Great cast, but unfortunately a mediocre film, amounting to a morality tale. As I watched it, I considered its two obvious sources - the first, Dostoevsky's novella 'The Gambler,' and the second, Dostoevsky's own gambling addiction, which of course informed the first. A truer account to either of those would have been preferable to what we see on the screen here. In the film, a virtuous young writer (Gregory Peck) is led into the temptation of gambling by a young woman (Ava Gardner), gets addicted, and then seeks redemption in his faith. There are a few subplots (with nice work from Ethel Barrymore, Agnes Moorehead, Walter Huston, and Frank Morgan), but really that's about it, and the problem is it's so predictable, and black and white in tone.
Missing from Dostoevsky's novella are the broader sweep of controlling one's passions, e.g. To women and money, on top of gambling. Dostoyevsky writes of these passions convincingly, particular the love/hate, obsessive relationship with the young woman ("When I talk to you I long to tell you everything, everything, everything." .... "I often have an irresistible longing to beat you, to disfigure you, to strangle you.") This kind of raw passion is completely missing from the film. Missing too are the insights into the Russian psyche in the 19th century, and the struggle with their own identity, wanting to preserve their country from Western influences but at the same time feeling inferior to the French, and caught between admiration and envy (and with French being routinely spoken in wealthy Russian parlors). Here these characters really could have been any nationality; it's a Hollywood period film that's removed everything but the costuming.
Dostoevsky's own life would have made for a more interesting story, and if you're interested in an account of this, Tsypkin's 'Summer in Baden-Baden' is brilliant. Quite frankly, Dostoevsky was irritable, petty, jealous, obsessive, and an overall pain in the ass. He was extremely awkward, and blurted out all the wrong things in social situations - which is far from the very suave character we see in Gregory Peck. His treatment of his second wife was poor to say the least, pawning off her things again and again to throw money away at the roulette wheel, thinking he had a system. He wrote 'The Gambler' at the same time as 'Crime and Punishment' in the attempt to offset his business failure and gambling debt. He famously met the more polished and Westernized Russian author Ivan Turgenev at Baden, and the pair took an instant dislike to one another because of their differences. Dostoevsky had been humiliated in prison, suffered from epileptic fits, was afraid of being laughed at, and desperately wanted to be accepted. He knew what suffering was, and gave alms to every beggar he saw, almost to a comical degree, but he was also a nationalist and an anti-Semite.
There is so much material there and my expectations were low relative to an American film in 1949 (even from Siodmak), but when I think of the simplicity of what was actually put on film - relative to the novella or its author - it just seems very bland. It probably could have been trimmed; it takes 50 minutes for Peck's character to begin to get gambling fever. The back half is laborious and it's also got a silly moment when the owner of the casino forgives a massive debt out of honor, which certainly didn't ring true. Overall watchable for the cast, but a missed opportunity.
Missing from Dostoevsky's novella are the broader sweep of controlling one's passions, e.g. To women and money, on top of gambling. Dostoyevsky writes of these passions convincingly, particular the love/hate, obsessive relationship with the young woman ("When I talk to you I long to tell you everything, everything, everything." .... "I often have an irresistible longing to beat you, to disfigure you, to strangle you.") This kind of raw passion is completely missing from the film. Missing too are the insights into the Russian psyche in the 19th century, and the struggle with their own identity, wanting to preserve their country from Western influences but at the same time feeling inferior to the French, and caught between admiration and envy (and with French being routinely spoken in wealthy Russian parlors). Here these characters really could have been any nationality; it's a Hollywood period film that's removed everything but the costuming.
Dostoevsky's own life would have made for a more interesting story, and if you're interested in an account of this, Tsypkin's 'Summer in Baden-Baden' is brilliant. Quite frankly, Dostoevsky was irritable, petty, jealous, obsessive, and an overall pain in the ass. He was extremely awkward, and blurted out all the wrong things in social situations - which is far from the very suave character we see in Gregory Peck. His treatment of his second wife was poor to say the least, pawning off her things again and again to throw money away at the roulette wheel, thinking he had a system. He wrote 'The Gambler' at the same time as 'Crime and Punishment' in the attempt to offset his business failure and gambling debt. He famously met the more polished and Westernized Russian author Ivan Turgenev at Baden, and the pair took an instant dislike to one another because of their differences. Dostoevsky had been humiliated in prison, suffered from epileptic fits, was afraid of being laughed at, and desperately wanted to be accepted. He knew what suffering was, and gave alms to every beggar he saw, almost to a comical degree, but he was also a nationalist and an anti-Semite.
There is so much material there and my expectations were low relative to an American film in 1949 (even from Siodmak), but when I think of the simplicity of what was actually put on film - relative to the novella or its author - it just seems very bland. It probably could have been trimmed; it takes 50 minutes for Peck's character to begin to get gambling fever. The back half is laborious and it's also got a silly moment when the owner of the casino forgives a massive debt out of honor, which certainly didn't ring true. Overall watchable for the cast, but a missed opportunity.