Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

HotToastyRag Before Gregory Peck played heroes in movies about American integrity, he took a few villainous, or at least troubled, roles. In The Great Sinner, Greg plays a compulsive gambler, and he gives a wonderful performance.At first, he's just a writer who wants to write about the incredible sickness of gambling, but before long, he finds out firsthand how the sickness can take over a man's life. What I love most about this movie is the realism of the script and performances. I've heard this movie compared to The Lost Weekend, a movie about alcoholism, but I found The Great Sinner to be much more realistic in its portrayal of addiction. Greg's performance is fantastic, and it's great to see the contrast of how he was before he started gambling. As the movie continues, he becomes desperate, cruel, and self-loathing. Many times Hollywood shows the glitz and glamour associated with gambling, but since this is a period piece, there's no neon lights or Las Vegas strip. It's in black-and-white, it's dirty without being filthy, it warns without becoming melodramatic, and it's heart-wrenching.Greg is flanked by an all-star supporting cast, including Melvyn Douglas, Ethel Barrymore, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead, Walter Huston, and his favorite leading lady Ava Gardner. I don't usually like Ava Gardner, but this movie is an exception. I highly recommend it.

Robert J. Maxwell Well, it bears little resemblance to Dostoyevsky's novel, it's the closest that Gregory Peck has ever come to overacting, and it was a flop at the box office, but I kind of liked it.Peck narrates the story of a writer, a man of probity, who falls for a beautiful young woman, Ava Gardner, in the casino town of Wiesbaden. Except for some elegantly overripe dialog, that's about as close as it gets to an autobiographical account by the Russian novelist.Peck's character doesn't gamble but he feels there's a story in the various addicts around the tables. Some of them gamble away everything they have and then shoot themselves. "Try to see that it doesn't happen at the table," says the ruthless manager, Melvyn Douglas.Peck learns that Gardner is committed to marrying Douglas as a way of paying off her father's gambling debt. He throws a coin on the table and wins. He wins again. He continues to win until he has more than enough money to pay off the debt and take Gardner for himself.Little did they know that tragedy lay just around the corner.Peck has practically a suitcase full of bills, minus the ones stolen by Gardner's father, Walter Huston. The night before he and Gardner are about to run off together, Peck is gripped by the conviction that he can win still more. He loses it all. Then he pawns everything he owns, is thrown out of his hotel room and consigned to the servant's quarters, grows a stubbly beard and long hair, and, overall, begins to look like a bum.He avoids everyone he knows and stumbles finally into a church. At first, in the shadows, he hears coins tinkling into the poor box and his eyes gleam. But, lo, an epiphany. As the heavenly chorus swells, he stares up at the beams of light spilling into the chapel and falls to his knees. What is money, after all? Just a piece of paper crawling with germs, as someone once observed. It ends with a reformed Peck nuzzling Gardner's oh-so-nuzzlable neck. Then they both starve to death. (Just kidding; this is an MGM movie.) The cast is terrific. Peck has rarely been so animated. And when he's in the midst of his winning streak, he GRABS for the bills coming his way with a maniacal grin. Gardner is pretty. Walter Huston is pompous and a thief, thoroughly enjoyable. Ethel Barrymore makes a brief appearance. And Agnes Moorehead is the wicked crone of a pawn broker. The script has Peck in her shop, trying to pawn a religious icon that isn't his, and when she screeches insults, he begins to crawl towards a nearby axe. He's going to murder the old pawnbroker lady with an axe. The writers got their stories mixed up.I don't know why it was such a failure. It's no masterpiece but the playing was decent, and the plot was involving.

st-shot This cannibalized version of Dostoyevsky's novel The Gambler under the masterful hand of Robert Siodmak moves mightily throughout before it collapsing under the sudden weight of heavy handed denouement.Aspiring novelist Fejda (Gregory Peck) has a confident air about him as he boards a train that will take him to Paris. Sharing a compartment with Pauline Ostrovsky (Ava Gardner) he is soon bewitched by her and decides to stay in Wiesbarden to pursue her. Oststrovsky and her father both are addicted to gambling and their debts to a casino prevent her from leaving with Fejda. Fejda in the meantime develops an addiction and begins to spiral out of control.Few if any film directors spoke cinema language as eloquently as the German born director Robert Siodmak. His noir cycle (especially Criss Cross, The Killers and Cry of the City ) are remarkable examples of form and content and while Sinner is not a noir it retains noir elements ideal to the downward thrust of the story line and its characters. In scene after scene Siodmak (ably assisted by distinguished cinematographer George Folsey) gives Sinner a healthy undercurrent of tension and suspense throughout with revealing compositions and startling close-ups. In one magnificent exposition shot Siodmak in under three minutes sums up the grandeur, the pitfalls, the types as well as the condescension of the self assured protagonist before the fall gracefully moving within the confines of the film's center stage, the casino. The entire big name cast lives up to its billing though the leads are out shined by a sterling supporting group. Peck has some excellent mad scenes and Gardner's beauty is convincing enough in the early moments to persuade Fejda to pursue her but when she goes from bad to good (as she did in 55 days at Peking) she becomes less convincing. Melvyn Douglas, Walter Huston Frank Morgan, Ethel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead (a pawnbroker whose shop is the setting for another Siodmak visual tour de force moment) are all in top form. An intriguing side note to the performances are the way Siodmak (a Jew himself) portrays in a greedy and cynical light the films most obvious Jewish characters ( the pawnbroker and a vulture like jeweler, played unctuously by Curt Bois) four years after the end of World War Two. Suffice to say these characterizations today would have a hard time getting out of the editing room and when you combine the protagonist's Christian redemption (hokey but stunningly shot) Sinner finds itself somewhere between Judex and Maurice Chevalier's Gigi.Still there is no denying the brilliant talent and command of the art form Siodmak possessed and in spite of its cop out ending The Great Sinner provides more than enough evidence to prove it.

rhillNYC The people who are raking this little gem over the coals must either 1) not really like movies; 2) have seen the film on a bad videotape; or if we want to be generous, 3) be having a bad day.I just came from a screening of a beautiful 35mm print, and I loved it! LOVED IT! Granted, the Christian allegory is laid on a bit thick at times, but the performances are wonderful, and the story will resonate with anyone mature enough to have grappled with his/her own dark side. It's a story of sacrifice and redemption, truly a battle writ large between good and evil.I also highly suspect that Jacques Demy's BAY OF ANGELS (1963) is an homage to this film. Both use the casino as an apt metaphor for Hell, and in both films, characters are saved by love.Siodmak is one of the great, underrated filmmakers of the 1940s, and while I don't like this film quite as much as his films noirs (The Killers, Criss-Cross) or his other masterful period drama, The Spiral Staircase, I do think The Great Sinner will satisfy anyone who appreciates the classical Hollywood style.