The Only Game in Town (1970)

Director:

George Stevens

Writers:

Frank D. Gilroy (play)
Frank D. Gilroy (screenplay)

Release Date:

21 January 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Dice was his vice. Men hers.

Plot:

Fran walks into a piano bar for pizza. She comes back home with Joe, the piano player. Joe plans on winning $5,000 and leave Las Vegas. Fran waits for something else. Meanwhile, he moves in with her.

Plot Keywords:

Las Vegas Nevada | Based On Play | Title Spoken By Character

Cast

Elizabeth Taylor	...	Fran Walker
Warren Beatty	...	Joe Grady
Charles Braswell	...	Lockwood
Hank Henry	...	Tony
Olga Valéry	...	Hooker (as Olga Valery)

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

West Germany:16 (f) | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Because Elizabeth Taylor wanted to be near husband Richard Burton, who was at the time filming Staircase (1969) in Europe, she demanded this film, with its Las Vegas setting, be filmed in Paris, France. The studio agreed, thereby increasing the budget considerably as detailed American streetscapes, casinos, apartments and supermarkets had to be recreated in Paris. In the end (after 86 days shooting in Paris) the company had to move to the real Las Vegas anyway for ten additional days of intensive shooting.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (2003)

Bad casting, bad script, unlovable characters, utter failure

Except for the widescreen image, one might think this a low-budget, made-for-TV movie: except that Liz Taylor was priced out of such efforts. The script is abominable, and it is impossible to develop any rapport with the over-aged delinquents that Fran Taylor (Elizabeth Taylor) and Joe Grady (Warren Beatty) portray. It is obvious enough that Las Vegas, even more the focus of low-brow, bad-taste materialism in America at the time, would be garish enough, but the domestic set is no relief.

It's hard to imagine the (then in her late thirties) Elizabeth Taylor being cast as a chorus girl, and perhaps such was the attraction of this play as a fountain of youth for her. I could imagine her as a choreographer or as a trainer of chorus girls, but not (with her build) as a chorus girl herself. Warren Beatty plays a singularly one-dimensional character, a superstitious, money-obsessed gambler, and not a good one. Both characters can hardly elicit any sympathy from either of us.

The play, should it have ever been transformed into a cinematic project of any kind, could just as well have been done as a low-budget made-for-TV movie with the use of casino scenes in Las Vegas and nearby sets. Instead, the ethos of this movie remains Warren Beatty fashioning a $100 bill into a boat and letting it sail down a drain way to a gutter. Too bad for all the starving children (adaptation of a line from the play), says Grady, in a time in which $100 was a week's salary for many people.

The investment was huge, and it seems to have gone into the gutter.

Avoid it.