Endstation Mord

The movie's a flawed crime drama that suffers from both miscasting and an unconvincing mixed message. Mature's Marc Fury (what a name!) is a racketeer threatened with deportation because he crossed the head racketeer (Bendix), who has connived effectively behind the scenes. In his efforts to avoid being sent back to a war-ravaged Europe, Marc romances a refugee worker Lynn Warren (Moore) who works with persons displaced by the war.

Unfortunately the bubbly Moore is only 21 in a part that calls for a much more mature looking actress, while actor Mature is a relatively advanced 37. As a result, the two don't match up well either physically or age-wise, making their pairing a real stretch for the movie.

But I suspect there's an interesting backstory to this production from RKO. Keep in mind this was about the time womanizer Howard Hughes purchased the studio. Moore, apparently, was one of his many favorites, while she claimed the two had secretly wed in 1950, the same year of this film. So I rather suspect Hughes was trying to boost her career by pairing her with one of Hollywood's biggest hunks, whether their pairing in the movie was credible or not. This is speculation on my part, but remains something to think about when viewing the film.

Now, crime dramas don't have to exclude political themes if those themes are artfully included. The trouble here is that Marc's sudden change of heart is neither persuasively dramatized nor subtly expressed. His final patriotic speech before the judge is more like a sermon than a confession, and shifts the whole weight of the film onto a last minute contrivance. But again, keep in mind, that Hughes was obsessed with the communist threat in 1950, so the artless message could well have originated in the headman's office.

In short, I see the movie's crippling compromises as the result of studio boss Hughes' particular preoccupations. Again, I can't claim anything more than conjecture, but at the same time, the points do have a circumstantial basis.

Where the movie succeeds is in giving the audience an idea of the plight of civilians displaced by the recently concluded war in Europe, and seeking a new life in America. This is now a largely forgotten aspect of the post-war period, but remains a wrenching aspect, movingly portrayed here by the Sobieski family.

All in all, the movie lacks impact as a crime drama and over-does the courtroom preachments. No wonder that whatever the good intentions, Gambling House has joined the ranks of the largely forgotten.

Victor Mature is the protagonist here, an Italian-born American gangster with a long record of offenses, with several commitments to jail and so on but also with a good war record, getting involved with William Bendix as the chief gangster here in cases of murder. Standing trial he is shown not to be an American citizen, his father somehow neglected to get his family papers In order, so he is sentenced to be deported back to Italy, a country he has never seen, but the judge gives him a chance of proving himself to be a worthy American. There are a lot of interesting insights here into the immigration work, where Terry Moore appears as a leading benefactress guiding immigrants into the country, and the best scenes are with these stranded, humiliated exiles who have lost their country. It's a fascinating combination of social drama, noir, crime and documentary with Victor Mature excellent in his role, learning one final hard lesson.

A very good part for Victor Mature as an associate in a gambling operation run by William Bendix, who finds out, when he's about to be deported, that he isn't a US citizen, even though he fought in WW2. When he's banned to Ellis Island for a brief time, he looks lost amid the newly arrived immigrants. His romance with Terry Moore, a young looking idealist who helps recent immigrants, doesn't have much heat, though it leads to a great scene with the two of them driving along a dark road in New Jersey on the way to one of Bendix's out of the way gambling houses in the Jersey woods. The closing scene on a dark corner, with Bendix and his men and Mature is text book noir. To its detriment, the film's two distinct parts don't unite very well into a cohesive whole.

"Gambling House" begins with a murder. A mobster like Farrow (William Bendix) did it, but isn't about to take the rap. So, he hatches a plan--Marc Fury (Victor Mature) will claim he killed the man and Farrow will say he witnessed it and it was self-defense. Well, the jury believed it and now Fury is going to be $50,000 richer. However, he's caught by surprise when he's leaving the courtroom--when he's served with a deportation order. Apparently, he came to America as a very, very young boy and didn't realize his family was never naturalized. And, so, because of this loophole, he might be forced to go to live in Italy. Marc isn't at all happy--but not because he's losing his citizenship but because he's a tough guy and doesn't like being told what to do. So, with the help of a social worker (Terry Moore), he's going to fight this order. And, this is a tall order for a guy who is this cynical!

The film is a very strange combination of genres. It's clearly film noir because of the dialog---Fury talks and acts like a classic noir character, as does Farrow. But, it's also a social commentary film, a HIGHLY patriotic film AND a romance to boot! Strange certainly is the word for this melange! But is it any good? Sure. The film has its shortcomings (it's a bit too heavy-handed when it comes to the American dream and the chemistry with Peters seems forced) but it also is good entertainment and Mature is very entertaining as Fury. In particular, the ending is really, really good--pure noir in style and with a twist.

The opening and closing images of this movie, directed by Ted Tetzlaff, fall firmly in the tradition of evocative noir staging and shooting. Too bad the bulk of the movie falls far short of that promise. Victor Mature, an operative in a gambling syndicate bossed by duplicitous William Bendix, eludes a rap but finds himself about to be deported. Squeakily wholesome Terry Moore, who works expediting such cases, falls for Mature (she's the primary female presence in the film, which cries out for a darker, more ambiguous woman). For long stretches it's unclear whether the script is about the inequalities of the immigration laws or about the dangers of organized gambling. A much grittier treatment of the same subject, from the same era, is The Lady Gambles, starring the First Lady of Film Noir, Barbara Stanwyck.