Sunday, January 19, 2020

Louis Malle's Atlantic City (1980)


It would make a good double feature with Stanley Kubrick's Killer's Kiss. They both had the protagonist becoming smitten with a neighbor lady while spying on her through her window. 

In Atlantic City, Burt Lancaster plays a dapper yet down-and-out aging criminal. He brags about his past ties to historic figures in organized crime. He comes to the aid of Susan Sarandon who wants to work her way up to blackjack dealer at the casino she works at and to eventually make her way to Monte Carlo. She has a couple of mobsters after her.

The movie is listed on The Criterion Channel as a romance. It's sort of like The Way We Were---the couple slowly gets together, they're together and happy for about thirty seconds and they start to drift apart.

We learn that if casino security asks you to leave, shouting at them will make them even less apt to let you stay. The polite hippie girl managed to stay while Susan Sarandon was hustled out of there.

Lancaster was in his late 60's. It was nice to see a relatively old guy in a movie who didn't have any serious medical problems.

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