Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

gavin6942 Jean is a clerk in a bank. His colleague Caron is a gambler and gives him the virus. In the casinos, Jean meets Jackie. Their love affair will follow their luck at the roulette.Jacques Demy was still early in his career at this point, having really only made one film, "Lola". He returns here to black and white and a non-musical, the second and last time he would do that. But he always told stories of love and this is no exception. (Some think he had his own take on Hollywood, but that is a whole other issue.) Here gambling, especially roulette, is glamorized. At a time when gambling was run out of Cuba and was illegal basically everywhere in the United States besides Nevada, there is a sense of mystique about gambling that evokes thoughts of James Bond. This film captures that perfectly.

daflauta Kara, are you a film maker or just a philosopher? What a precise and concise analysis of one of the greatest early Demy's works! I agree fully, and make your words mine. Your photography skill is evident (I'm a photographer too). Furthermore, the photography is one of the high spots of this film. Superb B&W rendition, together with expert scene lighting, camera, decors, everything. The zigzag mirrors scenes in the casino are a treat! Never been into gambling, but I know a little about addictions. It's always a sad story. I've met Demy in Rio de Janeiro some 30 yrs ago. We became friends, but unfortunately he died in 1990. I highly recommend Agnes Varda's films. Not by accident she was married to Jacques, and their son Mathieu Demy is a very good actor.

MartinHafer If you are looking for a film to show your kids about the folly of gambling, then this film is worth your time--though I honestly think the film is trying to say the opposite! If you want to enjoy a film, then keep looking. The bottom line is that this morality tale is interesting at first but after a while it's relentlessly tedious--as the characters are about as likable as bed bugs! Claude Mann plays a simple clerk. A coworker has a serious gambling addiction and manages to convince Claude to accompany him to the casino. Claude wins and gets gambling fever. With his winnings, he's able to go on a vacation to the Riviera. There, he meets a pathetic woman (Jeanne Moreau) who has abandoned her family in order to gamble. The two hook up, have sex and gamble again and again and again. As long as they are winning, they are in love. But winning, like their love, is shallow and fleeting. And by the end, you just want them to go away....This really is all that there is to the film. The majority of the film shows them gambling. And, I couldn't care less about gambling, I couldn't care less about these unappealing characters. It really became a chore to watch after a while and although reasonably well acted and crafted, it's not particularly enjoyable or enlightening. I didn't need to see this film to know that gambling addicts are pathetic.By the way, the theme music from this film is god-awful. Too intense and too invasive and doesn't at all fit the film.

writers_reign ... or one of them is the movement that pseuds insist on promoting to upper-case as The New Wave and I dismiss as the lower-case new wavelet but in life we can seldom pigeon-hole everything and Jacques Demy is a case in point; he is part of the hiccup only inasmuch as his early features were made just as the vague in question was retreating back into the ocean of mediocrity from whence it came. True, he made these early movies for a stick of gum and mostly on location but he possessed more flair for actual film-making than for intellectualising on celluloid. Nor was he above subtlety; there is, for example, a nice touch in this film when Claude Mann and Jeanne Moreau share a pint bottle of whiskey and the brand is Black and White reflecting the motif of the entire film; Moreau, the car, the beach are all white, Mann, the croupiers and virtually every other male are dressed in black. Plot-wise it's stripped to the bone; Mann is a straight-up guy, Moreau is Gamblers-in-yer-face. They meet. End of. On the other hand if you want to talk Theme how much time do you have. Nice makes a nice location, Michel Legrand weighs in with a pleasant jazz-inflected score and it's fine for one viewing and just for the record another of my bete noirs is wagering against the red at roulette.