The Only Game in Town (film)
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| The Only Game in Town | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | George Stevens |
| Produced by | Fred Kohlmar |
| Written by | Frank D. Gilroy |
| Starring | Elizabeth Taylor Warren Beatty |
| Music by | Maurice Jarre |
| Cinematography | Henri Decaë |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | 1970 |
| Running time | 113 min |
| IMDb profile | |
The Only Game in Town is a 1970 American drama film, the last directed by George Stevens. The screenplay by Frank D. Gilroy is based on his play of the same name which had a brief run on Broadway in 1968 [1].
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[edit] Synopsis
Aging Las Vegas chorine Fran Walker drifts into an affair with lounge pianist and compulsive gambler Joe Grady while waiting for her married lover, San Francisco businessman Thomas Lockwood, to finalize the divorce he has been promising to get for the past five years. By the time Lockwood keeps his word and is free to marry his mistress, she finds she's fallen in love with Joe, who has finally accumulated enough money to fulfill his dream of relocating to New York City and beginning a new life there. Faced with the choice of a possible career in Manhattan or marriage to Fran, Joe opts for the latter.
[edit] Production notes
The 20th Century Fox release was budgeted at $11,000,000 due to Elizabeth Taylor's insistence it be shot in Paris so she could be near her then-husband Richard Burton, who was working on Staircase with Rex Harrison at the time. It grossed only $1,500,000 in the US.
Frank Sinatra originally signed to play Joe, but when Taylor became ill and filming was postponed, he had to drop out of the project to fulfill another commitment and was replaced by Warren Beatty.
Screenwriter Gilroy's experience making the film inspired him to write and direct the 1978 movie Once in Paris, which focused on his chauffeur during the Only Game shoot. Gilroy was so fascinated by the man he cast the driver as himself.
[edit] Principal cast
- Elizabeth Taylor ..... Fran Walker
- Warren Beatty ..... Joe Grady
- Charles Braswell ... Thomas Lockwood
[edit] Critical reception
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby stated, "Assigning [Stevens, Beatty, and Taylor] to the film version of Frank D. Gilroy's small, sentimental, Broadway flop is rather like trying to outfit a leaky Central Park rowboat for a celebrity cruise through the Greek islands. The result is a phenomenological disaster . . . Nothing in The Only Game in Town seems quite on the up and up. Everything, including both the humor and the pathos, is bogus." [2]
Time Out London calls it "a hoarily old-fashioned romantic comedy . . . [with] occasional moments of life injected by Taylor and Beatty." [3]
TV Guide says, "Although some of the dialog sparkles, in general, [the film] is overly talkly and thinly plotted, a programmer dressed up in ermine." [4]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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