The Only Game in Town: A Review

 

THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

Las Vegas, Nevada can be a center of vice, where love is sometimes treated as a gamble. The Only Game in Town, based on a play, has our couple roll the dice to see if they come up winners amidst the glitz and glamour of Sin City. 

Fading Las Vegas showgirl Fran Walker (Elizabeth Taylor) wanders through her life and into a pizza parlor where she spots piano player Joe Grady (Warren Beatty). They go back to her place, where after a tryst they learn about each other.

Joe is close to having $5,000 saved up to leave Las Vegas and start a new life in New York. Fran waits for her married lover, Thomas J. Lockwood, to finally leave his wife and marry her. Despite themselves, they begin what both insist is a no-strings-attached relationship, friends with benefits before the term existed.

Joe manages to hit it big and wins $6,000 on his $2,000 savings. However, their celebration is short-lived as he succumbs to his gambling addiction and loses it all. With nowhere to go, he accepts Fran's offer to stay with him. Their relationship grows despite both wanting to keep things casual. Things become complicated when Tom (Charles Braswell) unexpectedly shows up. He now is finally free, presenting his mistress his divorce papers and urges her to marry him and go to Europe. Will Fran pick up and leave Joe? Will Joe keep repeating his pattern of coming up a winner only to not know when to quit? 

It is a major credit to director George Stevens in his final film that one rarely if ever notices that The Only Game in Town is essentially a two-person filmed play. Fran and Joe do almost all their interactions with just each other, even when we see them out such as a trip to Lake Tahoe or a supermarket. Most of the action takes place in Fran's apartment, with some in the pizza parlor where Joe works. The Only Game in Town keeps its focus on the two characters to where while you may be conscious of the staging, it never feels dry or dull.

Rather, the audience is focused on the situations these two people are in. Their sense of loneliness, of inertia as Fran puts it, their ability to connect when they do not plan to all works well in the film. That they spend so much time together, arguing one moment, laughing the next, gives those few times when they are outside a bit more poignancy. A very moving scene is where Joe, happy to have more than enough to leave, squires Fran about town. He hits a craps table and soon becomes focused on that. Fran is initially happy, but slowly sees that he has an addiction. She moves further and further away until she leaves, he oblivious to her absence.

It is a well-crafted moment, carried by Taylor and Beatty's looks and Maurice Jarre's excellent score that blends upbeat and downbeat jazz. The Only Game in Town gives viewers strong acting performances from both Taylor and Beatty. Taylor does quite well as Fran, this lonely showgirl pining for something more.

I can see how perhaps her scenes with Braswell when Tom makes an unexpected visit might be a bit overdramatic. To be fair, her character is put in a very difficult situation, so I cut her some slack for being a bit overwrought. However, Taylor handles silences well and is capable of holding her own whenever Beatty's Joe makes quips. In fact, it is through Frank D. Gilroy's adaptation of his play that we see the counter between Fran's more direct manner and Joe's need to make his idea of clever comebacks and jokes.

"Make yourself comfortable," Fran tells Joe before they go to bed. "I always do," is his response. As they negotiate terms for him staying with her, Fran remarks about how he will be good for when Tom does not come. "So, you're with me for immoral support," he wisecracks. Beatty is not naturally funny, but in The Only Game in Town it works for Joe's poor efforts at humor, which mask a great fear of falling in love.

The Only Game in Town offers the actors a chance to have intelligent things to say. Realizing that Joe has become her lover and perhaps her friend, Tom acknowledges that he has no right to complain. "A man who doesn't call for six months deserves an unexpected surprise," he tells Fran. His monologue about their Sunday in Monterey, while Fran is calling Joe in a failed effort to say goodbye, works quite well among Taylor, Braswell and Beatty. 

As previously mentioned, Maurice Jarre's score is wonderful, enhancing the drama and romance underneath both Fran and Tony's hard shells.

I think the film may be longer than needed, perhaps in an effort to make it less stagey. Ironically, it had the opposite effect to where you felt it was padding when a simpler take would have been better. The film does not move too far away from what one could see as a stage adaptation, but it was of a major distraction or hindrance.

The Only Game in Town touches on themes of reluctant love, these two ships passing in the night which end up finding themselves. Again, perhaps longer than it should be, The Only Game in Town is an undiscovered and underappreciated film. 

DECISION: B-