Gambling/Con/Scam Movies

[Adrian Kuiper]

I notice that Shade is scheduled for release on May 25th. There have been many other movies that magicians, as a whole, would be interested in. "The Grifters" is another that comes to mind. Is there a list of them? Or can we get one started?

Email me with titles and I'll compile the list.

Thanks...
Adrian

[Guest]

Harry in Your Pocket
The Flim Flam Man
The Hustler
Freaks
Eternally Yours
Nightmare Alley
Monster Midway
Little Miss Marker

Several W.C.Fields movies, a Cary Grant movie where he was a con artist and ran a gambling night for charity, can't think of the name of it, etc. Froma magic standpoint there are a bunch of things that are of interest for the bit parts that magicians played, and from a con point there are a lot of movies with intricate cons built in (House of Games). Then the associated arts like Circus and Carny, and Vent - lots of things with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Don't forget the Mandrake the Magician serials, Chandu serials, Abbott and Costello did a movie featuring magic, and of course the Houdini feature films. There is a book called "The Magician and the Cinema" by Eric Barknow, I think, that covers much of this. Hope that gets you started, it's all I could think of right off...

Best, PSC

[Jerry Harrell]

The Cary Grant film was Mr. Lucky (1943) Blake Edwards later turned that into a (short-lived) television series.

You could put just about any film by David Mamet on your list, and you don't want to forget The Sting.

[sleightly]

Some relatively contemporary films:

Confidence
Matchstick Men
Ocean's Eleven
Rounders
Paper Moon
The Hustler
The Color of Money

...

[David Garrity]

Jerry mentioned Mamet films, here are a few titles to get you started:

The Spanish Prisoner
House of Games
Heist

[Steve Bryant]

The Lady Eve
The Cincinnati Kid

[Ian Kendall]

How about The Escape Artist?

Take care, Ian

[Guest]

National Velvet?

kidding...

[Bob Farmer]

One of my favorites iS DIGSTOWN (or that could be DIGGSTOWN).

[Pete McCabe]

Diggstown has some great moments. I love the one where James Woods flicks the cap of a bottle of (I think) Jack Daniels with his thumb, and the top unscrews itself, flies off, and lands on the table, where it continues to spin for several seconds. So much character revealed in one single, fascinating action.

[Bob Farmer]

Pete, I loved it because the twist depends on an unforeseen loophole in the game's rules.

The book the movie is based on is interesting, but makes the love story, girl-discovering-herself theme much more important (and thus loses its guys-nite-out approval).

ANGEL HEART is a sort of scam movie, both on the main character and the audience.

And let's not forget BLOOD SIMPLE, where everyone scams everyone else, all for the wrong reasons and the only entity that knows the trut of the situations is the audience.

[Bob Farmer]

ROUNDERS is a great card cheat flick and CROUPIER is sort of in the same class.

[Guest]

Don't forget about that great 1973 flick THE STING.

[Carl Mercurio]

The Sting! The card-cutting sequence was one of the three main reasons I got into magic...The others were the beer commercial with Scarne's hands doing a pressure fan and two-card transpo, and Doug Henning doing the Gene Anderson tear....

[Jerry Harrell]

Actually mentioned The Sting in the third post. Those were John Scarne's hands doing all of Paul Newman's card manipulations in that film.

[Guest]

Sorry, Jerry, didn't see your post.

[Guest]

Not exactly in the grifter category, but the film "The Brother From Another Planet" has a sequence, where this cocky kid performs some manifestation of "Sam the Bellhop" for the Alien/protagonist whil riding a train.

I bought the movie at a discount video store. They practically gave it to me. I know why now.