Vic's A Fall Guy For RKO


Gambling House (1950) From Noir's Lower Drawer

You think going in it's noir, what with grey suit Victor Mature with Bill Bendix in murderous pursuit, but no, Gambling House is Vic in pursuit of US citizenship, which he gets with fresh-face support of Terry Moore. Was this another of Howard Hughes' kooky ideas? Someone needs to do a Rorschach test on Hughes using RKO pics he meddled in, as this one crawls with tips to his eccentricity, if not obsessions. Mature is a born-bad sort who learns to love his adoptive country once feds threaten to expel him from it. Vic's performing works wonders for its utter relaxation, the actor having self-deprecated much of what he did, even though lots said Mature worked harder than met the eye. Gambling House isn't invited to noir parties thanks to cheery resolution of most issues (save Bendix's); you'd not be amiss pairing it with Robert Mitchum's Yule one-off Holiday Affair. Darkness we expect from Gambling House becomes instead a plea for civic responsibility ... so how uncool is that?

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