John Litel was adept at playing both good guys and bad guys. Here he is a bit of a gray character as John Hewitt, a bank employee who joins his brother-in-law (his late wife's brother) at the races one day. John does not gamble and is shy to get started, but he is persuaded to place a two dollar bet and wins ten dollars. Then he bets that ten dollars and winds up with two hundred. He uses the money to buy his two teen daughters a second-hand car and wonders - why not keep gambling as long as he's winning to get his girls the things they want. He starts betting with a bookmaker, and at first he is winning big, but then his luck turns and he owes the bookmaker money. He steals a thousand dollars from the bank's safe to pay him. He bets more, trying to dig himself out of a hole, until he's stolen fourteen thousand dollars of the bank's money and lost all of it gambling. And believe it or not, things go downhill from there.
Like I said in the title, John Litel makes this film. I could actually see this happening to someone, and he's very authentic and sympathetic as a middle-class widower who gets over his head trying to get his daughters a better life and ultimately ends up risking the entire family's reputation with his misdeeds. Not to mention, Marie Windsor plays someone who John thinks is a friend when - after all - this is Marie Windsor we're talking about! As far as I know she never played a nun in her career!
What's bad about it are the scenes at Hewitt's home where his two teen daughters seem to be holding constant dance parties with some of the most cornball dialogue in the history of cinema. Fortunately these scenes don't last that long. If they did I'd subtract a star for them. The best thing about them is getting to see Carl Switzer (Alfalfa of Our Gang) all grown up. Oddly he's playing a football player which, at his size, I just don't buy at all.
