L'Inconnue du gang des jeux

"Who's Got the Action" is a forgettable time-passer. I wasn't totally surprised, as the film starred Lana Turner...and by 1962 the quality of her films had diminished considerably. I was surprised, however, to see a major star at the time, Dean Martin, in such a slight film.

Martin plays a husband who loves to gamble on the horses. He's not very good at it and the wife wants to teach him a bizarre lesson...she sets herself up as a bookie for him because she KNOWS he'll lose a lot of money. The problem is that he starts winning big...and others notice and join him in betting with this mystery bookie. Soon, real gangsters are noticing they're losing clients and they are NOT happy.

The film is supposed to be a comedy but there really weren't many laughs. Add to that one of Walter Matthau's worst performances and you've got a movie that should have been better but wasn't.

Dean Martin, Lana Turner, Eddie Albert, Paul Ford, John McGiver, and Walter Matthau star in this pretty funny movie about gambling, the mob, and horse races. Mom was confused by the plot and while part of me was too, I managed to laugh at many of the visual and verbal gags and characterizations that abounded. Especially seeing Matthau do some of his familiar deliveries brought a smile to my face. In other words, Who's Got the Action was enjoyable passable entertainment.

This is an example of what Hollywood was doing, or becoming, in the 60s. Basically television.

The opening scenes of this motion picture were bizarrely generic. A middle aged couple leaves an apartment building for a cab ride to a restaurant all of which plays under the opening credits. It's dialogue-free and the couple turns out to be Dean Martin and a matronly Lana Turner. The silly nothings continue as Dean is interrupted, continually, by phone calls from (his bookie?) and his romantic date, with his wife, goes down the... I don't know this is where I bailed.

Hollywood was trying to squeeze the last drop of revenue from existing resources (sound stages, big name stars and supporting actors, technical and administrative support). I didn't recognize Lana Turner even after she started talking. Never a big fan but aware of her work. The middle-aged Turner was not instantly recognizable, like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis or more recently Jane Fonda or Helen Mirren. This was essentially a domestic sit-com with lies, misapprehensions and bizarre inferences (no doubt) throughout. Supporting cast upholds the resource theory: mostly contract support players from the 40s and 50s.

Post-war Hollywood was teeming with "guys" who could write this stuff, with experience dating back to the 30s, and endless reserves of pretty people who could sell the same old three-act formula ad infinitum, hour-long for dramas, 30 minutes for comedies.

It went on through the 70s before new formats began to emerge in the evolution of what we now call long-form serial entertainment. So this movie? Blech.

This one isn't all that bad...really! Dean Martin was well-cast as a guy whose gambling addiction causes his wife, played by Lana Turner, to concoct a scheme to keep him out of debt by secretly becoming his "bookie." Trouble is, he hits a winning streak and she has to sell off jewelry, furnishings and other baubles to pay off his windfall. Before Walter Matthau became a major name-above-the-title headliner, he played "Tony Gagoots," big-time bookie with an elaborately concealed electronic control room for his illegal empire, and he's partnered with Nita Talbot, as his main squeeze, "Saturday Knight," and she's one of this film's comic highlights. There are also Eddie Albert and his wife, Margo, on hand to lend amusing and very professional support and the whole thing is prettily mounted in Panavision (which means that the VHS version is probably "formatted" - not a plus!) and Technicolor. It's an early-Sixties example of what TIME magazine, in a fairly positive review, called a "yak derby" and, if you're a fan of those two always-funny character actors, Paul Ford and John McGiver, they have a few moments in this one that lend to the proceedings some genuinely winning laughs.

One of Dean Martin's least-known films and while not a total success, it's fairly enjoyable.

The initial scenes feel like a fairly conventional romantic comedy but once Turner's plan to be Martin's secret bookie gets into full motion, it becomes a full blown farce.

And as a farce, it's a pretty good one. It develops some fine momentum with running gags (like the car collision scene or whenever Jack Albertson's policeman character appears) and revelling in the consequences and complications of when Turner's plan gets out of hand.

Alas, when the film tries to wrap up its convoluted goings on, it runs out of steam and the final 15-20 minutes are fairly cumbersome and unfunny.

The cast is stacked with talented performers; perhaps too stacked as several are underused. For example, Eddie Albert as Martin's friend and work colleague is funny and amusing but because of the plot goes missing for long stretches in the film's second half.

The one weakness in the cast is Lana Turner, someone who I never found to be a particularly interesting performer. She is competent in her role but doesn't have the same comedic mindset as the rest of the cast and as a result her character is easily the dullest in the film.

So while not what it could've been, this film is an amusing timewaster. It's certainly better than a lot of other films Martin made in the 1960s.