Tonight's double feature spotlights the great Barbara Stanwyck.
First up- at 7:30 PM THE LADY GAMBLES (1949) Barbara Stanwyck delivers another great performance as a woman whose appetite for gambling destroys her marriage and threatens her life. The on-location scenes of early Las Vegas are great fun, but things turn harrowing as Stanwyck spirals into addiction. Writer Roy Huggins and director Michael Gordon are surprisingly frank and brutal for the time, especially when Stanwyck is caught cheating at back-alley craps.
SORRY, WRONG NUMBER follows at 9:30 PM. Barbara Stanwyck gives a tour-de-force performance (Oscar-nominated) as a bedridden woman who, through crossed phone wires, overhears a murder being planned. This engrossing extension of the legendary 22-minute radio drama is pure noir, tracking an ill-fated romance that spirals into deceit, despair, and death. Featuring Burt Lancaster in one of his earliest roles, mesmerizing direction by Anatole Litvak, and richly atmospheric camerawork by the great Sol Polito. Famous, yet still underrated




Reply With Quote

