Friday, June 23, 2023

Gambling Ship (1933)

      "Grant proves his potentialities for femme box office for this inept assignment..."

With Benita Hume.

Gambling Ship - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"A fair flicker.  Of the gangster meller genera with a new slant in the gambling ship locale off the coast of Long Beach, California.  Another new angle is in the finale where the ship's anchor is cast loose and the waves are permitted to sweep the anti-element off into the briny while the sympathetic faction of the lawless lot fights its way to safety and a suggestion of regeneration for the happy ending.  

Cary Grant is the big shot gambler who thinks he's found the real thing in Benita Hume, a gambler's moll, during their cross-country trek from Chicago to Los Angeles.  The fact that it's an open-and-shut 'make' on the part of both principals establishes a dubious premise from which to evolve the highly romantic aura which has been essayed.  Grant thinks Miss Hume is the McCoy on the swank stuff.  

Film doesn't drag, save in negligible moments, but in toto it's a familiar formula of mob vs. mob with the sympathetic Grant commandeering one bunch to hijack La Rue's more sinister hoodlums.  Speaking of sinisterness, La Rue should never go Raftish and try to act up as a hero; he's the most repellent villyun in major film league and he'll stay on top of the batting order if he doesn't get the Rover Boy complex.  Grant proves his potentialities for femme box office with this inept assignment; ditto Miss Hume, who makes a difficult, chameleon characterization sound almost convincing.

Abel Green, Variety

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 -
Number 11 - Gambling Ship (Lobby Card Style)

Part Of


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