Gambling Lady

A high-minded GAMBLING LADY runs into trouble when she becomes connected with a society family.

Breezy & entertaining, this was the sort of film which Warner Brothers created with such ease. Blessed with good acting & fine production values, these pictures were generally guaranteed to be crowd pleasers.

As always, Barbara Stanwyck is utterly fascinating to watch. Not only talented & lovely, Stanwyck's great forte was her utter believability in any role she undertook. Here, she looks perfectly natural with a deck of cards in her hand, playing & dealing. Her authenticity is matched by the passion which she displayed with every performance.

Her leading men are two of the best: rich boy Joel McCrea & genial crook Pat O'Brien - both do well by their roles. Given equal billing, the viewer is left guessing for quite a while which one will finish the film in Stanwyck's arms.

Excellent support is given by marvelous old Sir C. Aubrey Smith as a kindly gentleman who befriends Stanwyck, Arthur Vinton as the head of a notorious Gambling Syndicate & eccentric little Ferdinand Gottschalk as Sir Aubrey's lawyer.

Movie mavens will recognize Willie Fung as a member of the Syndicate, and Arthur Treacher & Louise Beavers as Sir Aubrey's butler & cook - all uncredited.

D: Archie Mayo. Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Pat O'Brien, Claire Dodd, C. Aubrey Smith.

Not a bad romp through every cliche in the mid-depression era: tough dame from the wrong side of the tracks, kind, sympathetic crooks, useless rich people, true love between unlikely lovers, a couple of romantic triangles, tacked-on murder mystery episode, etc. Also, Stanwyck starting to show big doses of the tough-as-nails but soft-hearted street-smart operator she perfected by the time of "The Lady Eve". As always, Barbara Stanwyck is utterly fascinating to watch, talented & lovely, Stanwyck's great forte was her utter believably in any role she undertook.

Directed by Archie Mayo, Gambling Lady was, by Pre-Code standards, a tame romp into the zone where gambling syndicates and high society intersect. When an honest card sharp commits suicide rather than go crooked, his daughter Lady Lee (Stanwyck) steps into his place, winning great sums for herself (and her bosses) while keeping the game fair and square. But when handsome high society swain Garry (McCrea, looking about as good in a tuxedo as is humanly possible) steps into a game, she's smitten - not realizing that their ill-matched pairing between high and low society might be a sucker bet.

Stanwyck didn't think much of Mayo, "a rude, fat man" prone to pinching actresses' bottoms (she grabbed his arm the first - and presumably last - time he tried pinching hers). But the actress liked McCrea. He, in turn, marveled at her professionalism, and how, if a take was blown it was always because of his stumble, not hers. But she also gave him a frank lesson in professionalism the day he was absent from shooting stills of the cast. (It wasn't McCrea's fault - nobody told him about the shoot, especially the publicist who figured no one would miss an RKO actor on loan.) At lunch Stanwyck cornered McCrea. "Where the h e l l were you for stills?" When McCrea shrugged and said they didn't need him, Stanwyck gave him a tongue lashing. "I was in burlesque. We used to have to change our clothes on the train, and our makeup, and we couldn't take a bath and we lived out of a suitcase. You've grown up in California where you go to the beach on your days off and ride the waves, and you're a happy Southern Californian kid. Just get off your big fat a s s and get to work."

McCrea took her candid advice to heart, and he and Stanwyck became great friends during the filming of Gambling Lady.

Gambling Lady(1934) is definitely Art Deco in the decor and you also find Egyptian artifacts on the mantel and other places in the film These types of bric-a-brac were the rage in Hollywood at that time because of the opening of King Tut's tomb in the 1920s. You see many pieces of jewelry and statues, etc. In these 1930s films that link to the Egyptian craze back then. The clean lines of the Art Deco era are also evident in these films. Beautiful! Another excellent flick from one of the most UNcelebrated actresses of the golden age of Hollywood.

Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Pat O'Brien, and C. Aubrey Smith star in "Gambling Lady," a 1934 film directed by Archie Mayo.

Stanwyck plays "Lady" Lee, the daughter of Mike Lee, who runs the only honest gambling joint in town. The rest are owned by a syndicate.

After Mike kills himself, Lady Lee gets a job with the syndicate, but she will only play honestly. She turns out to be quite the card shark.

Lady attracts a wealthy man, Garry Madison (McCrea) and the two marry. But jealousy enters the picture when Sheila Aiken (Claire Dodd) shows up and tries to get Garry away from Lady.

Nice film, on the short side, with good performances from Stanwyck, McCrea, O'Brien as Lady's friend, and C. Aubrey Smith as Garry's father.

Stanwyck is very young here, with the edge and toughness that will make her one of the great stars. McCrea is as handsome and likable as ever.

Recommended for the performances.

Gambling Lady was the first of seven films that Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck would team together in. But the fact that it's the first of them is the only distinguishing feature about this rather routine film that skips from a gangster story to a romance without missing a beat.

Stanwyck is the daughter of professional, but honest gambler Robert Barrat who commits suicide because he's broke and won't tie in with the gambling syndicate. But he's taught his daughter all he knows about various games of chance. She's so good that Kevin Spacey would definitely have picked her for his team in the current 21.

She's got two guys on the hook for her, rich playboy Joel McCrea and bookie Pat O'Brien. Claire Dodd is in her usual role as the other woman, in this case McCrea's other woman. Best in the film though is C. Aubrey Smith, McCrea's father who's the wisest rich guy around.

A murder, an alibi, a divorce, all figure in this film which when it started I thought would be one of Warner Brothers gangster flicks. Turned into a romantic melodrama which I wasn't expecting.

Joel McCrea was under contract to RKO at the time and this was one of those loan out deals. Neither he or Stanwyck thought much of the film, but they formed a lifelong friendship out of this and went on to such better films as Union Pacific, The Great Man's Lady, and Trooper Hook.

See all of those before you see this one.

Stanwyck plays an honest gambler and she steals the movie. After she ("Lady" Lee) realizes she can't rely on her gambling father, she meets wealthy Joel McCrea, who is, well, young and smitten. Find acting by all, including Pat O'Brien as Stanwyck's buddy and Sir C. Aubrey Smith as a father figure.

I just saw this movie shortly after seeing "But the Flesh Is Weak" on Turner Classic Movies. Sir C. Aubrey Smith is also in that movie, in which he plays the gambling father of young Robert Montgomery, who is smitten by wealthy Nora Gregor and is buddies with wealthy Heather Thatcher. Both movies have a similar parent-child duo wanting to strike it rich, and the start of each movie is similar. But from there on, they are two very different movies, "Gambling Lady" being a more thoughtful, dramatic film, and "But the Flesh Is Weak" being a romantic romp.