This TV-movie offers an interesting glimpse into not only the horrors of compulsive gambling, but also the gender and spousal roles of the 1970's. Jones plays a housewife who's already lost one husband to her disease of gambling on virtually anything. Now married to Luckinbill and step-mother to toothy youngster Busk, she again finds herself drowning in the whirlpool of debt and self-destruction. Things reach a head when Luckinbill attempts to use his $30,000 in savings for a business of his own and finds that Jones has blown every cent of it! She frantically tries to win the money back, but can't quite pull it off in time to hide her habit. Sidney plays Jones' crusty, but concerned mother. Blondell runs a poker club. The inimitable and peerless Van Patten pops up as a friend and possible rescuer (wearing a different, but equally atrocious faux flower on each of her three outfits!) Groom is a fellow gambler and an enabler who doesn't appreciate it when she can't pay him back the way he would like. Jones does an admirable job in this film and the viewer shares her increasing despair, even while becoming disgusted at her sometimes outrageously foolish decisions. Luckinbill really only gets one particular scene of note, but he handles it well. The rest of the time, he is basically a kind, but chauvinistic bread-winner. Sidney is compelling as always, adding the right note of judgement mixed with affection. (Check out the scene in which Marlboro-voiced Sidney chides Jones for smoking, though!) Van Patten brings a lot of spark and sass to the film. (Why wasn't this woman ever a guest star on "The Golden Girls"? She'd have been fantastic!) Blondell, in a small part, gives the film some heart. One thing that stands out here is the fact that Jones gambles away $30k (a truly massive amount of money at the time!), but she doesn't even work! She barely does anything, really, except gamble and maybe fix dinner. Luckinbill, in true old-time style, simply announces to his wife and daughter, without consultation, that they are moving to another state. The roles of family members in the home have changed a lot since 1975 (as, thankfully, have the DARK paneled interiors and ugly, faux-antique fixtures popular at the time!) There's an effective and unusual score by David Shire and the cast is dotted with many of those familiar television faces of the era. Even though it is at times pat, it's also effectively bleak enough to serve as a warning to those who may have a gambling problem.
Review of Winner Take All
