The Lady Gambles

The Lady Gambles  Introduction

The Lady Gambles is an all-time classic film dating back to 1949. It’s an American Noir drama film starring Barbara Stanwyck ( Joan Boothe ) and Robert Preston( David Boothe). Robert is a reporter from Chicago who is on assignment at Hoover Dam, leaving his wife Joan staying at a Vegas hotel.

The Main Story

Joan Boothe is staying at a Las Vegas Hotel while her husband is on assignment. Joan is looking for a story of her own and snoops around the hotel’s casino with a hidden camera. She is caught by the casino owner Horace Corrigan and on closer inspection realizes she is not a hustler. Horace then provides her with some free chips to play casino games, which is the start of Joan’s gambling. Remember this is long before the days of online casino united states, which is why it’s likely set at the heart of 1940’s casino life in Vegas.

Joan loses $600 of David’s expense money and pawns a camera before winning it back. Corrigan then starts subtly flirting with Joan and convinces her to be his proxy in a Poker Game – one of the many casino games such as machines a sous en ligne that feature in this eventful movie. She wins $4000 and receives her share thereof. During the game which lasted until dawn David phones the room only to be told by Joan’s sister that Joan has not slept in her bed all night. Upon David’s return, he sees she is in deep.

David quits his job and takes Joan to Mexico, where he intends to write a book. In Mexico, a couple Joan met in Vegas get her into a dice game where she loses their life savings. Having had enough of her gambling, David leaves her, intending to file for divorce.

The Ending

Joan returns to Vegas and works for Corrigan to front a horse racing operation (never a dull moment with her!). Joan double-crosses his partners. She then descends into a world of disreputable characters and lands up being badly beaten and hospitalized. With David back in the picture, he convinces her to take a more sedate path going forward!

Maverick

Maverick  Maverick is a film dating back to 1994 and is an American Western directed by Richard Donner starring Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner. It is based on the 1957 series of the same name.

Maverick is a gambler, and con artist who needs money to enter a high stakes Winner Takes All poker game.

The Main Story

Mel Gibson takes on the lead role as Bret Maverick and sees the film open with Maverick in a tricky situation at a riverboat poker game.

His primary motivation for playing in the poker game is to prove he is the best poker player of all time and the lure of big money. However, the stake to enter is $25000, and he is $3000 short.

He ropes in a posse of other conmen to help him plot on a massive card tournament held on a riverboat. It seems like a simple traipse initially; however, things get trickier with a series of twists. He scams hopeful contestants in a preliminary card game to win the money he needs to enter the high stakes poker game making enemies out of them. Added to his woes is he soon realises he has a cunning marshal on his tail.

The film goes through the usual pursuing of gangsters that one expects from a Western, but with a smattering of poker games in the mix and twists and turns along the way.

The Ending

Despite being double-crossed numerous times, Maverick eventually gets the money to enter his high stakes poker game which he won. He received winnings of $500 000 but only got half of it as one of his fellow conmen stole the other half.

He would have lost it all, had he not hidden the remaining money down the side of his boots.

Rounders

Rounders  Rounders was produced in 1998 as an American drama film about the underground world of high stakes poker. The Director was John Dahl and starred Matt Damion and Edward Norton.

It is about a gifted Poker player who becomes a compulsive gambler and gambles away his tuition money, law degree, girlfriend, and almost his entire life. His biggest dream was of winning the World Series of Poker.

The Main Story

The main story is about Mike Dermott ( Matt Damon ) and Lester Murphy aka Worm ( Edward Norton ) who need a large sum of money to pay for a debt that Worm racked up in Mike’s name. They believe the only way they can do this, is by winning a high stakes poker game.

On their travels, they encounter dangerous individuals in the Poker World’s seedy glamour that consists of exhausted players risking everything they own or can borrow to feed their obsessive behaviour.

Towards the end, Mike wins $60,000 in an underground poker game against dodgy characters. He was unsure whether they would let him walk away with his winnings, but there is honour among thieves, and they agreed he had won it fair and square.

The Ending

Mike settles Worm’s $15,000 debt and various other debts he had. He then drops out of law school and leaves New York for Las Vegas to finally play in the World Series of Poker.

Highlighted are the two contrasting personalities, Mike wants to win by playing a good Poker game whereas Worm wants to hustle, leading them into trouble. Rounders is not about losers. Based on Poker it depicts the talented hero winning after many disastrous losses, yet keeps getting back into the saddle to the point where he no longer has anything to lose, but everything to gain.