THE LADY GAMBLES (1949): Joan Boothe (Barbara Stanwyck) accompanies her husband David (Robert Preston) to Las Vegas while he writes a story about Boulder Dam. Joan, who used to be a writer for a magazine, thinks it would be fun to write a story about gambling. She's spotted taking pictures, and is escorted to the casino manager's office. After he's convinced that the pictures won't be used for blackmail, he gives her "house chips" to gamble with and permission to continue taking pictures. When she tells her husband about it, she tells him that "gambling is exciting!" From there it's a short trip to the dark side of gambling...the addiction. In order to gamble, she "borrows" her husband's expense account money, she pawns her camera, she lies to her husband about what she's done during the day while he was at the dam...anything to keep him from knowing that she's gambling.

There's one scene where Joan is having lunch with her sister, the casino manager sits down with them and tells Joan that he'd like her to play in a poker game and that he'll sponsor her. Her response to him is my favorite line in the movie: "I find that I don't care for gambling much. It's noisy and confusing and just a little...dirty." A proper lady's attitude toward gambling in the 1940's, I'm sure! 4 stars

For those that love old Vegas and gambling: Many of the scenes are filmed at the "Pelican", which is easily recognizable as the Flamingo. Most of the gambling scenes seem to be at the Flamingo and maybe the Boulder Club. There's scenes with craps, roulette, poker and horse racing. The only chips that I recognized were generic comet chips. There were shots of the Silver Dollar, Santa Anita Turf Club, Boulder Club, and more. 4.5 'chips'

.....Mark Erickson, this is your cue to add artwork!!