Tempting Trap

"Gambler's Paradise," the city is labeled. But anyone who has visited Las Vegas knows that the slogan is a contradiction in terms. In the neon wilderness, blue-haired ladies pull on the one-armed bandits as if they were lifelines; at the card and crap tables, aggressive customers line up like lambs for the fleecing. Like a Vegas concession, The Only Game in Town is a tempting trap. The odds look attractive: Elizabeth Taylor back at her fighting weight, Warren Beatty in his first film since Bonnie and Clyde, both directed by George Stevens (Shane, Giant). But the result is as empty as a croupier's spiel.

For the minuscule cast is trapped in Frank Gilroy's anemic narrative of a boozy loser and his new-found chick. Pianist Joe Grady (Beatty) plays gigs at a downtown bar, trying to raise the fare to New York and a fresh start. Fran (Taylor) is a chorine waiting for her paramour to obtain a divorce and altar her situation. In a matter of moments, Fran and Joe become casual lovers playing for time--and losing. He keeps dicing away his savings; Mr. Right fails to come to her rescue on schedule. While they run in place, Gilroy furnishes them with crapped-out dialogue: "I've met some nuts in my time, but you take the cake," "Never darken my door again unless it's for keeps," and "Which is worse, the heart abused or the heart unused?" For those who cannot answer that question, the film provides a clue: when the boy friend finally arrives with a divorce decree, ten-carat ring and oleaginous smirk, Fran decides that Real Love, after all, is the only game in town.

Stevens, who directed Taylor in one of her finest performances, in A Place in the Sun, here provides his star with an artificial stammer and some gross closeups. Beatty's hip swagger gives his part some edge, but it is continually blunted by flat, stagy confrontations that border on the claustrophobic. Occasionally the vulgar energy of Vegas makes itself felt, notably at the gambling tables, where the nervous gaiety breaks down into brilliant rhinestone cackles and suicidal moans. But such moments are rare. For the most part, the audience, like the gamblers, gets taken to the cleaners.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.