Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s installment of A Movie A Day.
[For those now joining us, A Movie A Day is my attempt at filling in gaps in my film knowledge. My DVD collection is thousands strong, many of them films I haven’t seen yet, but picked up as I scoured used DVD stores. Each day I’ll pull a previously unseen film from my collection or from my DVR and discuss it here. Each movie will have some sort of connection to the one before it, be it cast or crew member.]
Today we hit the final film of our mini-James Caan-a-Thon, started with yesterday’s EL DORADO.
THE GAMBLER is a piece of dark ‘70s filmmaking, centered on a college English professor who not only gambles, but thrives on bad bets.
When we first meet James Caan, he’s having a horrible streak of bad luck at what looks to me to be a highly illegal backroom casino. He’s playing blackjack at three Gs a hand, betting the same amount on roulette, betting on Red even though it keeps hitting black.
That’s the trick to his obsession. He claims later on in the film that if he played what he was sure about, he’d be able to wipe the floor with anybody. He could be a world-class, incredibly wealthy, gambler if he so chose and I believe him when he says that.
But that’s not what he’s in it for. Time and again he makes horrible bets, always on the long shots, always on things that anybody who has ever played cards or bet on a basketball game would think he’s crazy for putting so much money in to. Whether it’s doubling down on 18 (vs a dealer showing a King) or betting $20 vs. ten cents that he can outplay a hotshot basketball player, he always bets against himself.
In his classroom we hear a few of his lessons and we see where his obsession stems from. He cites an essay about George Washington that highlights Washington’s biggest character flaw, his fear of failure. So much so that he would avoid any discussion or situation where failure might be an option. He wouldn’t take any risks.
He also holds a discussion on Dostoevsky’s proposition that 2 and 2 can equal 5, whereby through sheer will of belief that a certain outcome can be different than expectations perceive it. When a popular jock in his class calls bullshit on that, Caan asks what his shot-range is in a typical basketball game. “About 20 feet,” is the response. Caan follows up asking if he ever shoots outside of this range. The player, Spencer (played by Carl W. Crudup), says he does. Does he make those shots? Mostly no. Then why do it if the outcome is uncertain?
Caan postulates that for a split second after the ball leaves Crudup’s hands he believes it’s going to be different than previous outcomes. There’s no evidence, just sheer will.
That’s the key to unlocking Professor Axel Freed’s complex character and the true insight we need as an audience to not completely want to wash our hands of Caan’s character.
Now, I’m a gambler myself. I’m no hardcore gambler, but I love going to Vegas and playing cards. I’m a pretty decent poker player and that’s what I’ve decided to stick with when I play for money, but I understand Axel Freed’s obsession. I understand that desire to have a longshot payoff. It’s not about money at that point. Money is just a means for that feeling of winning when the odds are against you, when every possible rational outcome was not in your favor. That’s the addiction, recapturing that feeling.
Thankfully, my self-control is pretty and I have never had trouble stopping when I’m losing or keeping my head on the wins, but I can understand the temptation to go deep into gambling addiction… hell, I can relate to Caan more than I can relate to similar movies about drug addiction, something that is very alien to me. I can love TRAINSPOTTING, but there’s a level of connection I can never have with that film because I don’t fully comprehend addiction to hard drugs.
But you can see it in this movie, we get a taste of the good life when Caan turns his luck around. He’s $44,000 in the tank to some pretty bad people and he finally gets it from his doctor mother, in a manner that is not only humiliating for him, but you can tell is breaking his mother’s heart.
What’s he do when he has that money? He tries to do the right thing and just pay off his debt, save his life, but when he has to hold onto it for a little longer he’s suddenly making $15k bets around town and then he heads to Vegas.
But his hunch works this time. In Vegas, he goes crazy and just can’t lose. I’ve been there, too… you get that streak once and you spend the rest of your gambling life chasing that high. It feels so easy, so effortless, just as it feels so hopeless and impossible when you’re on a bad streak.
So we see him winning, see how different he is. He treats his girl, played by Lauren Hutton, better, he seems at peace. But like any addiction, that peace is temporary.
James Toback began his career writing this film and it feels like his work. The characters are all flawed, the world is real, the danger is real and the downward spiral our character is in seems to have no end. And Caan is so self-destructive we wonder if there’s any chance whatsoever at salvation.
And when the end comes, I don’t think the character finds it. The very end of the film is very weird, coming way out of left field. I read it as a suicide attempt… but I still don’t know how conscious it is on his part. Maybe it’s not so much suicide as it is one more gamble, a situation where he’s betting against himself yet again.
Caan is great in the lead. This is a very fascinating period in his career, taking place between THE GODFATHER and ROLLERBALL, a period where he did some of the best underseen work of his career if I can be so bold. He did a great little comedy called SLITHER with Peter Boyle and Sally Kellerman in this time as well as a flawed film called CINDERELLA LIBERTY where his performance is the only thing that fully works… But the star of this time period is FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, a crazy buddy-cop movie co-starring Alan Arkin.
There are some great character actors in this flick, including Paul Sorvino who is Caan’s friend, but still a bookie who can’t protect him from his bosses. Sorvino plays the character a little off. He’s twitchy, always nervous. Burt Young has way too little screentime as Carmine, an enforcer for another bookie around town. Caan tags along with him on one run early on in the movie and we don’t see him again. Too bad, I always loved Burt Young from my ROCKY exposure as a kid and he’s great for the little bit we see of him here.
Also keep an eye out for a small, one-scene turn by two awesome actors. The first is Mr. James Woods as a dickish bank teller who gets a little Caan-workover and the second is one of my favorite character actors Mr. M. Emmet Walsh who is a dude at a bar in Vegas that has a few words with Caan. It’s great seeing such early work by these guys.
But this is James Caan’s movie, a role that actors would kill for today. We don’t see too many characters as likable, but terribly flawed and sometimes despicable as Axel Freed these days… and if we do, odds are Phillip Seymour Hoffman already has dibs on the role.
Final Thoughts: Complex, brooding and wholly ‘70s filmmaking. THE GAMBLER is not a story full of sunshine, rainbows and puppies, but there is still somehow hope in the movie. It’s hard for me to pinpoint where I’m getting that hope from… maybe I’m just an optimistic person, but I felt it in this movie. Great characters, great performances and a steady, confident filmmaking style from Karel Reisz all add up to make this a great little flick. But the person who photoshopped Lauren Hutton for the DVD cover should be brutally assaulted by a pack of rabid chinchillas hopped up on angel dust.
Here’s what we have lined up for the next week:
Sunday, November 16th: ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984)
Monday, November 17th: SALVADOR (1986)
Tuesday, November 18th: BEST SELLER (1987)
Wednesday, November 19th: THE HOLCROT COVENANT (1985)
Thursday, November 20th: BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ (1962)
Friday, November 21st: WHITE HEAT (1949)
Saturday, November 22nd: MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES (1957)
I’m really, really looking forward to tomorrow. I’m a huge Sergio Leone fan and this is one of the biggies of his that I have yet to see. See you guys tomorrow for ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
