The movies were very close to gambling from the origins. Not always as central to the script, but in many cases as a social bond. In Western cinema, cowboys sat around a table to play cards. With bets or without bets, it was a space for conversation, for discussion, to plan a certain objective and even to solve some circumstance in everyday life. There should not necessarily be a winner. Or maybe yes. Intelligence, skill, ingenuity and magic, among other characteristics of the scene.
Gambling also establishes a climate within the movies. The sounds of the chips, the movement of a slot machine, the murmur of a talk, music, a look between two or more people, the atmosphere of fun and tension for a moment are part of those elements that keep us attentive to the screen. It also means a style of dress. It can be with supreme elegance, in casual look or with very light clothes. The cinema marks the breadth in the hobby of betting.
There are also thieves, people in trouble or those who suffer from addiction. For them there is also a teaching, either in the social or justice framework. Love, romance, work, vacations are also included in that relationship between movies and bets.
American culture adopted gambling more frequently. But there are also British films that included gaming as part of the argument to entertain. Here are some movies that are already part of the popular comment.
CASINO ROYALE (2006)
It doesn’t matter the year or the main act. There is a phrase in the film industry that is universal. «My name is Bond, James Bond.» The most famous secret agent in the world is and will be part of us forever. The link with gambling is from «Dr. No» (1962) to the present. The reference of Casino Royale is perhaps the most significant by the name of the movie.
Casino Royale is the twenty-first film in the James Bond film series, based on the homonymous novel by Ian Fleming, directed by New Zealand’s Martin Campbell and released in 2006. It is the first film in the franchise that Daniel Craig has in the leading role of agent 007, as well as the third adaptation of Casino Royale (the first version was released in the year 1954, and the second in 1967). The plot addresses the beginnings of James Bond as a secret spy, just after obtaining his license to kill. After preventing a terrorist attack at Miami International Airport, Bond falls in love with Vesper Lynd, an agent of Her Majesty’s Treasury, assigned to provide him with the monetary funds necessary to thwart a high-stakes poker tournament, organized by Le Chiffre. The story continues in Quantum of Solace. Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $609,447,995
THE GOOD THIEF (2002)
The Good Thief is a 2002 British-French-Irish crime thriller film starring Nick Nolte, Emir Kusturica and Nutsa Kukhianidze, and directed by Neil Jordan. It is a remake of the French film Bob le flambeur (1955) by Jean-Pierre Melville. The film, shot in both Monaco and Nice, France, follows a heroin-addicted retired thief through the setup and completion of one last job. Bob Montagnet (Nick Nolte) is, in addition to a gambler, an American thief who has ended up ruined in the French Riviera. Deep down he is a sentimental, as evidenced by his selfless effort to remove a young Russian from bad company. But when Bob hits the bottom, after losing everything in the races, they propose a final and spectacular blow: it is about stealing the vault of the Monte Carlo Casino, which contains an invaluable art collection.
LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998)
Set in England, an overly-confident card player enlists three of his best friends to aid him in pulling off a heist in order to pay off a debt that he owes to a crime boss after he loses £500,000 in a fixed game of three-card bag. Guy Ritchie made his feature directorial debut with this crime-caper comedy-drama set in London’s East End and heavy on the Cockney dialogue (with one scene in subtitled Cockney rhyming slang). A big-bucks scheme goes awry: Cardsharp Eddy (Nick Moran) and pals Bacon (Jason Statham), Tom (Jason Flemyng), and Soap (Dexter Fletcher) scuffle to pile up enough money to put Eddy at the card table opposite gangland porn lord Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty). Unfortunately, the whole plan backfires, leaving Eddy owing Harry a huge sum, payable within the week. In truth, Harry hopes to acquire the bar run by his rival, J.D. (Sting), who is Eddy’s father. To raise the cash, Eddy sets out to steal from a marijuana business run by Winston (Steven Mackintosh), but the inevitable gunplay doesn’t make for an easy heist. World premiere at the 1998 Edinburgh Film Festival (Focus on British Cinema). Based on a $1.35 million budget, the film had a box office gross of over $28 million, making it a commercial success.
CROUPIER (1998)
It is a love story, but unconventional. It is a story about labor relations, although where the contact is not necessarily with words. It is a story of different social and economic levels, however with similar survival goals no matter how and where life is.If you love gambling but don’t have the skill for it, you could get a job as a croupier. At the very least you would get to see others win – and live vicariously through them. This was the life of Jack Manfred, played by Clive Owen, up until he realized that he was witnessing golden material that he could use for his book. Inspiration comes from everywhere.
THE GAMBLER (1997)
It is not a British movie. Nor is it based on an author who was born on the islands. But the influence of the writer was so important in the continent (and in the world) that his legacy is very deep in the betting culture whatever the country. The Gambler is a 1997 drama film directed by Károly Makk and starring Michael Gambon, Jodhi May and Polly Walker. It is set around the writing of the novel The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The film was notable for its casting of Luise Rainer. The Oscar-winning actress had not made a film in fifty-four years prior to her appearance in this one.
The Gambler is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky about a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general. The novella reflects Dostoyevsky’s own addiction to roulette, which was in more ways than one the inspiration for the book: Dostoyevsky completed the novella under a strict deadline to pay off gambling debts. The Gambler is set in the casino of the fictional German spa town of Roulettenburg and follows the misfortunes of the young tutor Alexei Ivanovich. As he succumbs to the temptations of the roulette table, he finds himself engaged in a battle of wills with Polina, the woman he unrequitedly loves. With an unforgettable cast of fellow gamblers and figures from European high society, this darkly comic novel of greed and self-destruction reveals Dostoevsky at his satirical and psychological best.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher. Dostoyevsky’s literary works explore human psychology in the context of the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature.
KALEIDOSCOPE (1966)
Romantic comedy which has Barney Lincoln and Angel McGinnis as a pair of amorous adventurers in the gambling places of London and the Riviera. Barney Lincoln is a rambling gambling man who scores sensational wins at poker and chemin de fer because he has succeeded in marking the original plates for the backs of all the playing cards manufactured in a plant in Geneva and used in all the gambling joints in Europe. In his gambling depredation, Barney is spotted by Angel McGinnis, the daughter of a Scotland Yard Inspector ‘Manny’ McGinnis on the lookout for a man to do a job. The inspector enlists Barney’s help in playing poker with a shady London character whom Scotland Yard wants to force to financial ruin. The film had its World Premiere on 8 September 1966 at the Warner Theatre in the West End of London.
