Jason Fraley is a Movie and Entertainment reporter for Radio and TV station WTOP in Washington DC, and I have become familiar with his work via both podcasts and Facebook. Throughout the month of July, he has been offering Top 30 lists in thirty different genres....Comedy, Drama, Crime, Musicals, Romantic Comedies...you get the idea. It's been fun to read them and say things like "How could he put THIS ahead of THAT?" or "How could he possibly not include 'The Music Man' in his top thirty musicals?" (ahem!). Anyway, I read his list of Gangster Movies (Godfather and Godfather Part II were an entry at Number One), and I earmarked three movies from the list that I had never seen and vowed to make it a point to watch as soon as possible.
Last night I watched the first of these. From 1980 and director Louis Malle, "Atlantic City."
The movie starred Burt Lancaster as Lou, an aging, two-bit, yet self-aggrandizing hustler/gangster and Susan Sarandon as Sally, a woman from a broken marriage in Canada who comes to Atlantic City to learn to become a casino dealer with dreams of working her way to a big time casino in Monaco. The movie takes place as Atlantic City tries to transition itself from a seedy beach resort into a glitzy and glamorous gambling mecca resort destination. Trust me, Malle captures "seedy" perfectly. Lou and Sally live in the same dumpy apartment building that is soon scheduled for demolition, and old Lou has made it a habit of observing Sally through the window as she performs her ritualistic ablutions every night at the kitchen sink. Lemons never were more sexy!
Breezing into their lives comes Sally's no account husband, her sister who is now about eight months pregnant with hubby's baby, and a kilo or so of cocaine that hubby has stolen from the Philly Mob. Lou somehow falls into teaming up with the kid to peddle the dope and get a score the likes of which he has never seen, the Philly mobsters show up in AC looking for their coke, their money, and their revenge, not necessarily in that order, and Sarandon's life and dreams are thrown into complete disarray.
Sounds like a hokey potboiler, but it's not, not by a long shot. The movie was nominated for five Academy Awards back when it was released: Best Picture, Actor (Lancaster), Actress (Sarandon), Director (Malle), and Screenplay. It didn't win any of them, but that takes nothing away from what is a terrific movie. Lancaster is absolutely fantastic as he talks about the old days ("You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean back then."). He is mesmerizing in every scene that he is in. Susan Sarandon was 34 years old when she made this movie, and she is beautiful, sexy, naive, frightened, and bewildered throughout the movie. Both fully deserved those Oscar nominations.
Some scenes from the movie....
Seedy Atlantic City
Sexy Susan as Sally
Susan and Burt
as
Sally and Lou
I found "Atlantic City" to be just a fabulous movie. Great performances by the two stars and the supporting cast, and a gritty and realistic portrayal of a decaying - both physically and morally - city. Not sure how I missed it back in 1980, but, then again, I was in a whole different place in my life forty (!!!!) years ago.
The Grandstander gives it Three and One-half Stars.
Oh, and the other two movies from Fraley's list I plan on watching? Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets" and Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." Stay tuned.
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