THE GREAT SINNER

On the train to Paris, a Russian writer (Gregory Peck) gets to know beautiful Pauline (Ava Gardner). When he hears her story he is willing to buy her father’s freedom from gambling debts in the Wiesbaden casino, which he manages to do at first. But at the roulette table, he himself becomes a victim of the gambling habit and loses all he has won. But he has won Pauline’s love which initially he cannot return: The habit is stronger than all erotic temptation. His life has become miserable and the only way out is to stop gambling for good. This film version of the „Gambler“-novel by renowned director Robert Siodmak (THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE) deviates strongly from the original. It describes the life accelerated by the rush of gambling set against a (studio)-backdrop of an elegant Wiesbaden. The film already demonstrates in an impressive manner the correlations between sexuality and gambling habits which later were successfully echoed in movies like Martin Scorsese’s CASINO or LEAVING LAS VEGAS by Mike Figgis.