Atlantic City

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Europeans have always delighted in introducing America to itself. (I am thinking of de Tocqueville and Nabokov.) There is something very valuable about seeing ourselves through the eyes of others. In Atlantic City, assumptions about the American way of life, the American dream and the America reality, circa 1978, are examined through the artistry of master French film director, Louis Malle (Murmur of the Heart (1971), Pretty Baby (1978), Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987), etc.)

The film begins with a shot of Sallie Matthews (Susan Sarandon at 34) at the kitchen sink of her apartment squeezing lemons and rubbing them on her arms, her neck, her face as Lou Pasco (Burt Lancaster at 68) watches unbeknownst to her from across the way, the window of his apartment looking into hers. She works at a clam bar in a casino on the boardwalk, which is why she smells like fish, which is why she is squeezing lemon on herself to get rid of the smell. She is taking classes to be a blackjack dealer. Her dream is to go to Monaco and deal blackjack in one of resort casinos and perhaps catch a glimpse of Princess Grace. She listens to French tapes and achieves...an amusing accent. He is a has-been who never was, a pathetic old numbers runner well past any dream of his prime, pretending to be a "fancy man" as he picks up a few extra bucks waiting on an invalid woman.

Enter a hippy couple with all their belongings on their backs. It turns out that he is Sallie's estranged husband, a deceitful little guy who has found a bag of cocaine that he intends to cut and sell; and she is Sallie's not too bright sister, very pregnant. They need a place to stay and have the gall to impose on her.

Both Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances, as was director Louis Malle and writer John Guare for his script. But none of them won. This was the year of On Golden Pond with Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn taking the Oscars while Warren Beatty won Best Director for Reds. (Best film was Chariots of Fire with Colin Welland winning the Oscar for his original screenplay.) Nonetheless, Lancaster and Sarandon are outstanding, and they are both beautifully directed by Malle. Lancaster in particular demonstrated that at age 68 he could still fill up the screen with his sometimes larger than life presence. The familiar flamboyance and sheer physical energy that he displayed in so many films, e.g., Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Elmer Gantry (1960), to name four of my favorites, are here properly subdued. He moves slowly and is easily winded. He is a sad, cowardly old man whom Malle, to our delight, will miraculously transform.

Sarandon's performance is also one of her best, on a par with, or even better than her work in Thelma and Louise (1991) for which she was also nominated for Best Actress and also did not win. She is an actress with "legs" (this is a pun and an allusion to an inside joke about her famous other attributes–nicely displayed in Pretty Baby--over which perhaps too much fuss has already been made!)--an actress with "legs," as in a fine wine that will only get better with age. She, like Goldie Hawn, Catherine Deneuve and a few others, have the gift of looking as good (or better) at fifty as they did at thirty.

Louis Malle films are characterized by a tolerance of human differences, a deep psychological understanding, a gentle touch and an overriding sense of humanity. Atlantic City is no exception. What Malle is aiming at here is redemption. He wants to show how this pathetic old man finds self-respect (in an ironic way) and how the clam bar waitress might be liberated. But he also wants to say something about America, and he uses Atlantic City, New Jersey--the "lungs of Philadelphia," the mafia's playground, the New Yorker's escape, a slum by the sea "saved" (actually further exploited) by the influx of legalized gambling in the seventies--as his symbol. He begins with decadence and ends with renewal and triumph, and as usual, somewhere along the way, achieves something akin to the quality of myth. Even though he emphasizes the tawdry and the commonplace: the untalented trio singing off key, the slums semi-circling the casinos where Lou sells numbers, the boarded-up buildings, the sad, tiny apartments about to be torn down, Robert Goulet as a cheap Vegas-style lounge act, etc., in the end we feel that it's not so bad after all.

I should also mention Kate Reid who played Grace, the invalid, ex-beauty queen widow of a mobster, who orders Lou about. She does a great job. Her character too will be transformed.

If the late, great Louis Malle was running the world the gross transgressors would surely get theirs and the rest of us would find forgiveness for our sins, and renewal.

Louis Malle created a poetic "Atlantic City," released in 1980 and starring Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Reid. Lancaster plays Lou, a small-time mobster from the old days of Atlantic City. He is handsome, dresses very grandly, and pretends that he used to be in the big-time. Actually he worked in some menial job for a mobster and now takes care of his widow Grace (Kate Reid) who appears bedridden at first. He takes care of her dog, makes her food, rubs her limbs to increase circulation, and occasionally sleeps with her. She's verbally abusive to him. Grace came to Atlantic City in the '40s as a contestant in a Betty Grable lookalike contest, met her future husband, and never left.

Lou meets a young waitress and would-be croupier, Sally, and their lives soon collide. He's attracted to her. Sally's sister has run off with Sally's husband, and the two show up to stay with her. Her sister is pregnant. Sally's husband Dave is there to do a drug deal; he meets Lou and stores the cocaine in Lou's apartment. People are after him, so he sends Lou to someone's apartment on a delivery, and Lou is to pick up the money. When Lou arrives home after the errand, Dave is dead. The thugs didn't get their dope, so eventually they turn to Sally. In fact, Lou has the dope and also the money from the first delivery. And he plans on taking up where Dave left off.

This is such a well-done film, hearkening back to the old days of Atlantic City just as the city is being rebuilt as a eastern Las Vegas. Lou is part of the old days; Sally is ambitious and wants to better herself. Lou, never anybody, now longs to be somebody for her.

The acting is wonderful. Burt Lancaster is magnificent as Lou, an old man who still has young dreams. It's a very subtle performance, very touching and sometimes funny. Susan Sarandon does a great job as Sally, creating a totally believable character.

John Guare has written a great script, the first important component of a film, and it was in the hands of a master, Louis Malle. The film was made in Canada, and I recognized many Canadian actors, but the location shots are excellent.

Highly recommended, a sublime experience.

"Atlantic City" is overall a well done film that's pays homage to the city itself and is somewhat a going away present for legendary Burt Lancaster. The film seems low key though even though drama is present it's not your typical gangster film of blood and violence and the plot is pretty simple and not to complex. Burt Lancaster is aging mobster Lou Pascal who takes care of an aging woman in fact a deceased mobsters wife, yet Lou is still in the business and collects at random on the boardwalk. Then enter Sally Matthews(Susan Sarandon) a waitress and card dealer in training for one of the casinos has her life turned up when her sister and ex show up from Philadelphia after finding a big bag of white powder! The paths of all the characters cross, yet as I said again it's mostly low key most important the relationship of escape routes develop for the lives of both Lou and Sally upon meeting. And the scenes of seeing Susan Sarandon wash and bath by rubbing lemon juice from squeezed lemons was very sexy! Clearly one of the more erotic memories in cinema history. Louis Malle wrapped it up well by being low key ending with both male and female lead characters getting what they wanted escaping to a new life. The scenes of A.C. was great and to top it all off Burt Lancaster was very classy and smooth in his performance.

ATLANTIC CITY is one of those perfect little movies in which writing, direction, acting, and setting all come together seamlessly. The story is a subtle and wistful blending of comedy and drama that is both true to life and touching. There is great resonance between the characters' situations and the mood of Atlantic City, beautifully captured at a pivotal time in its history. Burt Lancaster gives one of the great performances of all time and really should have won the Oscar. Susan Sarandon is also superb, and their scenes together are unforgettable. Kate Reid as a faded gangster's moll is a standout in the fine supporting cast. This is perhaps Louis Malle's finest movie, and, in my opinion, one of the 10 best movies of the 80s.

Set in 1970s Atlantic City in the early days of legalized gambling, we find a young woman (Susan Sarandon) working in the fish section of a casino restaurant while learning to be a card dealer. At the same time, an elderly, small-time hood (Burt Lancaster) is stuck taking care of a gangster's widow (Kate Reid). Sarandon's husband and her younger sister ran off together and unexpectedly reappear looking for a place to stay. Her sister is now pregnant and her low-life husband is trying to sell drugs stolen from a big-time dealer in Philadelphia. Sarandon's husband meets Lancaster in a bar while trying to set up a deal to sell the drugs, and he convinces Lancaster to be his "mule." Lancaster and Sarandon being neighbors -- with her brother in law as the mutual acquaintance -- are brought together and become involved in more trouble than they ever thought imaginable.

The refreshing aspect of this motion picture is that it avoids the typical Hollywood pitfall where character development and dialogue play second fiddle to car chases and stunt scenes. In Atlantic City the odious characters and sticky situations are secondary to the development/relationships of the lead characters. This is the first excellent performance on film of a young Sarandon, and one of the finest performances of Lancaster's distinguished career.

This film has been butchered on cable, VHS, and laserdisc. Please let's have a quality remaster on DVD in widescreen format.