King of Gamblers
Cast & Crew
Robert Florey
Claire Trevor
Lloyd Nolan
Akim Tamiroff
Larry Crabbe
Helen Burgess
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
A barbershop, caught between competing slot-machine combines, is bombed by a passing car. Discovering that children were killed in the explosion, gangster Steve Kalkas executes the man responsible. Kalkas arrives at the Palm Parade nightclub to hear Dixie Moore sing and is greeted by maitre'd Eddie. J. G. Temple, a former associate of Kalkas, who is in debt, propositions Dixie's friend Jackie Nolan for a quick trip to Havana. Eddie interrupts Dixie to auction her kisses, but she chooses a drunk reporter, Jim Adams, over Kalkas. After Eddie has Jim knocked out, she takes him home and the next morning calls his editor, George Kramer, and gives him her own $500 to make up for what he spent at the auction. Kramer then sends Jim to London on assignment to help him forget his fiancée, Joyce Beaton, who is marrying another man. Meanwhile, Dixie and Jackie quarrel over her unexpected departure to Havana with Temple. Kalkas, who sincerely loves Dixie, offers to marry her, but she does not love him, so he buys her an expensive apartment. After Kalkas receives word that the governor is appointing a special prosecutor named Briggs to investigate the bombing, he has Temple killed and sends Temple's girl to Big Edna, an experienced moll, without realizing she is Jackie. Back from London, Jim visits Dixie, and when Jackie's body is found in the river, he goes with Dixie to the hospital to identify her. Kramer assigns Jim the slot-machine story and he investigates Big Edna's seedy dive and finds Jackie's clothes. There he hears Big Edna dialing "Circle-1010" on the telepone phone before escaping. Dixie asks Kalkas for his help, but Jim is wary of him, so they agree to meet the police commissioner at Kalkas' office. Despite Dixie's involvement with Kalkas, Jim wants to marry her. After Jim has left, Dixie remembers hearing the number "Circle-1010" and, dialing it, discovers it is Kalkas' private line. Kalkas prepares to execute Jim by pushing him down an elevator shaft, as he did with Temple; however, when he realizes the police are on their way, he calls the elevator up for a quick escape. A gunfight ensues, during which Dixie rushes to save Jim from the elevator. Unaware it has moved, Kalkas falls to his death. Relieved that Jim has survived, Dixie leaves with him.
Director
Robert Florey
Cast
Claire Trevor
Lloyd Nolan
Akim Tamiroff
Larry Crabbe
Helen Burgess
Porter Hall
Harvey Stephens
Barlowe Borland
Purnell Pratt
Colin Tapley
Paul Fix
Cecil Cunningham
Robert Gleckler
Nick Lukats
Fay Holden
John Patterson
Evelyn Brent
Estelle Ettere
Priscilla Lawson
Harry Strang
Richard Terry
Connie Tom
Harry Worth
Alphonse Martell
Aileen Ransom
George Magrill
Wally Maher
Garry Owen
Mildred Gover
Frank Reicher
Priscilla Moran
Gertrude Messinger
Frank Puglia
Ralph M. Remley
Henry Roquemore
Stanley Blystone
Russell Hicks
Natalie Moorhead
Lelah Tyler
Rita La Roy
Helen Davis
Ethel Clayton
Gloria Williams
Crew
Doris Anderson
John Burch
Hans Dreier
Harry Fischbeck
Ralph Freed
A. E. Freudeman
Ben Hecht
Harvey Johnston
Paul Jones
Burton Lane
William Le Baron
Charles Macarthur
Louis Mesenkop
Harry Mills
Boris Morros
Robert Odell
Ralph Rainger
Leo Robin
Tiffany Thayer
Richard A. Whiting
Adolph Zukor
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working titles for this film were The Kid from Paradise and King of the Gamblers. A modern source lists an alternate title of Czar of the Slot-Machines, and notes that an opening sequence of "Jim Adams" being jilted by "Joyce Beaton" (who, according to the Call Bureau Cast Service, was played by Louise Brooks) was shot but was eliminated from the final cut. Helen Burgess, age eighteen, died April 7, 1937, a few days before this film's preview, from pneumonia.
