Review of Atlantic City (1944) by Richard D — 27 Mar 2014

This drama is a jewel among the films directed by Louis Malle. It has an excellent acting of Burt Lancaster as Lou, and then young Susan Sarandon. Lou is an old man who used to talk too much about things he never did.

He liked to say that he worked with Al Capone, Luciano and other gangsters, and that he was famous in Las Vegas. Lou, in conclusion, talked a lot but did little. However, he was able to find means for his subsistence, being the lover and servant of an old woman, and taking numbers from different people for playing illegal lottery in Atlantic city.

His life was blessed the day he met a young guy who was stealing coca left in a telephone cabin. Lou knew the entire guy was doing with the drug, he was able to involve himself in this business, and continued smuggling even after the guy was discovered and killed by the true smugglers.

Lou made a lot of money and, by coincidence, wanted the guy's wife (Sally). He made a lot of good services to her when her husband was killed, and finally could touch her body as he desired. Lou also was able to kill the true smugglers.

He could not believe it when he did. This incidence forced Lou and Sally to leave Atlantic city for a while. The fact is that he knew well that Sally was to leave him and to take some money from him, and he let her go and came back to Atlantic City continuing smuggling.

Lou was a person who talked too much and wanted to show himself as a great man, he was also kind with his friends. Nearly at the end of the film when he read the news of two smugglers killed, he innocently told the receptionist of the hotel that he was the killer, something that the receptionist took as a lie.