The Lady Gambles

Joan goes to Las Vegas with David, her husband, a reporter working on a story. To pass the time she sits down at a table. The game takes hold of her quickly; the more she loses the more she plays, and eventually she starts borrowing his expense money. The marriage breaks, and David will not give up on her. Michael Gordon's film is one of the few from the forties to take gambling addiction seriously, and it puts a woman at the centre of it. Barbara Stanwyck plays the part without inviting pity and without condemning her. It uses the light and the cutting of film noir with no crime in it at all; the only offence is sitting down. It shows what addiction does scene by scene rather than in the language of therapy.