College literature professor Axel Freed (superbly played with bracing intensity by James Caan) can't control his ever-worsening gambling habit despite the fact that he owes $44,000 dollars to some local mobsters.Director Karel Reisz relates the riveting story at a steady pace and maintains an unsparingly bleak tone that becomes more increasingly dark and despairing in its unflinching depiction of Axel's downward spiral into total corruption and moral erosion that's wrought by his ruthless using (and eventual losing) of everyone around him as a means of keeping himself out of the hole he has dug for himself. James Toback's grimly compelling script astutely captures the self-destructive nature of compulsive gambling with no possibility of redemption and a startling bummer ending which packs a super harsh punch.Caan does an expert job of portraying a man who only feels most alive when he's teetering on the edge of the abyss. Moreover, there are excellent supporting contributions from Paul Sorvino as concerned bookie Hips, Lauren Hutton as fed-up long-suffering girlfriend Billie, Jacqueline Brookes as Axel's disgusted mother Naomi, Morris Carnovsky as Axel's wise and wealthy grandfather A.R. Lowenthal, Burt Young as amiable, yet brutish collector Carmine, Vic Tayback as fearsome capo One, and Steven Keats as pathetic junkie Howie. Popping up in nifty bits are James Woods as an uncooperative jerk of a bank officer, Antonio Fargas as a vicious pimp, M.Emmet Walsh as a jolly gambler, and Stuart Margolin as a loudmouth cowboy. Victor J. Kemper's shadowy cinematography provides a gritty noir look. A potent and gripping knockout.

"The Gambler" (1974) is a riveting drama about a man who - like many young adults in the baby boom generation - rejects the world of privilege and comfort he has been born into. Rather than turning to some form of counter-culture politics, however, Alex Freed (James Caan) holds an establishment job as a professor of English while pursuing "the juice" of financial, social, and even physical risk and pain during his considerable free time.Like Dostoyevski's Underground Man, to whom the screenplay pays homage in an early scene of Freed lecturing to his students at NYC (i. e. CCNY), "the gambler" rejects the middle class world of reason and social convention and instead embraces the irrational, the realm of will and desire where two plus two can equal five and where poets, athletes, and addicts can "know" and experience things that ordinary human beings living in the rut of mundane existence cannot.Unfortunately for Freed he will never be a poet although, as a literature professor, he can quote Shakespeare, e.e. cummings, and Walt Whitman with anyone. He can also turn an original phrase or two and lead his relatives, friends, and other less literary folk to believe that he has great books in him. But the truth is that he's a third rate talent stuck in a $1500 a month gig trying to wheedle literary appreciation out of reluctant undergrads who are obviously going through the motions to get paper qualified for one pragmatic goal or another.He is also not a great athlete although he kids himself about how he might have been a star basketball player - even, at one point, stopping at a playground in Harlem to take on a local 15 year old hot shot in a game of one-on-one, betting $20 to a dime that he will win. He gives the hot shot a pretty good game, but loses, thus establishing the real extent of his athletic talent for us - and perhaps himself - to see. No, the only sure and easy way he can get the juice is through gambling and the self deceptions about winning and losing that his compulsive behavior entails.Considering the barrage of searing insults that Harvard-educated Axel Freed hurls at the Brown University (my alma mater) football team, I would like to say very bad things about this film, but I'd be lying. Written by heralded screenwriter James Toback ("Fingers," "Bugsy," etc.) and featuring one of James Caan's finest performances, "The Gambler" has deservedly become a 1970s cult classic.

Gritty James Caan (Axel Freed) vehicle about addiction and its spillover into a pool of stark consequences. Hard to classify movie: Is it a dark drama or a complicated character study? It's a little of both, really. Caan, sporting hip clothes and a fresh perm, has everything a bachelor could wish for in life. He has a beautiful girl friend, doting, rich parents and a prestigious career. But there is little in life that can halt his appetite for gambling. Nothing. It's his true love. The movie straddles a New York underworld filled with loan sharks, violent thugs and pimps. On the bright side of the fence, however, is a world of family, love and literature. The film embraces the civil things in life: books, art, classical music. "Axel" (the perfect name for a failed hustler) and his mother even play the very civilized game of tennis, just before he hits her up for some cash. Later on in the film, he takes her to Coney Island for a swim. Their relationship is a solid one. She's a doctor--and her need to repair her broken son is evident throughout the picture. His father is a different story: a sell-made man, he doesn't understand his son's choice of girl, friends, career or lifestyle. Paul Sorvino is excellent as a collector of gambling debts, who admires Axel and his love of the arts. He has a soft spot for him, but that doesn't stop him from taking a swing at him. Axel blocks the punch (something rare for this character type) but not the reason for the blow. The location shooting in New York is spot on. The scenes at C.C.N.Y. stand on their own. They will make you check out the classics the next time you visit the library. I'll bet Axel's last dollar on that one. Promise.

The Gambler is still after thirty years the definitive movie about the gambling experience. I remember the first time i saw this movie when i was in my mid-teens. I had just started my own personal gambling journey, attending my local dog track. There was something very special about this movie and i knew it would have a profound effect on my life. From the beginning, The Gambler is a very dark movie. The opening scenes are of James Caan leaving a casino in the early hours of the morning after losing heavily at the tables. He drives his car recalling his losses and curses to himself. The movie soundtrack plays Gustav Mahler's 1st Symphony (this piece sets the whole tone for the movie in my opinion). Mahler is great for tragedy (remember Death in Venice). Caan's character, Axel Freed, then wipes himself out completely, losing his last 20 bucks to some guys playing basketball for small change. This is the first indication as to Axel's self-destructiveness, that he is always looking for a 'result', be it good or bad. We learn that Axel is a an educated man, very educated. He teaches English as a University Professor. In his gambling though he chooses to play the fool, perhaps purposely. He avoids the 'locks' and sure things and instead courts uncertainty in his never ending craving for thrills and experience. Unless his bet is good for 'action', then it is no good at all. Unfortunately for Axel and everyone he loves (mother, girlfriend, grandfather) this cavalier style of play leads to nothing but financial misery and breakdown of valued relationships (particularly that with his mother, which is also key to the whole film). He is a martingale player in the true sense (double or nothing). One day everything seems to go right and he reaches a plateau when doubling on 18 and drawing a 3! He wins enough to break free from his shylocks, but is still not satisfied and he risks all his profits from his good day on a game of basketball. The scene when he loses this bet in the last second of the game listening to the commentary in the bath is incredibly real to anyone who has gambled for 'proper' money and lost will testify. That feeling of being absolutely sick to your stomach, not to mention the feelings of isolation, guilt and plain stupidity. The film could of ended there in a way, but it goes to another level. To finally free himself of the money lenders (local mob), Axel agrees to fix a college basketball game where he teaches by bribing one of his English students who is the star player on the team. In a close game Axel's student comes through and his debts are cleared. As at the start of the film though, Axel is still looking for a result. The only gamble left to him, is that of his own life. He walks into a bar and picks up a prostitute in the Harlem district of New York. Then he purposely does not pay her which provokes her pimp (Antonio Fargas a.k.a Huggy Bear) into drawing a knife on him. Caan pushes himself onto the knife, daring the pimp to kill him. Fargas pushes him away and Caan begins to beat on him relentlessly. As he drops his knife, the hooker picks it up and slashes Caan. Staggering from the building, Axel sees his reflection. Blood pours from the wound. He smiles to himself, he has his result! Mahler plays... Also watch out for the scene in the film when Axel and leg-breaker for one of the loan sharks visit a guy who cant pay. The first time you watch this its terrifying.