ATLANTIC CITY: Blu-ray (Famous Players/Paramount, 1980) Paramount Home Video

What do a naïve, 9-month pregnant naturopath, a devious loser, an old-time con, a struggling casino worker and a washed-up/one-time beauty pageant contestant have in common? Give up? They all cross paths to congregate in director, Louis Malle’s Atlantic City (1980), a movie as forgotten and tragic as that sad and crumbling paradise lost on the boardwalks of New Jersey. A trip to this Atlantic City is a reminder as to why some places in America have a past, but decidedly, no future. Some people too.  Atlantic City is just one of those rare movies to so completely touch the heart because it seems all too human, with characters more a part of our sheltered selves than we would care to admit to the outside world. Malle’s motley brood, however, wear their hearts on their sleeves and that’s part of the problem…not with the movie, but their own inability to escape to greener pastures. Anywhere would be better than where they are and casino sushi bar concessions operator, Sally Matthews (Oscar-nominated Susan Sarandon) damn well knows it. To this end, she is taking courses to become a blackjack dealer, decidedly a step up, though arguably, more than a few steps in the wrong direction as her slithery boss, Joseph (Michel Piccoli) has some obvious designs for getting Sally into his bed. John Guare’s screenplay withholds nothing. Atlantic City is nothing, if not a very bleak investigation of this one-time thriving bit of Americana, derailed by the void created after its mafia decampment. Malle’s movie would have nothing going for it, except that the ugly, little people trapped within this dystopian nightmare, to feed off their collective misery, eventually find inklings of a better life – some, like Sally, by venturing into uncharted territory, and others, like aged numbers racketeer, Lou Pascal (Oscar-nominated Burt Lancaster), so desperate to be ‘infamous’, by stepping away from that uncertainty, only to return to an invalided old love, but with a better understanding of what he might have otherwise initially wanted to give up and leave behind.

Sally’s world falls apart first, with the arrival of ex-husband, Dave (Robert Joy) and her much younger, and incredibly naïve sister, Chrissie, whom Dave has since impregnated. Dave is a disgusting pig of a human being. Not only does he hit Sally up for a place to stay, but he also steals from her purse, then tries to seduce her, after stealing a brick of cocaine from a phone booth intended for some Russian mobsters. Dave’s plan is to mix his newly-acquired stash with some Italian laxative, thereby extending its usefulness, and dumping it on the market for some quick getaway cash. Whether his wife is a part of this money grab remains open for discussion, as Dave gives every indication, he will ditch Chrissie to head for the horizon and blow his dough on cheap liquor and whores.  Despite being co-produced under a Franco/Canadian alliance, later to be sold outright for distribution to Paramount, Atlantic City was actually shot on location in Atlantic City and South Jersey, PA, out of season, and under thickly gathered, grey and overcast clouds, perfectly to complement the mood of its players. To quote Bette Davis from another infamous movie classic, “What a dump!” For here, not only is the urban blight as dense as the scum cresting on restless ocean breakers thrashing against the craggy shore, but the general tenor skews heavily to a world gone utterly – and hopelessly dry – of any inspiration to will itself back from the brink. Atlantic City is not necessarily the kind of pick-me-up to be watched during a ‘plan-demic.’  But at the edge of the 1970’s, a decade buffeted by Jimmy Carter’s cardigan-wearing presidency, oil embargos, terrorist/hostage crises and other world events to suggest the human race was not long for this world, it fits perfectly into Louis Malle’s canon of clear-eyed and impressive exploitations on the unvarnished truths about human beings – left exhausted, friendless and otherwise to die alone in a cesspool of their own design.  

We have to hand it to Louis Malle, born to prominent industrialists in Thumeries, Nord, France in 1932, and, the product of a strict Roman Catholic school upbringing in Fontainebleau, nevertheless, he sees people rather clearly for who and what they are, rather than what they perceive themselves to be, or what their secret aspirations suggest to them they wish they could become. If, as Walt Disney once inferred, ‘a dream is a wish the heart makes’, then Malle’s modus operandi in telling his stories on the screen is an expulsion of humanity’s self-inflicted nightmares – more of the darkness than the light, even if Malle momentarily allows his characters a subtly brief reprieve from their wicked ways and bleakest fears. We’ll chalk up Malle’s apocalyptic understanding of life and the cruelties inflicted by man’s inhuman noise as hold-overs from his own youth, when Malle witnessed the Gestapo round up Jewish friends and a beloved schoolmaster to be carted off to a concentration camp, never to be heard from again – events, later depicted in Malle’s Au revoir les enfants (1987). Attempts to align Malle’s cinema with the nouvelle vague movement are futile at best. For although he shares in some of its characteristics, his own style does not directly parallel the auteurist theory, later applied to his contemporaries, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, etc. et al. Malle’s decision to relocate to the U.S. is interesting, in that he was already well-established, and even more well-regarded abroad. Nevertheless, his slate of American-made pictures, to include Pretty Baby (1978), My Dinner with Andre (1981), Crackers (1984), Alamo Bay (1985), Damage (1992) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) are quiet meditations on a central theme of moral/social decline. Fascinating also, to consider Malle was on the cusp of his second marriage to actress, Candice Bergen in 1980, after a flubbed first attempt at marital happiness with French actress, Anne-Marie Deschodt, and trysts German aristocrat, Gila von Weitershausen and Canadian actress, Alexandra Stewart. Malle, who died from lymphoma, aged 63, in 1995, remained rather circumspect about his private life…and the ladies who once populated it are not talking either. Thus, what we generally know of Malle we either glean from the briefest reflections and stories he cared to share with the press during his lifetime, or occasionally told by his surviving friends, or, more importantly, from the pictures he has left behind for us to reconsider and digest on their own terms.

In hindsight, Atlantic City just seems to hail from Malle’s own discontent with society in general, and, in particular, our chronic inability to gravitate to people worth our time and energies, either to procure life-long friendships or ever-lasting love. Burt Lancaster’s monumentally understated performance as the aging con really gets under the skin. Lou Pascal, a self-professed, one-time bag man for the mob in ‘the good ole days’ when Atlantic City was hopping on the frenetic pulse of racketeering, whores and guns (yeah, now that sounds like a hell of a vacation destination, doesn’t it?) is one of those tender-hearted relics from a bygone era – twice removed from its present-day hallucinations of death and rot that currently surround him. Despite the parade having moved on without him, Lou gingerly clings to the past without too many regrets. He’s still young in heart, and still peddling bets for the down-and-out crowd lingering within this ramshackle of boarded up/low rent housing, an anathema and eye-sore to the newly instated development commission’s policies for the city’s planned rebirth.

Malle was granted funds to make a movie under the proviso he produced something – anything – before the end of 1979. Under the gun, Malle turned to gal/pal, Susan Sarandon, who pitched him a story written by their mutual friend and playwright, John Guare. Agreeing upon the story, Malle shot from October to December, 1979, sneaking in a few pick-up shots under the radar by January 5th, 1980. Retrospectively, Atlantic City captures the dire straits of the old and dying city, with its once famous boardwalk looking like a ghost from another vintage. But the picture also foreshadows the real Atlantic City’s renaissance, kicked off by a stock shot of its once iconic Traymore Hotel – one of the last relics from the city’s past, being imploded in 1972, signaling the ‘new promise’ of progress to follow it. Initially, Malle had hoped to have Michel Legrand write an original score for the picture. This, Legrand did, only to discover that during production Malle has suddenly decided to use only diegetic music – lending the picture a very documentarian flair. Given the production’s co-funding, it is not surprising that, apart from Lancaster and Sarandon, almost everyone else affiliated with this show is either Canadian or French, including Al Waxman as Alfie, the slimy ‘fence’ to whom Lou effectively markets Dave’s cocaine. Waxman would make the leap into American living rooms one year later, playing the crusty, but benign police chief, Lt. Bert Samuels, on the runaway hit series, Cagney & Lacey (1981-88). As production wrapped, Burt Lancaster was felled by near-fatal complications from routine gall bladder surgery which required multiple transfusions to keep him alive. Ever the trooper, Lancaster recovered, working steadily thereafter, and, unlike most of his contemporaries, appearing in such high-profile Hollywood fare as Local Hero (1983) and Field of Dreams (1989). Lancaster would continue to work right up until 1991, three years before his death from a heart attack.

There remains a queerly unsettling ‘time capsule’ appeal to Atlantic City, chiefly in the way Malle and his cinematographer, Richard Ciupka managed to unearth the gritty putrefaction of its once famed landmarks, like Chafonte-Haddon Hall, or Lucy – the elephant, an 1881 tourist attraction built to bring potential investors to Margate (then, known as South Atlantic City).  Like most everything else, Lucy was abandoned to the elements and on the cusp of demolition when, in 1971, the residents of Margate raised enough money to have her restored. Today, Lucy still guards the entrance to Margate, listed as a heritage building on the National Register of Historic Places. The picture also prominently features Club Harlem on Kentucky Ave. – a nightclub built in 1935 in the days when black tourists were, as yet, to be segregated in their pursuit of entertainment venues. Atlantic City is one of the last highlights in the club’s long and troubled history, shuttering its doors in 1992 and demolished shortly thereafter. Malle also shot key scenes for the picture inside the Knife and Fork Restaurant and White House Subs, each, a celebrated landmark.

Atlantic City opens with Sally Matthews performing her ritualized sponge bath, using freshly squeezed lemon juice to cleanse her skin of the fish odor endured at her job as a waitress at the sushi bar inside one of Atlantic City’s seedy casinos, apparently unaware she is being quietly observed from across the way by her aged neighbor, Lou Pascal.  Sally aspires to become a blackjack dealer and move to Monte Carlo.  These plans are slightly derailed with the arrival of her pregnant sister, Chrissie, and, Sally’s estranged husband, Dave – the latter, having intercepted a rather large brick of cocaine from a telephone booth in Philadelphia and intent on selling it to the highest bidder for some disposable cash. Sally is disgusted to see Dave again. Nevertheless, she takes pity on Chrissie’s condition and allows them both to spend the night in her spartan rented rooms. Dave is nothing more than a small-time hustler, easily picked off by Lou as a nobody. Nevertheless, Lou’s number game is enough to pay the rent, and also to look after the invalided Grace Pinza (Katie Reid, in a part originally intended for Ginger Rogers), an aged ex-beauty queen/wannabe who pampers her dog, but runs Lou rather ragged as her kept man.

Recognizing how badly Lou would like to rid himself of these obligations to Grace, Dave plies him with the promise of a cut from his cocaine money, if he will fence it for him to Alfie. Lou feels he is being set up. Nevertheless, he complies and with seemingly little effort, manages to bully Alfie into paying a cool $4000 for the drugs. What Alfie does not know is that Dave has diluted the cocaine with a laxative to stretch the potential for future sales. Alas, for Dave – the promise of ‘quick cash’ will never come. The mobsters, Vinnie (Angus MacInnes) and Buddy (Sean Sullivan) from whom he has stolen the original brick have tailed him to Atlantic City. Now, they close in, attacked and murder Dave by tossing him off a mechanical car barn. Much to their chagrin, their stash is not recovered from Dave’s body. And so, their hunt continues. Meanwhile, having sold the first portion of the drugs to Alfie, Lou exits the hotel and takes notice of two ambulance attendants carrying Dave’s body on a stretcher to the morgue. Realizing he has suddenly become the custodian of all this cold hard cash, as well as the remainder of the drugs left in his room, Lou decides to ‘impress’ Sally. He informs her of Dave’s murder, offering to pay all the expenses to have the body shipped back to his native Saskatchewan at no expense to her. Lou courts Sally. Very reluctantly, she allows him into her life, and eventually, her bed.

Meanwhile, Lou has left Grace in Chrissie’s care, to whom she attempts to administer a naturopathic remedy for her bedridden condition by way of a foot massage. At first, extremely reluctant, Grace takes a shine to Chrissie who is both patient and understanding, developing a maternal protectiveness towards her, especially after both are made aware of Dave’s untimely end. Unfortunately, Vinnie and Buddy have traced Dave back to Sally’s apartment. As she and Lou return home, they are assaulted by these goons. Lou is humiliated in his inability to protect Sally from the assault. She professes not to mind, but quietly assesses, despite his slickly marketed charm towards her, Lou is not the right man for her. Back at the casino, Sally is in for a very rude awakening when her boss, Mr. Shapiro (Louis Del Grande) informs, due to her previous connections with Dave, the casino can no longer afford to employ her, even as a waitress. Her dreams of journeying to Monte Carlo as a blackjack dealer shattered, Sally retreats to her apartment, only to discover it completely trashed. Sally confronts Chrissie, who confides how Dave stole the cocaine brick from the telephone booth back in Philadelphia. Now, Sally puts two and two together. She confronts Lou at the blackjack tables, creating a scene under Buddy and Vinnie’s watchful observations, demanding a cut of the money acquired from the sale of the cocaine.

Packing a pistol into his carry-on suitcase, Lou attempts to sneak out of town, taking the red-eye Greyhound to parts unknown. But Sally lies to the bus driver about Lou being her father who has escaped from a mental institution.  Taking her story at face value, the driver quietly coaxes Lou off the bus whereupon Sally confronts him, again demanding her share of his ill-gotten gains. Alas, Buddy and Vinnie resurface, this time, determined to reclaim either the cocaine or the money, leaving both Lou and Sally for dead. Only, they have sincerely underestimated Lou. He guns both men down, stealing their Cadillac and taking Sally with him beyond the city limits. Their escape is exhilarating…at first. The couple rent a room at a seedy hotel, with Lou making plans to lavish and spoil Sally with riches after they fly away together to Europe. Only, somewhere between this harrowing night escape and the steely blue-grey dawn of the next day, Sally has misgivings. Indeed, she is turned off by Lou’s elation to have pulled off a double homicide, as the local police are seemingly baffled with no leads to apprehend him. As Lou looks on from the bathroom, Sally steals all the money from his wallet. Now, he quietly emerges and asks Sally to take the keys to the car and get them some breakfast. She pretends to agree and he, knowing she will not be returning, gingerly encourages her final exit from his life. Taking a cab back to Atlantic City, Lou has Grace sell the last bit of cocaine in his apartment to Alfie. With that money, Lou pays to send Chrissie back home to her folks in Canada. Now, Lou takes Grace for a stroll along the boardwalk, their faith in, and mutual respect for one another renewed.

Atlantic City is a Lancaster tour de force. Interestingly, many other actors were first considered for the role, including, Henry Fonda, James Mason, Laurence Olivier, James Stewart and Robert Mitchum, the latter, souring his chances to land the part by getting a facelift shortly before shooting was about to commence. Indeed, Malle wanted an actor with a weather-beaten exterior. And Mitchum, taking it in stride, glibly shot back, “I just had my face lifted. I only play under 45 now!” Malle later recollected, the role of Lou resurrected Lancaster’s sagging career. “Burt read the screenplay and the first thing that he said was, 'A part like that, especially at my age, happens every ten years, if you're lucky.' He knew it was a great part and I really appreciated that he understood that right away." Right alongside his proficiency is Susan Sarandon as the deeply wounded, but enterprising and angry Sally. The two have a wonderfully unique chemistry – part May/December romantic/part fatherly/daughterly compassion, and all of it imbued with the sad-eyed tenderheartedness of a pair of misfits unable to find genuine contentment, despite their obvious mutual attraction to one another. Bringing up the rear is Kate Reid as the aged and superficial Grace, afraid of getting old, but also demanding and evasive at the same time. Hers is the character to experience the greatest conversion, abandoning her selfishness in the end to remain devoted to the man who has never left her side, despite ample opportunities to do so.

Atlantic City was nominated in all 5 major categories at the Academy Awards: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Picture and Screenplay, winning not a single statuette on Oscar night. It did manage to earn the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, and also, some major nominations at the Genies, BAFTA, the L.A. Film Critics’ Association, National Society of Film Critics, and, New York Film Critics’ Circle. In 2003, Atlantic City was even entered into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. Given such prestige, it is more than a little bit perplexing, after its theatrical release, Atlantic City has oddly failed to go on to have a life of its own. Indeed, much of the blame for this oversight must go to Paramount – the movie’s distributor. In fact, in the intervening decades, the studio has entirely forgotten about Malle’s masterpiece to the point of even obscuring it with limited home video releases. It has never even found a home on cable television! This grotesque lack of marketing and promotion has effectively allowed Atlantic City to fade into obscurity for far too long – an oversight, marginally rectified by Paramount Home Video’s recent hi-def Blu-ray.

However, rather than market Atlantic City as part of its newly instated and seemingly ‘prestigious’ “Paramount Presents…” line-up of Blu-rays, the studio has instead elected merely to dump the movie onto the MOD-Blu-ray format in whatever condition its master currently exists. Given the lack of re-issues over the years, the resultant hi-def image is actually quite solid. Save a few minor age-related artifacts, the quality here is pleasing enough. Colors are subdued, as intended by cinematographer, Richard Ciupka. The palette favors the gray pallor of late November, but also yields some accurately balanced flesh tones, and a light smattering of film grain looking indigenous to its source. While a new 4K scan from original elements would have undoubtedly improved the overall quality here, the master employed – likely from a 2K source – captures the dated early 80’s vintage rather nicely and will, if not altogether impress, then surely never to disappoint. The 1.0 DTS mono is in keeping with the original monaural sound mix. Nothing to snuff at, though nothing to write home about either. This is a bare-bones offering. No extras. No chapter searches either. Paramount’s lack of due diligence here is disheartening. I mean, if The Golden Child, and Elizabethtown – both creaky clunkers of their vintage, can be considered worthy of inclusion into the “Paramount Presents…” franchise, why not Atlantic City – a movie far more deserving of that honor as well as one of the finest bits of acting from the legendary Burt Lancaster? Why not, indeed?!? Bottom line: a great – but depressing movie – given a competent, but otherwise unremarkable hi-def presentation. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

0