we watch the story of her descent into gambling addiction after a visit to Las Vegas.

The film is interesting to watch for the location settings. I actually bought it specifically for the Las Vegas setting as it is where I got married earlier this year and I wanted to make a comparison with 1949. The story was incidental. As it turns out, the story is OK if predictable. Stanwyck carries the film with good support from gangster Stephen McNally (Mr Corrigan). Robert Preston changes his tune during the course of the film as he swings from rejecting her to accepting her while the role of Stanwyck's sister Edith Barrett (Ruth) is pretty annoying and some sentimental pop psychology is dragged into the proceedings.

I'm sure that the inspiration behind the Las Vegas section of the film was Bugsy Siegel and his Flamingo Hotel which paved the way for the notoriety of the Strip. The main body of the film is set in the Pelican Hotel (a bit similar?) and McNally has an interest in a horse racing scam just as Bugsy did.

The film ends in a disappointingly corny way after a funny moment when John Hoyt shows us what to say to someone when they are about to jump off a window ledge. I dare you to try it some day! As for the film's climax, we have to hopefully imagine that everything will go downhill again once they return to Vegas and hit the casinos.

Barbara Stanwyck is surely one of the greatest actresses ever in motion pictures but THE LADY GAMBLES is one of her lesser works despite a sincere, empathic performance by the star. This movie seems to want to be the gambling version of THE LOST WEEKEND but it's more like the lost 100 minutes , the time the viewer wastes watching this picture. Even the charismatic Stanwyck can't prevent this heavy-handed drama from being a chore to watch.

Stanwyck stars as the wife of newspaper journalist Robert Preston. They are in Las Vegas while he covers a story. Stanwyck decides to try to do an article herself on the gambling scene but her somewhat indiscreet camera work catches the eye of casino manager Stephen McNally who decides to let her play with valueless chips so she can be at the tables for her research. Trouble is Stanwyck finds she likes the tables a little too much and when McNally decides to put a plug in the playing for nothing, she dives into Preston's expense account and loses it all in a night. McNally, clearly attracted to Stanwyck from first sight, gives her $50 to play with out of pity after she has even hawked her expensive Swiss camera and being the good player she is Stanwyck actually wins her money back. But the lure of the tables is too strong and she keeps going back. And back. And losing. Ultimately destroying her marriage, she eventually joins forces with McNally in some of his questionably legal activities and later hits earthier lows in pursuit of lady luck where one seedy guy after another tells her to "kiss 'em for me baby" as she rolls the dice.

The movie is told in flashback as Stanwyck is hospitalized having been beat up by gamblers when she is caught dealing in a back alley crap game with loaded dice. Estranged husband Preston rushes to her side and tells the doctor the whole sad story.

The usually dependable Preston is one of the weakest links in the film; his character is alternately a milquetoast and a control freak but is at all times presented as Stanwyck's prince charming. Preston's performance is no help either, his rather theatrical delivery seems inappropriate for this attempt at "slice of life" drama; worse, in an amazingly unwise decision he speaks to the doctor in anguished troubled tones and then his narration over the past scenes is spoken with enthusiasm and dramatic flair! Stephen McNally fares much better as the intimidating Vegas big shot, his scenes with Stanwyck have considerable bite and are the film's highlight.

The worst thing about the film is the jaw-dropping pop psychology that attempts to explain away Stanwyck's gambling. It's because of her possessive older sister Edith Barrett!!! With her mother dying during childbirth, Stanwyck was "raised" by older (eight years, although Barrett was actually just six months older than Stanwyck) sister who has never let Barbara forget the sacrifices in her personal life she has made for her. Hero Preston seems frankly as controlling but since he is her husband, presumably that's OK with the screenwriters. The sister-is-the-root theory is interesting considering (A) Preston is hostile to the sister and her relationship with Barbara long before the gambling starts, (B) the gambling doesn't even start until Stanwyck is clearly into her thirties and (C) the sister is no where around to cause anxiety when most of the gambling binges occur!! But then what can you expect of reason from a film where a doctor attempts reverse psychology, encouraging a patient on a building ledge to jump!!

Barbara Stanwyck is always worth watching, her progression from dabbler to desperate is quite credible but even her solid work here can't save a movie that plays like a 1940's version of a 1970's half-baked "social issue" TV movie. Two stars going in opposite directions are also in the cast: newcomer Tony Curtis has an early bit part as a bellhop and 30's leading man Leif Erickson can be seen in a small role as one of McNally's questionable cohorts. Is this picture worth checking out? Well, it's your gamble.

It is very evident that Barbara Stanwyck was able to adapt to any sort of role or character in each of her pictures. In this one, she plays a businessman's wife who becomes addicted to gambling after a trip to Las Vegas. This isn't a bad character study, and probably one of the earliest ones dealing with this sort of obsession. It is also interesting to see how the Vegas strip looked in over 50 years ago. A young, unknown Tony Curtis has a cameo as a bell boy.

There are lots of films about drug addiction, and lots of casino heist films--Ocean's Eleven is just the most famous one--but films about the nuts and bolts of gambling, the suffering at the individual level are few. California Split and La Baie des Anges are the only two that come to mind, and now I add The Lady Gambles, in which Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Preston form a nearly ideal couple. She's about 40, and suddenly discovers a passion for cards and dice while on a trip to Las Vegas; he's a reporter who tries to deal with the increasingly obsessive behaviour of his wife. Edith Barrett as the clingy older sister, and Stephen McNally as the oily casino boss provide excellent support. In the first scene, gamblers punch Stanwyck in the face repeatedly; she's a star who isn't afraid to look terrible.

Not the subtlest or most penetrating examination of gambling addiction and its effects, but a juicy melodrama and a splendid feast to throw at Barbara Stanwyck, who plays it magnificently. She's.a Chicago housewife transported by journalist hubby Robert Preston to then-just-exploding Las Vegas, where some early luck at the tables proves her undoing. She also gets in bad with casino manager Stephen McNally, who, surprisingly, is hotter and more appealing than Preston here-his scenes with Stanny have real heat. The black-and-white footage of early Vegas is seductive, the lowlife gambling halls habited by Stanwyck convincing, and the dime-store psychology explaining her downfall-a silly subplot involving her and her troublesome older sister, Edith Barrett-not too intrusive. Michael Gordon, who'd just directed a couple of other heavy melodramas for Universal and was probably its top contract director at the time (he later did a 180 and handled things like "Pillow Talk"), doesn't stint on the seaminess and menace of the gambling underworld, and Tony Curtis has a noticeable bit as a bellboy. It doesn't wear out its welcome, and whatever's lacking in the script about the psychology of the helpless gambler, Ms. Stanwyck provides with a rich, layered performance.

Scenarists Roy Huggins and Halsted Welles were so intent on warning us of the dangers of gambling addiction that they forgot to make the addict interesting. And Michael Gordon is not a director who can surmount that big of a story hole. The result is one of the few dull Babs performances as well as an utterly unremarkable film, despite a nice evocation of desert deco Vegas in the late 40s before it became a multi theme park. Solid C.

Unlike most movies set in Las Vegas, "The Lady Gambles" is anything but a glitzy showcase for the town also called Lost Wages. It opens with a woman being beaten up in an alley for not paying gambling debts. The woman is Barbara Stanwyck and the rest is flashbacks, which smartly include early suggestions that her character, Joan, is a woman vulnerable to excitement; e.g., the moment she and husband Davy (Robert Preston) are alone in their hotel room, her hungry arms are around him.

Vegas was really getting going in the 1940s, but there's no glamour here. We meet a hotel clerk, a bank clerk, and a pawnbroker (Houseley Stevenson), all wearily familiar with people like Joan, scrounging for a stake. We also get the mob. Bugsy Siegel opened The Flamingo on The Strip in 1946, and a menacing Stephen McNally (using more talent than I knew he possessed) is a fictional reminder of Siegel. When he catches Joan taking pictures in his casino, director Michael Gordon successfully makes us feel the threat he poses: he is positively Mephistophelean in the way he senses vulnerability, and exploits it, knowing that gambling is "the deep end, for people with no talent for living." He gives Joan a few chips, and she succumbs in short order, escalating to poker games, where she's the only woman.

Stanwyck is extraordinary. I really think this is one of her finest performances, both measured and courageous. Midway through, Joan kicks her habit, but is then left alone for a day while Davy is away on business, and Stanwyck holds the screen for long minutes without dialog, yet she projects her desperate, nerve-wracked need to get back into a game. Later, describing addiction, she tells Davy that it isn't just about winning because even when you lose there is a kind of peace, "like when you were a kid and took your punishment and you knew it was over."

The film is well served by Russ Metty's photography, which hits all the right noir notes. He keeps Preston in light, McNally in darkness, with Stanwyck caught between. The denoument is someting of a let-down, and the character of the sister who raised Joan (forgettable Edith Barrett) is little more than a plot device to let Joan off the hook because of her childhood.

But this is an unblinking look at gambling, and addiction. The doctor (a wry John Hoyt) who tends to Joan after the beating sums it up for those who try to help: "If there's anything wrong above the neck, I can't afford to notice."

This is not a great film but it is a must see for all those Barbara Stanwyck fans out there (of which I am one). She plays Joan Boothe,a housewife who while visiting Las Vegas with hubby Robert Preston gets the gambling bug. She quickly becomes addicted and descends into the seedy, dirty world of the compulsive gambler. The movie attempts to psychologically explain why La Stanwyck has an addictive personality but really who cares. Sit back and watch the masterful Barbara portray a sick, out of control addict. She bankrupts her husband, gets beat up , screws up a horse racing con, prostitutes herself. This is grim stuff but in the hands of the brilliant Barbara Stanwyck it is worth watching. Barbara Stanwyck was the greatest of all the leading ladies from the golden Age of Hollywood. Versatile, compelling and oh so watchable she was a natural infusing every scene she played, with a believable humanness. Joan Crawford could have played this and done so fairly well but she wouldn't have been as good as Stanwyck. I just got finished watching a bunch of her movies and I am giddy with Stanwyckitis. I am addicted! Thank God the lady made 80+ movies-I can keep watching for a while before I run out of Barbara and withdrawal sets in!

Although the story is quite simple and of predictable consequences, I just couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I'm always in awe of those movies that don't waste a single scene.

Artistically exciting and with a brutal opening sequence, "The Lady Gambles" is a short thriller with a lot going on in a woman's life, as the protagonist herself says, "with nothing better to do".

As for the reasons for her addiction, there are no assertions. She loves her husband, but their marriage has reached such a stagnation point that the chance to do anything that will take her out of her lonely normalcy overwhelms her.

Cards, dice, booze, bums and a very seductive mobster, who could resist? I know I couldn't...

Added to this is a sneakily cruel older sister, who never misses a chance to make the protagonist feel guilty about her mediocre life.

These family plots, where one emotionally manipulates the other, are almost always infallible in old movies. I just missed a little more depth in the backstory between the protagonist and her sister. More scenes between the two and perhaps a cathartic clash, just to see more of such a talented cast under such capable direction.

This is one of the best films about the madness of gambling. As a former compulsive gambler, I can really relate to this film. The only other film about gambling addiction that could be better is The Great Sinner starring Gregory Peck. I don't like to tell the plot on my reviews, and I won't now either. Barbara Stanwyk does an incredible job as a woman that gets obsessed gambling. When she describes how it's a "good tired" after a night of gambling( after she wins) and how Stephen McNally describes the good tired even after you lose. Both logics are so true. Stanwyks performance is brilliant as a lunatic gambler. If you're a gambler or an ex over the top gambler, you'll enjoy this film.

A back-alley craps game goes bad, and a woman is punched and left lying bruised on the ground. When she is wheeled into the hospital, a man accosts the seemingly indifferent doctor and asks why he is not immediately attending to her. After the doctor mumbles something about her being just another undesirable, the man identifies himself as the woman's husband and proceeds to relate her story in flashback to the physician. The film's rather bland title, "The Lady Gambles," gives the story away, although Robert Preston as David Boothe takes 99 minutes to relate the tale of his wife's descent into addictive gambling. In another fine performance, the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck portrays Joan Boothe, a woman torn between a loving husband, a possessive sister, and a handsome, but crooked casino owner. Joan's gambling starts small during a trip to Las Vegas, but once bitten, she steals, pawns, and borrows to feed her compulsion. Stephen McNally as Horace Corrigan, the shady casino owner, encourages, aids, and abets her addiction, while she spirals downward amid poker games, craps shoots, and horse racing.

Superbly photographed by Russell Metty, the film is beautifully illuminated with backlit characters and deep shadows, typical of film noir. From the casinos to the race track, from the neon-lit Vegas streets to Hoover Dam, from hospital corridors to back-room poker games, Metty captures the black-and-white images like the master that he was. Director Michael Gordon honed his skills on "B" crime flix, and he maintains a a steady pace, although the film runs too long, and viewers may commiserate with the doctor, who suffers through Boothe's tale of his marriage and his wife's woes. Of course, how Boothe knows the details of events that took place when he was not present is not explained.

Beyond Stanwyck's performance, which runs the gamut of emotions, the three other leading actors are also quite good. Mustachioed Robert Preston reminds viewers what a handsome and competent film actor he was, before he turned to Broadway in the 1950's. Slick and greasy, Stephen McNally ably plays the man who knows Joan's weaknesses and tempts her with money and adulterous sex. Plain-Jane Edith Barrett as Joan's clinging sister is effective at dishing out guilt and inserting herself between husband and wife. While "The Lady Gambles" may over-stay its welcome and need a catchier title, the performances, especially Stanwyck's, and the Russell Metty cinematography are enough to warrant seeking out this title.

An expected good performance by Barbara Stanwyck and equally good performances by Robert Preston & Stephen McNally make this film nourish story enjoyable to watch

I'd never heard of A LADY GAMBLES (1949) but took a chance on mid-career Stanwyck, expecting a victimized female to be preyed on by shell-shocked men in a torporous domestic setting. I was pleasantly surprised by this dynamic panorama of existential terror. Stanwyck does play the hysterical victim but her perverse pursuer is her own inner demon... who drives her to... gamble.

Director Michael Gordon was to be a victim of Senator Joseph McCarthy's blacklist before coming back to direct fluffy things like Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959). Through his handling of the material we glimpse the systemic desperation that blossomed into Las Vegas, that desert oasis of crime-based entertainment.

Robert Preston is the straight-arrow husband dismayed to discover his stylish wife Joan (Stanwyck) is an impulsive trickster who can't be trusted with their life savings. Her passion for gambling is the film's nerve-wracking through-line, as she throws off respectability to indulge her passion for roulette, poker, craps, pawn shops, gangsters, horse races, dark alleys, and loaded dice.

From Chicago to Las Vegas, from Hoover Dam to Mexico, and back again - like a series of PR postcards from the post-war boom - tightly edited vignettes track Joan's downward spiral of degradation. How long will the huband keep bailing her out? Does she really prefer heavy-lidded gangster Steve McNally? What set her on this self-destructive path? And why does her creepy sister blame Joan for their mother's death?

I really enjoyed the technical, aesthetic prowess of this go-for-broke Hollywood melodrama. The savvy script by prolific Roy Huggins (I Love Trouble) is fleshed out with moody cinematography, snappy sets and clothes, expert art direction, and a whirlwind score. In classic Noir style, a hospital sequence precedes a flashback that lasts 80 minutes, before we're jolted back to the present for a no-holds-barred finish.

There are at least three levels to watch for. One: post-war marriage, uneasy power dynamic between the sexes, with the lure of a bohemian idyll, against the background of a national wave of corruption and easy money. Two: the relentless twitching of a Freudian guilt complex over the death-in-childbirth of Joan's mother. Three: a woman's need for adventure outside the prescribed roles of a conformist culture, a positive existential need for freedom.

And maybe a fourth: what is this thing called money?

Cast as the wife of a Chicago writer doing a piece on Nevada's Hoover Dam, Barbara Stanwyck gives a sly, knowing performance as a housewife who discovers the addictive dice and gambling tables in Las Vegas. Noticing that she's taking pictures in a casino, the manager admires the wife's made-up story that she's doing a magazine item on gambling and gives her a stack of house chips "to shill for the casino." Soon, she's winning at poker--and alienating her husband and the spinster sister who resents her. This cautionary tale of a gambling addict is engrossing in spite of its unconvincing milieu and portrait of a marriage. Robert Preston is the incredibly naïve husband who's aghast at his wife's actions: "All of it, Joan? Tell me you spent the money on something else!" Ask a foolish question, you're liable to get a foolish answer. **1/2 from ****

Stanwyck overplays her hand in this one, trying earnestly to make an important point instead of her usual confident, supremely natural performances. Movies about addiction and social ills were all the rage after Ray Milland won an Academy Award with 1945's "The Lost Weekend," and one wonders how much of that was the acting community trying to win awards and the studios trying to ride the coattails of a big hit.

"Weekend" though, is a masterpiece, with Milland thrilled to work again with Billy Wilder after teaming up on a Ginger Rogers smash "Major and the Minor" in 1942, and the rapport they had built continued to make the next film a great success on all levels. The director of "The Lady Gambles," Michael Gordon, was never in Wilder's league or even close. He was more of a Double A level... not ever getting to the majors. His career consists of a single hit, "Pillow Talk" and a handful of unmemorable movies. In 1949 he was on the edge of being blackballed for his political activities, though Stanwyck, a lifelong Republican, had no qualms about working with him and in the event they got along well, if nothing like Milland and Wilder. He had her read books on gambling to prepare for the role, since the actress knew nothing whatever about gambling, and some books about Freud, for background.

Stanwyck had made a series of great pictures in the 40s, but as the decade drew to a close, the government shook up the movie industry with a series of rulings against the studio system, so she was happy just to be working.

Preston and Stanwyck both give good performances, as does McNally, but none of them are at their best, and they can't overcome the preachy atmosphere that Gordon creates.