Atlantic City

Synopsis: Atlantic City is a place where people go to realize their dreams, the promise of the future manifested by the demolition of the old crumbling buildings to be replaced by new hotels and casinos. Someone who recently came to Atlantic City for that promise is native Moose Javian (Saskatchewan) Sally Matthews, who currently works as a waitress at a hotel oyster bar, but who is training to be a black jack croupier and wants to be more cultured, such as learning French, in order to work at the casinos in Monte Carlo. Another dreamer who came to Atlantic City decades ago is Lou Pascal, who has long worked as a numbers runner and who claims to have been a cellmate and thus implied confidante of Bugsy Siegel. Although Lou still dresses to the standard to which he is accustomed, his dream long died as he only works penny ante stuff for Fred, most of his current income from being the kept man of widowed recluse, Grace Pinza. Grace too came to Atlantic City to fulfill her dreams - most specificall

Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance

Director(s): Louis Malle

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli

Production: Paramount Home Video

Nominated for 5 Oscars. Another 25 wins & 16 nominations.


IMDB:: 7.4
Rotten Tomatoes:: 100%

Collection Edit Watch PDF Buy

: R
Year:: 1980
: 104 min
: 92 Views

Look, it's Ganesh!
It's a sign from heaven.
Good-bye, little chicks
we are leaving the sticks
We are catching the train
at a quarter to 6:00
So if anyone should drop around
Won't you please tell them
that we can be found
On the boardwalk in Atlantic City
We will walk in a dream
On the boardwalk in Atlantic City
Life will be peaches and cream
There where there's
saltwater air
Brings out the lady's charms
There on the rolling chair
He'll roll right into your arms
Excuse me, ma'am.
You can't bring those bags in here.
- Oh, we're looking for Sally.
- It's a hotel policy.
She's a really great girl
who works here.
Oh, Christ!
Hi. Oh, wow,
it's really good to see you.
I don't want you here.
Get your asses out of here.
When do you finish?
You're not staying with me.
Look, Sally, we've got money.
Great. You're in a hotel.
Check in.
We will have money.
- Can you spell me for an hour?
- Yeah, sure.
- Who are they?
- My husband and my sister.
We drove across Utah.
You'd really love
those waterfalls there, Sally!
And then Colorado.
Did we ever meet some beautiful
Indians that live on a commune.
Did they have
some dynamite mushrooms!
Do you know
even the cows were wrecked?
Then we got lost
in Louisiana.
Lou, you're late again.
Peppy's very nervous.
Peppy knows he's got
an appointment.
I'm ringing this bell
like Charles Laughton...
in The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
You want that from me? To become
a hunchback ringing for you?
You want hash and eggs?
I am nobody's hunchback.
You work for me, Lou!
The cigarettes you put
in your mouth, I pay for.
I ring this bell
and you get down here.
- You got no ketchup.
- Why the hell don't you get some?
- Don't come where I work!
- I came to see you!
I don't want you following me
or any more of your surprises.
What's going on in there?
Dave, leave her alone.
Don't rough her up.
If she doesn't want us,
we can go somewhere else.
It's okay, Chrissie.
Why don't you do
some deep breathing?
Yeah, okay.
He's really a wonderful man, Sally.
Why did you do it?
Running away with her...
humiliating me like that?
If you're gonna knock 'em up, pick
somebody who can care of herself.
What do you want me to say...
I'm sorry?
These things happen.
I want you out of here.
I need you.
I don't want you here.
What about Chrissie?
She needs you.
I'm not taking care
of either of you this time.
Are you seeing someone?
Yes, someone.
You screwed me up in Vegas
so I couldn't get a job.
This is what I've decided.
After I die, I'm gonna
have Peppy buried in my arms.
Do you think I trust you
to take care of him?
You're not gonna get one nickel
to take care of him after I'm gone.
Give me a kiss, Peppy.
Little ass kisser!
What are you saying?
I said we need more dog food.
- Did you cut the coupons?
- Yes, I cut the coupons.
Shoo! Come on now, Peppy.
There were 11 money-saver coupons
in the paper.
There's 11 money-saving coupons
in there now.
Here, you want to count them?
I can't even move my hands anymore.
- I'll rub your fingers for you.
- No, you stay away from me!
Last time you shoved my arthritis
clear up to my elbow.
Let me get going. It's late.
- I'll need five more dollars.
- Five more? You want cigarettes?
You steal cigarettes.
You're the big-time thief...
Mr. Mastermind...
Mr. Ten-Most-Wanted.
That's enough!
Nothing's enough.
Shit!
I always wanted shoes with...
clear plastic heels
you could see through with...
live goldfish swimming in them.
Wouldn't that be swift?
Have to walk so delicate.
You're like King Midas in reverse.
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John Guare

John Guare (rhymes with "air"; born February 5, 1938) is an Irish American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body. His style, which mixes comic invention with an acute sense of the failure of human relations and aspirations, is at once cruel and deeply compassionate. In his foreword to a collection of Guare's plays, film director Louis Malle writes: Guare practices a humor that is synonymous with lucidity, exploding genre and clichés, taking us to the core of human suffering: the awareness of corruption in our own bodies, death circling in. We try to fight it all by creating various mythologies, and it is Guare's peculiar aptitude for exposing these grandiose lies of ours that makes his work so magical. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018