THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

US, 1970, 112 minutes, Colour.
Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty.
Directed by George Stevens.

The Only Game in Town is based on a play by Frank D. Gilroy, who had such success with The Subject Was Roses. The widescreen colour treatment of a play containing two characters means that the film seems out of proportion, overblown and, with not enough action to fill the screen, sometimes quite dull. The characters are also unsympathetic at first and it takes some time for the audience to get to understand them. When this does happen, the film picks up and there is fine dialogue in sequences later in the film about the prospects of marriage for the couple. The stars act well, but George Stevens (A Place in the Sun, Giant). has done much better than this. This is no must, but, given its limitations, it raises some basic human questions.

1. A discussion of the personalities of the two characters, their obvious defects and their causes, their likeability, the interest and sympathy that their story rouses.

2. Las Vegas is a prison. Neither character seems able to escape. What are the bars? Why is it a symbolic 20th century prison?

3. Marriage - what each fears, what prospects of success and permanence such a marriage would have?

4. What alternatives did they have - dancing, gambling, piano-playing, drifting, sponging from others?

5. The problem of the gambler - his compulsion, need for deceit, recklessness, inability to overcome his addiction, need for help from other people?

6. The heroine's fear of marriage and self-giving because of her childhood and background. The desire to commit herself but the psychological block?

7. The necessity of hesitating before judging people from externals.