Las Vegas, un couple

The superficial values and emotional anguish that often permeate the world of gambling is captured by George Stevens in his final film.

Maurice Jarre's "bluesy" score (punctuated by a sorrowful trumpet) enhances the "downer" quality of this mundane drama.

It's understandable why Stevens saw something in this Frank D. Gilroy script, based upon his play. During this general period there were some pretty stark two-character plays being produced.

There was, for example, "Two for the Seasaw," "Silent Night, Lonely Night," "Husbands," and "Scenes from a Marriage." In this last film Ingmar Bergman laid bare a vacillating marriage-on-the brink, creating heart-breaking experience.

In "The Only Game in Town," two very good-looking actors try their hand at a challenging duo-character piece. It is said that "one-take" Frank Sinatra declined the role because he felt it might clash with Stevens' perfectionistic "multiple-take" approach. He was probably right.

The part then went to Warren Beatty, who tries very hard in what almost sounds like a Sinatra imitation (close one's eyes and listen to his timing and inflection). Elizabeth Taylor was apparently a favorite of the director, having utilized her talents successfully twice before. She invests her role with much energy and feeling.

However, the two, for all their earnest effort, create only a medium degree of "chemistry." Part of their lack of connection is in the script, which saddles Beatty's "ring-a-ding" character with an unrelenting degree of flippancy, right up to the last line. Taylor's role doesn't break any fresh dramatic ground, either.

Most people agree, though, that it's pretty hard to stop watching this, once one gets past the [characteristically slow Stevens] "late bedroom" -"morning after" scenes. While the presentation didn't exactly turn out to be the consummate emotional experience Stevens was obviously striving for, "The Only Game in Town" is still a most respectable piece of work.

With this opus, a great film director bid his final farewell to the medium.

So I finally have gotten to see this film again after 22 years. It is interesting in so many ways I don't know where to begin; First thing: It stars one of the most beautiful and sexiest woman ever on the big screen; no one less then la Taylor. But she has some serious problems with portraying the lead role of Fran Walker, she is very badly cast as a young, single, chorus girls, as so many of the previous commentators have mentioned. The audience at this period was used to see la Taylor plump and alcoholic, playing characters that were badly faded beauties in their late 40s or even 50s; Martha in Wolf and Sissy Goforth in Boom. Here, she is supposed to be not many years older than the young girl la Taylor portrayed in the late 1940s, contemporary to the "old" movies the character Fran Walker watches. This is indeed one of her last "babe"-parts in movies. And her male co-star, is played by a then an up- and coming actor who is five years younger, even more highlights the miscasting. With face covering hairdos, soft focus close-shots, and clever cinematography things get somewhat plausible and under control. She must have crash-diet, and stopped half-way, she has slender legs, but not a dancer's sturdy legs, moves youngish and feminine (she's eating her pizza like a shy princess), but she is still somewhat top-heavy and double-chinned, maybe because of the heavy medication she was on at the time, as described in Burton's memoirs. Or maybe because of the strange fluffy dresses she wears that make her body look like "an apple balanced atop of two toothpicks" to quote a contemporary reviewer. In some scenes though, especially when filmed from a distance, she does still manage to look petite and delicious. And even though it is absurd to think of Taylor as a struggling working-class girl who needs to count every dollar and dime to balance the payments, she really tries hard here to convince us, and sometimes she actually succeeds. Or is it that the film is cleverly cut? We never really know, since Taylor's larger-than-life image interferes and blurs our judgment on her true talent as an actress. Still, she surprises by transcending a low-key and insecure appearance, which I guess was the intention of the original play writer Gilroy.

Second thing: Her co-star is the charming Warren Beatty, who here has some very effective scenes in which he makes his character Joe Grady very much authentic and believable. He resembles a combination of both (as one commentator pointed out before) Frank Sinatra's wit and style and Brad Pitt's Irish charming bad-boyishness. In contrast to Taylor, he is in my opinion very well cast. I sometimes wonder what it would be like, to be Warren Beatty, in Paris in autumn 1968, fresh from the huge success of "Bonnie and Clyde". According to the gossip that Taylor picked up, and reached the ears and notes of Burton, Warren was courted by so many beautiful Parisian women that Taylor hardly got a look of him off the set. Still some years to go before being "outed" by Carly Simon as being "So Vain", here in Paris he was evidently everybody's darling.

Third interesting point: The last star needed the presence of her beloved husband (and unfortunately heavy boozing partner) in order to be able to cope with this film, or anything else for that matter. Mr Burton was at this time busy shooting a farce with Rex Harrison, "Staircase", in Paris, which by the way was set in a grayish London. Maybe the married celebrity couple both needed the Parisian location to evade the US/UK taxes? Hence, a movie whose main plot is nothing less than one of the most American themes one can think of (quest for the big break), had to be shot in…Paris! Nowadays the stars of Hollywood earn enormous amount of money, but they can hardly make any demands such as those of la Taylor, and get through with it. It is therefore a pure pleasure to watch the streets and buildings, knowing at least some of them, are entirely build for la Taylor in Paris (if we don't count some scenes that had to be made in Las Vegas very quickly in early Spring of 1969).

Four: The score of Maurice Jarre. Great late 1960s early 1970s feel to it, jazzy and bluesy, in a stylish blend, the very definition of Easy listening.

Fifth: A lushly filmed Hollywood picture like this needs elements that make it "touch the ground". We, as an audience, must still be led to believe that the story enfolded before us could be real. Bathroom and bedroom scenes that are not obviously over-sty. Warren's character IS supposed to be a fly-guy dreamer, who painfully lands in reality after excesses at the casinos. The fairytale needs to touch the audience in-between all its awe and amaze, and technically Stevens and the editor have managed the task.

Sixth and last point I come to think of: In spite of this extravaganza, which is not apparent on the screen if one is not aware of that we are looking at a mini-Vegas built in Paris, this movie apparently flopped painfully when it premiered in 1970. It is since forgotten, overlooked, and its print doomed to deteriorate slowly somewhere in the 20th century Fox archives (in Burbank?). But is the plot of the film dated? I think not. Today, whenever the X-and Y-generation have problems of sorts to deal with, like for instance gambling, we are inclined to make it a pathology that must be treated with therapies and counseling. Couldn't this film be re-dusted as a lecture in how painful and destructive addictions to gambling really is? It deserves it. In spite of all the "half-ways" of this film it is cute and sympathetic lesson in love.

This is a pretty bad movie, but hard to look away from the pretty people inhabiting it. Warren Beatty was unbelievably gorgeous in his younger days. He also was a surprisingly effective and poignant actor. His performance elevates an otherwise pedestrian movie. It really is on par with a television movie, down to the cheesy soundtrack music. Elizabeth Taylor is incredibly miscast. She is lovely to look at, though rather old-looking, for some reason. She couldn't have been more than five years older than Beatty, but looks at least ten years his senior, in spite of being filmed in soft focus. She also is quite zaftig, though it's refreshing in light of the anorexic actresses one sees now. She's totally unbelievable as a showgirl. The average showgirl is tall and slender; the tiny, curvaceous Ms. Taylor would never have even gotten an audition. She also phones in her performance, which doesn't help her rather poorly-drawn character. The film is a series of relationship and situational cliches. You can predict the dialogue before it's spoken. You have to wonder, too, why a stalwart such as George Stevens would choose such a flaccid script as his final project. Someone must have waved a lot of money under these big names' noses to get this made. It's a shame to waste such directing and acting talent. But if you start watching, you probably won't be able to take your eyes off it. They don't make beauties like Beatty and Taylor in Hollywood anymore, at least with as much charisma to go with the looks.

Frank D. Gilroy adapted his unsuccessful two-act play about an aging Las Vegas showgirl (Elizabeth Taylor) who picks up the piano player (Warren Beatty) in a cocktail lounge one night after work. He's a gambler who can't be trusted with money; she's on the rebound after her married lover returned to his wife. It's an oddly old-fashioned tale with nothing particularly dramatic in the set-up; the pressing issues seem to be her loneliness and his need to win big. The critics pounced on the picture, not because of Gilroy's writing or George Stevens' direction or the performances--but because of the budget ($11M), inflated by Taylor's insistence the film's interiors be shot in Paris, France (so she could be close to husband Richard Burton). Despite the wigs and insistent soft-focus close-ups, Taylor comes close to finding an interesting character here; she isn't convincing as a showgirl (shot from the shoulders up), and she doesn't exactly sizzle with Beatty, but she's easily bruised and vulnerable, and lovely when she needs to be. Beatty (filling in for Frank Sinatra, who had prior commitments) plays his dryly sarcastic role with a touch of eccentricity; he's supposed to be younger and reckless, a wild card, but some scenes--like a hopeless fishing excursion at Lake Mead (using a green screen)--are beyond his control. The color scheme of Taylor's apartment (where we're stuck most of the time)--in avocado green and gold--isn't glamorous, but the rest of the movie is. Cinematographer Henri Decae gives the picture a touch of fake-Vegas sparkle which is appealing, and all the exteriors on-location look terrific (Las Vegas becomes a big, shiny department store). What doesn't work is the back-end of Gilroy's second act, wherein Taylor hesitates over Beatty's marriage proposal. Their conversation is supposed to be a dissection of why men and women marry, what keeps them together and why the participants eventually get restless--but it goes on and on, grinding the movie to a halt. Had Stevens (whose last film this was) given us something more--a final visual zinger or a twist--"The Only Game In Town" may actually be worth a second glance. As it is, it fades in the stretch as well as in the memory. **1/2 from ****

Frank Gilroy's play brought to the screen by the great George Stevens; sadly, his last film. The maudlin characterizations by Liz and Warren just don't cut it, simply because they seem far too old and worldly to be victimized by the circumstances set forth for them. Old-fashioned in the worse way. Maurice Jarre provides one of his best scores, though.