King of Gamblers

Lloyd Nolan and Akim Tamiroff brilliantly portray light versus dark, kind versus cruel, as reporter Jim Adams and gangster Steve Kolkas, respectively, in Robert Florey’s quite underrated King of Gamblers. Claire Trevor plays nightclub singer Dixie Moore, the woman at the nexus who ultimately must choose between Adams’ wit, helpfulness, and good intentions and Kolkas’ Godfather-like power and money, which includes income from blackmailing the likes of J.G. Temple (Harvey Stephens) whose last-ditch attempt to extricate himself from Kolkas’ grip sends him flying down an elevator shaft. While Dixie initially accepts Kolkas’ affections, especially when they take the form of a fancy new apartment, things destabilize when her best friend from the club, Jackie Nolan (Helen Burgess), is kidnapped and killed. At this point, Adams is roped in to help the distraught Dixie track down the real story by investigating all the underworld characters who appear to be under Kolkas’ thumb. Despite plenty of lighthearted moments involving Nolan, Florey’s film is especially dark for 1937, children getting bombed to death in the first few minutes, but it jots along at a fast pace, twisting through a drawn-out cat and mouse game in which a rotary phone serves as a key plot point. The noir aesthetic is also on display here, the crew’s use of extreme low-key lighting, closeups, over-the-shoulder shots, Venetian blind shadows, Dutch angles, and camera rotation adding a reckless intensity to the many scenes of conflict and confrontation.