Who's Got the Action?

Wouldn't you know it? Dean Martin has a gambling problem, or at least his wife Lana Turner thinks so, in this relatively unknown but worthwhile movie. This Lana/Dean teaming is an hilarious hoot to watch. While it may seem a bit incredible to believe, if you just sit back and relax, you'll find plenty of laughs. With a great cast featuring Walter Matthau, Paul Ford, Eddie Albert, Eddie's wife in real life Margo, as the maid, and Nita Talbot as Lana's next door neighbor with great taste in decorating. Dean's presence gives the film the why-do-I-care-about-anything feel to it, and Lana's misadventures make for chaos in this madcap tale of betting on the right horse!

"Who's Got the Action" is a forgettable time-passer. I wasn't totally surprised, as the film starred Lana Turner...and by 1962 the quality of her films had diminished considerably. I was surprised, however, to see a major star at the time, Dean Martin, in such a slight film.

Martin plays a husband who loves to gamble on the horses. He's not very good at it and the wife wants to teach him a bizarre lesson...she sets herself up as a bookie for him because she KNOWS he'll lose a lot of money. The problem is that he starts winning big...and others notice and join him in betting with this mystery bookie. Soon, real gangsters are noticing they're losing clients and they are NOT happy.

The film is supposed to be a comedy but there really weren't many laughs. Add to that one of Walter Matthau's worst performances and you've got a movie that should have been better but wasn't.

This one isn't all that bad...really! Dean Martin was well-cast as a guy whose gambling addiction causes his wife, played by Lana Turner, to concoct a scheme to keep him out of debt by secretly becoming his "bookie." Trouble is, he hits a winning streak and she has to sell off jewelry, furnishings and other baubles to pay off his windfall. Before Walter Matthau became a major name-above-the-title headliner, he played "Tony Gagoots," big-time bookie with an elaborately concealed electronic control room for his illegal empire, and he's partnered with Nita Talbot, as his main squeeze, "Saturday Knight," and she's one of this film's comic highlights. There are also Eddie Albert and his wife, Margo, on hand to lend amusing and very professional support and the whole thing is prettily mounted in Panavision (which means that the VHS version is probably "formatted" - not a plus!) and Technicolor. It's an early-Sixties example of what TIME magazine, in a fairly positive review, called a "yak derby" and, if you're a fan of those two always-funny character actors, Paul Ford and John McGiver, they have a few moments in this one that lend to the proceedings some genuinely winning laughs.

This is an example of what Hollywood was doing, or becoming, in the 60s. Basically television.

The opening scenes of this motion picture were bizarrely generic. A middle aged couple leaves an apartment building for a cab ride to a restaurant all of which plays under the opening credits. It's dialogue-free and the couple turns out to be Dean Martin and a matronly Lana Turner. The silly nothings continue as Dean is interrupted, continually, by phone calls from (his bookie?) and his romantic date, with his wife, goes down the... I don't know this is where I bailed.

Hollywood was trying to squeeze the last drop of revenue from existing resources (sound stages, big name stars and supporting actors, technical and administrative support). I didn't recognize Lana Turner even after she started talking. Never a big fan but aware of her work. The middle-aged Turner was not instantly recognizable, like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis or more recently Jane Fonda or Helen Mirren. This was essentially a domestic sit-com with lies, misapprehensions and bizarre inferences (no doubt) throughout. Supporting cast upholds the resource theory: mostly contract support players from the 40s and 50s.

Post-war Hollywood was teeming with "guys" who could write this stuff, with experience dating back to the 30s, and endless reserves of pretty people who could sell the same old three-act formula ad infinitum, hour-long for dramas, 30 minutes for comedies.

It went on through the 70s before new formats began to emerge in the evolution of what we now call long-form serial entertainment. So this movie? Blech.

Dean Martin, Lana Turner, Eddie Albert, Paul Ford, John McGiver, and Walter Matthau star in this pretty funny movie about gambling, the mob, and horse races. Mom was confused by the plot and while part of me was too, I managed to laugh at many of the visual and verbal gags and characterizations that abounded. Especially seeing Matthau do some of his familiar deliveries brought a smile to my face. In other words, Who's Got the Action was enjoyable passable entertainment.