King of Gamblers

Akim Tamiroff plays the title role in King Of Gamblers and truth be told the way Tamiroff does it, it ain't gambling. He's a racketeer who places slot machines in venues not necessarily willing to have one. The film opens with a bomb thrown into a barber shop which has replaced Tamiroff's machine with another mob's. Some kids playing outside the shop are killed and the heat goes on.

But that's nothing compared to the heat that nightclub singer Claire Trevor brings to Tamiroff. She's been going out with him and he's set her up real nice in a swank apartment. But the death of Helen Burgess, Trevor's former roommate along with Harvey Stephens the guy Burgess married who was involved in Tamiroff's rackets sets her on a quest for vengeance. Trevor is aided and abetted by Lloyd Nolan a crusading reporter for Porter Hall's newspaper.

During the late Thirties and early Forties Tamiroff was under contract to Paramount and played some really good villains and cutthroat types although he could do comedy as well. In King Of Gamblers he's one crafty dude and his fall from power was quite accidental.

One thing that was haunting was Helen Burgess's death scene, it was eerie in its prescience. Burgess did only four films for Paramount and later in 1937 she died of lobar pneumonia. Seeing her on her deathbed was unintentionally kind of freaky. There's a story with Burgess that needs telling, I believe she was the inspiration for the dead actress played in flashback by Valli in Miracle Of The Bells.

King Of Gamblers is a nicely paced B crime drama from Paramount which could have used some better editing. Still a good cast delivers the goods.

Club owner and racketeer Akim Tamiroff wants Claire Trevor, but she doesn't want him. He rents her an expensive apartment, and tells her that she can decide if he's worth the high life. Meanwhile, newspaperman Lloyd Nolan is on her mind. When Claire's former room mate, Helen Burgess, disappears, she calls Nolan, even as the trail begins to run to Tamiroff in this solid drama.

Given the cast and plot, you'd think this was a Fox B, but it's a Paramount programmer directed by Robert Florey, with the sort of gloss that studio can provide. Cinematographer Harry Fishbeck shoots Miss Trevor so she looks like a blonde Myrna Loy, and Tamiroff looks as oily as ever. Evelyn Brent has slid to the bottom of the credited list, and Louise Brooks' scenes were deleted, but this one moves fast once it gets going.

Claire Trevor (Dixie) is a singer and gets involved with gangster Akim Tamiroff (Kalkas) who runs a slot machine scam. Lloyd Nolan (Jim) is a reporter that also gets involved.

There are interesting scenes - Tamiroff has a lift shaft that gets put to use on a couple of occasions and Trevor sings a couple of good songs. Outside of this, the film disappoints given the cast. I only watched the film a week ago and have forgotten about it. It's a time-filler with a lashing of boredom. It's a shame. Another shame is that Louise Brooks was in this film but her scenes were deleted. She would have fit in as one of the bad nightclub girls who has a rivalry with Tamiroff for the gangster's affections. As things are, it makes no sense that he is happy not to progress anything with Trevor and waits for her to 'come around' to him. No sense. However, it would make sense if he knew he had Brooks always waiting for him. By cutting her out of a role like this, his actions make - I repeat - no sense.

I asked a lift engineer if he had ever found a dead body when carrying out lift maintenance. He said he hadn't but he had discovered a litter of puppies that had been dumped down the lift shaft once.

This short crime movie belongs to the list of those that Paramount studios produced by the end of the thirties, starring the likes of Lloyd Nolan, Akim Tamiroff, Anthony Quinn, Buster Crabbe...and directed by film makers as Louis King and Robert Florey. It reminds the Warner style of directing, fast paced, rough, not comedy, so exciting. Besides this one there were : ROAD GANG, ILLEGAL TRAFFIC, UNDERCOVER DOCTOR, TIP OFF GIRLS.... I highly recommend all of them. This one belongs to the best of those. Tamiroff is excellent in this role seemed to have been made for him, and not so far from his character in also Robert Florey's DANGEROUS TO KNOW,a gangster in love with a woman not from his world. I know that they are all hard to find in those days. I am lucky to have them all in my library.