Men of Chance

From rko, martha and gertie (mary astor, kitty kelly) are in paris, pretending to be royalty to attract a man. Also in paris is famous gambler john silk (ricardo). Fellow americans dorval and farley are also here, trying to get back some of the dough they have lost to silk over the years. Intrigue as each party tries to put one over on the others. Things take a serious turn when silk proposes to martha. Can she get out of this? And does she want to ? What will happen if all the lies are exposed? Mary astor had started in the silents, and even won the oscar for great lie 1941. Although we probably all know her better from falcon. I'm surprised that she wasn't even nominated for falcon, but i guess we can't be greedy. Directed by george archainbaud. He had started in the early days of silent film. Directed the 1939 version of some like it hot. Which has nothing to do with the 1959 version. Story by louis weitzenkorn. Had several projects made into film, but died young at 49. He was a newspaper editor, and even wrote a play about the business. It was later turned into a film. Men of chance is good; a snapshot of the times... organized crime running the rackets, women just looking for a husband. Any husband.

In Men of Chance, Mary Astor finds herself poor and destitute in Paris. When she gets arrested for suspected prostitution, when all she was doing was allowing a fellow traveler to sit beside her at a café, she thinks the worst has happened. Then, John Halliday comes to her rescue and reinvents her image as a rich countess. Before she knows it, she's highly respected and the successful gambler Ricardo Cortez falls in love with her.

Similar to other racehorse films of the 1930s, like Saratoga and Broadway Bill, this romantic drama has been forgotten over the decades. It's not really the best movie out there, even though the beginning setup with Mary's arrest is interesting. If you like racehorses in movies, you'll find a host of movies to watch in the 1930s, when the sport was extremely popular.

Mary Astor and Riccardo Cortez worked well together. Here, she is a bad girl. Or she is perceived to be a bad girl. She's in Parish when we meet her. Her dreams of being an artist have fizzled and she's down on her luck.

She marries American gambler Cortez. He's hard-boiled but falls for her right away. She's hard-boiled and doesn't fall for him right away but does eventually. (This is not giving away the plot.) Both are excellent. It is, however, a rather creaky plot. Though the movie was made before the Code, it is not at all racy. The racetrack scenes look authentic and are fun.

She's a starving artist in a fetching studio-bound Paris, entrapped for soliciting (Implausibility #1) and bailed out by John Halliday, who sees something.unique in her and offers to set her up as a countess, a disguise nobody bothers to look into (Implausibility #2). In that guise she meets a smitten Ricardo Cortez, who falls instantly in love with her and demands that they get married (Implausibility #3), taking her best pal (a fun Kitty Kelly), who's been posing as her maid, along on the honeymoon (Implausibility #4). Cortez, who's at his most boisterous and leading-man-handsome here, is a gambler and horse aficionado, which leads to Mary innocently feeding info to Halliday that ruins Cortez, who instantly turns on her and throws her out (Implausibility #5), until she engineers a way of turning around her innocent mistake. It's not, in short, credible, but the two stars are photogenic, and Astor already owns the screen, offering a layered performance of a not very layered character. The horse racing sequences are exciting, and the horse Cortez bets it all on is a real beauty; the scene between him and the horse is truly touching. I'd expected this to be Warners, but it's RKO, and it's a good-looking, lively early talkie. With many implausibilities.

"Men of Chance" is one of those romances where one or both of the parties accidentally fall in love. In this case a woman named Marthe (Mary Astor) was being used as a plant to sink Johnny Silk (Ricardo Cortez).

I'd seen both actors in other movies. Mary Astor in "The Royal Bed," "Other Men's Women," and "Behind Office Doors"--always the romantic interest. Ricardo Cortez in "Ten Cents a Dance" and also "Behind Office Doors."

Marthe was bailed out of a sticky situation in France by a man named Dorval (John Halliday). For that she was to pretend to be a countess in order to be in a romantic relationship with Johnny Silk. Johnny was a professional gambler who repeatedly beat the bookies. One bookie who had had enough was Farley (Ralph Ince). He and Dorval hatched a plan to finally sink Silk.

The phony identity worked like a charm. Johnny wasn't attracted to regular girls, no matter how pretty, but a countess was something else. Marthe pretending to be a countess was just the ticket to lure Johnny.

He had lived a charmed life to that point and he let it get to his head. As he exclaimed to Marthe, "There are three things that I know: horses, gambling, and women. Why I'd stake my bankroll on you." Yet, little did he know he was getting played.

He was so goofy he asked her to marry him after two weeks and didn't even allow her to say no. If he had half a brain he would've noted her hesitation and protestations, however soft they were. This guy wouldn't take no for an answer and it was quite unnerving. I know I'm watching through 21st century eyes, but seeing a guy make wedding plans without a full consent from the bride-to-be didn't sit well with me. And if that wasn't odd enough, Marthe was pressured by Dorval to go through with the marriage. All to avoid sixty days in jail!

Yes. When Dorval found Marthe she was being booked for vagrancy (though she hadn't done that) and she was sentenced to 60 days in jail. She was willing to sleep with Dorval to avoid the jail sentence, but Dorval didn't want that, he wanted her for his scheme involving Johnny Silk. I could almost understand a woman having sex with a stranger to avoid a jail sentence, but marriage? And for a sixty day sentence at that?? Is sixty days in a French jail so horrible that she'd agree to a lifetime commitment to avoid it???

So, Marthe agreed to marry Johnny and continued to be Dorval and Farley's plant until she fell in love. And love always complicates things.

The movie was a little of "Smart Money" (1931) starring Edward G. Robinson with a splash of "The Lady Refuses" (1931) starring Betty Compson.

Edward G. Robinson was a big time gambler who was ruined by a woman in "Smart Money," and Betty Compson played a woman hired to woo a man who fell in love with her in "The Lady Refuses." Both movies were better than this one because this was really all about money and not love. When Silk thought Marhe ruined him, he didn't love her; as soon as she restored his wealth, he loved her again. How convenient.

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