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Atlantic City [DVD]

Burt Lancaster (Actor), Susan Sarandon (Actor), Louis Malle (Director) Rated:

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Format: DVD

4.6 364 ratings

IMDb7.3/10.0

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Genre	Drama
Format	Subtitled, Widescreen, Color, DVD, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, NTSC
Contributor	Sean Sullivan, Robert Joy, Robert Goulet, Al Waxman, Moses Znaimer, Hollis McLaren, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli, Angus MacInnes, Susan Sarandon, John Guare, Louis Malle, Burt Lancaster, Wallace Shawn See more
Language	English
Runtime	1 hour and 44 minutes

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A Visit To Atlantic City

Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2020

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I remember many years ago getting up early to catch the bus to Atlantic City and get as a reward for taking the bus credits in the casinos. I walked the Boardwalk, spent my casino credits, and took the bus home. It was a way of marking an important life- changing event.

This 1980 film "Atlantic City" directed by Louis Malle predated my experience but I hadn't seen it. Burt Lancaster plays Lou Pascal, an aging and small-time gangster who becomes mixed up in a cocaine robbery. In the process, Lou become involved his young, ambitious apartment house neighbor, Sally Matthews (Susan Sarandon) whom he has been ogling at night through the window. Lou and Sally form an unlikely couple. The movie follows their brief relationship through crime, violence, and the possibility of redemption for both.

With an original screenplay by John Guare the film develops its story quickly and convincingly. Lancaster and Sarandon give outstanding performances for which they received Academy Award nominations. The members of the large supporting cast also offer fine performances. Guare's screenplay and Malle's direction also received Academy Award nominations, and the film itself was nominated for best picture. In 2003, "Atlantic City" was added to the National Film Registry maintained by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The main character of the film is Atlantic City itself. Filmed on-site, "Atlantic City" shows the city on the cusp of a questionable revitalization and change of character with the then recent introduction of casino gambling. The wrecking ball becomes a symbol in this movie as old apartments along the Boardwalk are demolished to make way for casino. The movie takes the viewer through the shabby old neighborhoods of Atlantic City, along the Boardwalk, and through the casinos, corruption, and glitz. It is a visit to Atlantic City in time and as it is no more.

The film reminded me of my visit to the city as it was in the middle of its casino heyday. The film also reminded me of the possibility of change and of moving on in the search of a better life, as I was in the process of doing during my brief visit. . "You live too much in the past" Lou says at one point in the film to a friend who has fallen upon hard times. The aging Lou learns something in this film, as does his young, beautiful companion of a day, about the nature of moving forward and of beginning a new moment in one's life.

Robin Friedman

6 people found this helpful

A Unique Career Arc

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2016

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Burt Lancaster started his storied career as an anti-hero in 40s Film Noir drama like "The Killers," "Criss-Cross," and "Brute Force "and an athletic action hero playing roles that would have gone to Errol Flynn a decade earlier. However, he was savvy enough to realize he couldn't be an action hero forever and wanted to grow as an actor.

He began to alternate his physically demanding, swashbuckling roles like "His Majesty O'Keefe,", "The Flame and the Arrow," "Ten Tall Men," and "The Crimson Pirate," which relied on his training as a circus acrobat, with serious dramas opposite more veteran co-stars like Joan Fontaine in "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands,", Shirley Booth in "Come Back, Little Sheba," Anna Magnani in "The Rose Tattoo," and Katharine Hepburn in "The Rainmaker." All the leading ladies were Oscar winners.

Lancaster usually came off second best to these more experienced performers, but he was learning the craft of screen acting from these seasoned players and expanding his dramatic range while maintaining his original fan base. Ultimately Lancaster evolved into a superb screen actor with an Oscar for "Elmer Gantry" and nominations for his two of his finest performances in "Birdman of Alcatraz" and "Atlantic City." He continued to keep his legion of action fans happy with his more boisterous roles like "The Professionals" and "The Scalphunters." I can't think of another actor with that kind of career arc.

I've been a diehard Lancaster fan since I saw "From Here to Eternity," and. I'd rank "Atlantic City" with Burt's best work: "The Sweet Smell of Success," "The Leopard," "Birdman of Alcatraz," and "Seven Days in May.". Burt deserved a second Oscar for "Atlantic City," but sentiment gave the award to Henry Fonda for what everyone knew was his final film, "On Golden Pond." Burt, however, still had a few movies left in him, and I also recommend "Rocket Gibralter" and his cameo in "Field of Dreams."

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SGM

A five-star film without any doubt

Reviewed in Canada on December 31, 2020

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Well cast, beautifully acted, a gripping story, superlative directing, a most engaging film. Sarandon and Lancaster are in top form, and the rest of the cast has no weak spots at all. Enthusiastically recommended. One of the most outstanding films we've seen in 2020.

Film Buff

"Everything comes back" - Malle on transition

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2021

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ATLANTIC CITY
(1980, US, 95 min, color, aspect ratio: 16:9, sound: Mono, source: Network DVD)

Louis Malle established his reputation as one of the world’s leading directors in 12 features made over some two decades from Ascenseur pour l’échafaud and Les amants (both 1958) through to Black Moon (1975). Le feu follet (1963), Le souffle au cœur (1971) and Lacombe, Lucien (1974) are all masterpieces and for me among the best films ever made. A French director fluent in English, he made Black Moon in his second language and it was only a question of time before he went to America to try his luck there. Many a great European director comes a cropper doing this, but Malle landed on his feet and made three masterpieces on the spin (Pretty Baby [1978]), Atlantic City [1980] and My Dinner with André [1981]) before the reality check that was the failure of both Crackers (1984) and Alamo Bay (1985) which sent him back to France where he recuperated to make possibly his greatest (certainly his most personal) film, Au revoir les enfants (1987). Perhaps, the thing that made his career so enduringly successful was his determination never to make the same film twice, to always challenge something new and remain open to prevailing conditions. He initially went to America with Pretty Baby firmly in mind, Polly Platt’s evocation of Storyville, New Orleans at the turn of the century being something he absolutely wanted to do. It’s a meticulously prepared period piece that is clearly a labor of love. On finishing it however, a project he had his eyes on fell through and he didn’t have a clue what he would do next. We have Susan Sarandon (his then girlfriend) to thank for introducing him to the play-write John Guare whose script Malle took to. Guare suggested the story be located in Atlantic City, and Malle immediately rushed to make the film within the single year stipulated by his French/Canadian production companies. The process was totally different from Pretty Baby. Where the earlier film was a big Paramount production necessitating a large budget and expensive period reproduction, Atlantic City was shot on the lam almost documentary-style with a tiny crew mostly in available light and locations as they became available with the actors allowed an equally free degree of improvisation. Malle being an accomplished documentary filmmaker used to (even relishing) restricting circumstances, the end result is an unqualified success. The film won the Golden Lion at Venice (a prize shared with John Cassavetes for Gloria) and was nominated for all the big Academy Awards where it should have scooped the lot, the film surely surviving the test of time better than Chariots of Fire, On Golden Pond and Reds.

Key to the film’s total success is the tight script which has its fairly standard romantic/crime plot unravel with unusual fascination thanks to Guare/Malle’s astute paralleling of several layers of life in transition. Within the plot each character is unsettled and each finds a resolution which they deserve. Sally (Susan Sarandon) is a young waitress desperate to succeed as a casino croupier and live the high life in France. Her low-life husband Dave (Robert Joy) has run off with her sister Chrissie (Hollis McClaren) and is the baggage holding her back to her unglamorous origins in Saskatchewan, Canada. His criminal record burned her in Las Vegas and when he’s killed by gangsters looking for the cocaine he stole from them, burns her in Atlantic City, too. Lou (Burt Lancaster) is an ageing former gangster now running a petty numbers racket for himself and his woman, Grace Pinza (Kate Reid), an ageing gangster’s moll/widow who uses him as a servant. Life has grown sour for the pair, she a bed-ridden self-pitying wreck, and he a has-been (never-was?) perpetuating an inflated reputation which she reveals as bogus whenever she gets the chance. Lou is Sally’s neighbor and the heart of the film lies in the developing friendship/love affair between youth and dotage which provides both with an escape. She gets to keep the money made from the sale of the stolen cocaine hidden luckily in Lou’s apartment by her husband, while he gets to not only keep some of the proceeds, but more importantly recover his virility/vitality (his very manhood) by killing the gangsters who come looking to recoup their loss. The film finishes with Sally en-route to France and the hitherto apartment-bound Grace cashing in the last of the coke for $1,000 before the old couple dance off, their love rekindled. The baddies all die and the goodies get new lives.

The characters’ lives in transition is paralleled in real life with the transition in the lives of so many of the talents responsible for making the film. The deal with Canadian tax shelters stipulating the film be mainly shot in Canada (all the interiors are) and that Canadians be used both in front of and behind the camera, allowed the Canadian actors Kate Reid and Al Waxman (playing the humorous role of the drug buyer) to make the transition into successful careers in American film and TV. It cemented Sarandon’s stardom with an Oscar nomination as well as providing Burt Lancaster with a role of a lifetime (second for me only to his other great patrician role as the Prince in Visconti’s The Leopard [1963]), as like his character, he could finish his life with a flourish. And of course there’s the transition in Malle’s life from France to America. He married the American model Candice Bergen in 1980 quickly after this film wrapped, the wedding following the breakup with Susan Sarandon with great speed! The film was his greatest American success and his marriage led him to tying himself to his adopted country for the rest of his life.

Perfectly mirroring the transition of all the people both inside and outside the fiction is the film’s setting which creates the uniquely seedy atmosphere that compels the attention. Throughout the 70s Atlantic City was a dying place rife with all the problems of urban dereliction. From the shot of the old Traymore Hotel being demolished at the beginning (archive footage from 1971) to the final credit sequence with its radio-like soundtrack hopping from song to song every time a demolition ball crashes into a condemned building, the transition of a city from seedy run-down poverty into a bright gleaming future as legalized gambling was introduced and casinos rose from the ashes, backs the story with uncanny exactitude. The gangster plot replete with cocaine and murders echoes the city gone to seed, while the resurrection of the good characters anticipates the good times to come when the casinos came in during the 80s to completely transform the city. Much of what we see in the film no longer exists, the film fitting exactly into the changing time in which it was made.

Nowhere is this perfect fit between story and location shown better than in the character of Lou, which Lancaster to his enormous credit immediately recognized as a great part when it was offered to him. As a numbers man who used to work for ‘the dinosaurs’ (Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky and Al Capone are all named) he perfectly represents the classic past when Atlantic City was really something in the 1920s, his dignified air and fashion hinting at his past with keen nostalgia, but the seediness now evident everywhere gradually reveals he was actually a nobody, even back then in the ‘golden days.’ He brags to Dave about killing people and about his friendship with Bugsy Siegel, but it’s revealed he never shot anyone and only met Bugsy once fleetingly in a prison cell when the famous gangster was in transit to Leavenworth. Lou’s flakiness is revealed in the journey he takes through the narrative. He starts off emasculated by the old biddy in the bed who gives him small change to run his petty numbers operation. His life ordered by the servant’s bell which brings him to the apartment below to wait on his emasculator to serve meals and walk her dog, his manhood is awakened by the sight every evening through his window of Sally massaging her breasts with lemons to the beauty of Bellini’s ‘Casta Diva.’ The courtship that follows reveals the true nature of the beast. He plays the kind, charming, caring old neighbor who rescues her from the hospital where she’s just identified her husband’s corpse, notifies his folks when he sees she has no money to call Canada, arranges for the body to be sent back there replete with expensive wreath, takes her out to a fancy restaurant for lunch, all of which he pays for with money that’s more hers than his. He escorts her to her new prospective house which she’s thinking of sharing with other trainee croupiers, and then woos her to bed with his confession of watching her evening ritual. It’s all so natural, so genteel, so romantic, so redolent of a gentlemanly past – it’s exactly the class (the culture jump) Sally craves and she falls for it completely. But the delusion is all brought crashing down when he fails to protect her from the two gangsters who have just ransacked her apartment, and she realizes he’s getting his money from the sale of the very drugs her husband stole. For a while the plot turns on chasing the money, Lou seeking to take the proceeds from the drugs out of the city by bus while Sally tries to recover the funds she now claims as her own. Comedy keeps the tone light as Sally pretends to be Lou’s daughter protecting her senile dad to get him off the bus, and in the following sequence when the gangsters confront the couple and Lou shoots them both dead, he buys back her gratitude (he saves her life) and they escape the city together. It’s at this point that the old ‘class’ of the 1920s comes back and Lou lets Sally take most of the money, even giving her the car keys in order to make her first step to France. Lou’s final return to Grace and their claim of the final $1,000 signifies the revival of their relationship, anticipating the same revival in the fortunes of the city also returned to ‘grace’ once the demolition ball has finished doing its damage.

As per usual with Malle, this is a film which refuses to be pinned down into any single genre. It’s been described as ‘a love story’ and as ‘a crime film.’ True, there are elements of both, but it’s never wholly one or the other. Instead, it emerges as a film about real life, a point underlined by the perfect blend between character and setting. Atlantic City was this strange run-down mess in the 70s which had a bad reputation for the presence of vice, guns, gangsters, drugs, and the rest. The two gangsters depicted here are nasty 2-D characters we are used to from any number of films, but they feel very real. Similarly, the bizarre mixture of types residing next to each other in condemned buildings also feels absolutely right. Lou and Grace are the ‘soul’ of the city, but when the city never really had a soul to begin with, their flakiness seems perfectly judged. As does the journey taken by Sally from poverty ever-upward, but ever-restricted by a series of barriers, notably a husband she married just to escape Saskatchewan, her sister who ran off with him, and then later (in a delightfully sleazy role for Michel Piccoli speaking English with the heaviest French accent you can imagine) her casino trainer who is all intent on getting into her knickers, and when she’s fired from the program, pimping her to the nearest punter. These are all stories we have seen umpteen times in other plain genre settings, but mixed together and perfectly reflected in the seedy setting, the result is something wholly original, a film unlike any other.

An indicator of how well this film achieves reality by treating genre ingredients in a totally non-generic way can be found in a comparison with Cassavetes’ Gloria, its joint Venice Golden Lion winner. Gloria isn’t a film entirely without merit, but for me it’s an example of a director doing a genre (gangsters), but falling short because he isn’t naturally inclined to this kind of commercial film. It’s too arty to completely satisfy as a gangster piece, and it’s too commercial to satisfy as art – it’s a film which falls between two stools. Add the irritating boy central character and it’s easy to overlook Gena Rowlands’ wonderful performance. Malle’s film on the other hand evinces a wonderfully light, nuanced touch in the way he skips between genre tropes, but never losing sight of the real lives and the central theme. The one scene which does slightly fail on this count is the murder of Dave done on one of those vertical car-park machines which are all the rage here in Japan, but were then fairly new in America. The stalk and the fight to the death is standard genre stuff we’ve seen a million times before, but even here, with the unstable ever-moving setting Malle manages to capture the main theme of the film – the ever-changing transition of both characters and the city which contains them.

A final point which makes this film very special is the humor which inflects all the relationships and flows magically. Watching Zazie dans le Métro a while ago I had serious doubts about Malle’s sense of humor. My faith was restored when I saw Le souffle au cœur and to be sure there are sparks of humor in Black Moon and Lacombe, Lucien, but in Atlantic City the humor flows with a natural consistency which is entirely infectious. It’s not a comedy at all, but as in life comedy comes out of entirely natural situations. All the relationships are beautifully observed from the bickering of Lou and Grace through the foot chemistry of Chrissie and Grace, the father-son banter of Joe and Dave as they take a walk, the tiny encounter in the lavatory between Buddy and Joe as they talk over old times, the would-be romantic rapport of Joseph (Piccoli) and Sally, even the initial encounter between Dave and the nightclub owner Buddy who almost flushes a contact number down the toilet, and centrally of course the wonderful relationship between Lou and Sally which really carries the film. Part of the success comes from tight plotting, part from terrific casting (everyone, especially Lancaster and Sarandon, are just perfect for their roles), but a large part from the generosity Malle allows his actors. They are obviously improvising a lot and he just lets them go while always making sure they are caught in beautifully observed camera set-ups, usually juxtaposed with the city falling down around them. Great use is especially made of the staircase (one of many in the Malle œuvre) outside Lou and Sally’s apartments where several scenes take place, characters going up and down in each other’s estimations. Malle was known for his generosity regarding actors, but I wonder if his willingness to simply let them make their own dialogue in scenes came from the time pressure he was under. From script to completion, the film had to be done in 5 months, and maybe Malle just didn’t have time for re-takes. His experience as a class documentary filmmaker no doubt helped him out here as he went with his instincts and indeed, in interview he has described this film as ‘a documentary.’ But here we must really give more credit than usual to the actors, especially Lancaster and Sarandon who have never been better. I just love the way the film finishes with Lou as high as a kite at having killed and regained his manhood checking into a hotel saying, “A room. For me and my mother.” The look of complete surprise on Sally’s face was no acting for Sarandon really didn’t see that one coming. We see it, acknowledge it and wonder, wow, how great actors can be when allowed to simply go with it.

3 people found this helpful

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Atlantic City [Blu-ray]

Reviewed in France on March 2, 2018

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ATLANTIC CITY [1980 / 2016] [Blu-ray] When Dreams Can Be Winners! Louis Malle’s Film Masterpiece!

Atlantic City is revitalized as a resort when gambling is legalized. But the new industry also brings unsettling changes. For Lou Pascal [Burt Lancaster], a 40 years old small-time mobster come bodyguard and boyfriend to aging beauty queen Grace [Kate Reid], and his number-running side-line escalates to mob involvement. Lou Pascal begins becoming involved with Sally Matthews [Susan Sarandon], Lou Pascal finds a way to achieve the success he has dreamed of, but his plan may endanger both their lives.

FILM FACT: Awards and Nominations: 1980 37th Venice International Film Festival: Win: Golden Lion Award for the film Atlantic City. 1981 British Society of Cinematographers: Nominated: Best Cinematography Award for Richard Ciupka. 1981 César Awards, France: Nominated: Best Screenplay, Original or Adaptation (Meilleur scénario, dialogue adaptation) for John Guare. Nominated: Best Music (Meilleure musique) for Michel Legrand. 1981 David di Donatello Awards: Win: Best Foreign Actor (Migliore Attore Straniero) for Burt Lancaster. 1981 New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Win: Best Actor for Burt Lancaster. Win: Best Screenplay for John Guare. Nominated: Best Film. Nominated: Best Director for Louis Malle. 1982 Academy Awards®: Nominated: Best Picture for Denis Héroux. Nominated: Best Actor in a Leading Role for Burt Lancaster. Nominated: Best Actress in a Leading Role for Susan Sarandon. Nominated: Best Director for Louis Malle. Nominated: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for John Guare. 1982 Golden Globes: Nominated: Best Foreign Film. Nominated: Best Director in a Motion Picture for Louis Malle. Nominated: Best Actor in a Motion Picture in a Drama for Burt Lancaster. 1982 BAFTA® Awards: Win: Best Actor for Burt Lancaster. Win: Best Direction for Louis Malle. Nominated: Best Film. Nominated: Best Screenplay for John Guare. 1982 Directors Guild of America: Nominated: DGA Award: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for Louis Malle. The film features a cameo by Wallace Shawn as a waiter in a restaurant; Louis Malle's next film was ‘My Dinner with Andre,’ where Wallace Shawn is waited on as a customer.

Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli, Hollis McLaren, Robert Joy, Al Waxman, Robert Goulet, Moses Znaimer, Angus MacInnes, Sean Sullivan, Wallace Shawn, Harvey Atkin, Norma Dell'Agnese, Louis Del Grande, John McCurry, Eleanor Beecroft, Cec Linder, Sean McCann, Vincent Glorioso, Adèle Chatfield-Taylor, Tony Angelo, Sis Clark, Gennaro Consalvo, Lawrence McGuire, Ann Burns, Marie Burns, Jean Burns, Connie Collins, John Allmond, John J. Burns and Elias Koteas (uncredited)

Director: Louis Malle

Producers: Denis Héroux, Gabriel Boustiani, Jean-Serge Breton, John Kemeny, Joseph Beaubien, Justine Héroux and Larry Nesis

Screenplay: John Guare

Composer: Michel Legrand

Cinematography: Richard Ciupka, C.S.C. (Director of Photography)

Image Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1

Audio: French: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo and English: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo

Subtitles: French and French SDH

Running Time: 104 minutes

Region: All Regions

Number of discs: 1

Studio: International Cinema Corporation / Selta Films / Gaumont

Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: In the film ‘ATLANTIC CITY’ [1980] New York playwright John Guare made his screenwriting debut with ‘ATLANTIC CITY,’ which is a lyrical tale full of offbeat characters, richly textured, and this fable of a film offers half a dozen portraits of wasted American lives, filtered through the European sensibility of French director Louis Malle, revels in accumulating telling detail to conjure up a special time and place that he captures the old Atlantic City before the destruction of the old hotels and the construction of the new casinos. And he encourages Oscar-nominated Burt Lancaster to give the best performance of his old age, a subtle masterwork of miniaturist nuance.

Burt Lancaster, who is in top form, plays Lou Pascal, an aging small-time hood, who hangs around Atlantic City doing odd jobs and supports himself by running numbers and tending to the needs of a bedridden widow, Grace [Kate Reed] in an over the top theatrical performance, who was the broken-down moll of the deceased gangster for whom Lou Pascal was a gofer.

Sally Matthews [Susan Sarandon] is in Atlantic City to learn to be a blackjack dealer with the hope of graduating into the ranks of the Monte Carlo casinos and represents the youthful hopes and dreams of a small town girl trying to make it big. Living in an invented past, Lou Pascal identifies with notorious gangsters, and gets involved with the would-be croupier Sally Matthews who is also his neighbour.

Lou Pascal on the other hand, is an aging gangster whose star has faded, much like Atlantic City, which at that point is in pretty decrepit condition. The grand old hotels are being demolished to make way for the fancy casinos. Lou Pascal represents what’s left of the old Atlantic City back in its glory days. “You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean back then,” he says, in one of the film’s sentimental and inadvertently funny lines in the film. So, lots of metaphors going on here.
But Sally Matthews’s ex-husband follows her with a load of stolen cocaine that he wants to sell, and of all things, he drags along Sally’s sister, whom he gets pregnant. However, that’s not all! Along with making a paltry living by running numbers, Lou Pascal serves as grudging caretaker for Grace, an elderly invalid who lives downstairs and periodically summons him by ringing a bell, a bit like a live-in Butler.

‘ATLANTIC CITY’ itself is a character in the film and a story of hopes and dreams, a glorious past, and an uncertain future. You could say it gives a Franco-Canadian perspective on the American Dream. But of course we cannot forget the scene in the film when Lou Pascal and the lemon-fresh Sally Matthews end up in a very intimate relationship.

For a Franco- Canadian film, that has the plot device that smacks strongly of Hollywood. But, hey it helps having Burt Lancaster, as the leading actor. Also in the cast are Michel Piccoli, Hollis McLaren, Robert Joy, Al Waxman, Robert Goulet and Wallace Shawn. Director Louis Malle hired composer Michel Legrand to write a score, but decided against using it and opted for all the music in the film to be ambient. The only music is what exists in the film’s world, such as radios or musical instruments.

‘ATLANTIC CITY’ is a cinematic manifesto on the passage of time, it clearly believes old souls are meant to be together long after their perceived expiration dates, and young ones must free themselves from outside burdens and find a specific sense of place. Director Louis Malle revels in such surprising reversals of fortune and new beginnings, but counter-balances the romanticized elements with a real sense of the deteriorating environment. As the credits roll, Louis Malle frames an old hotel getting pummelled by a wrecking ball, an object of destruction dancing to a hybrid mix-tape of all the classic songs representing the history of Atlantic City. It is certain all things must go through cycles, and the key to lasting happiness and fulfilment is surviving long enough to see what comes next. So all in all the film ‘ATLANTIC CITY’ is a great and brilliant film, and if you have never seen it, then this Blu-ray disc is a must purchase to add to your film collection.

ATLANTIC CITY MUSIC TRACK LIST

ATLANTIC CITY, MY OLD FRIEND (Music and Lyrics by Paul Anka) [Special Guest Star: Robert Goulet]

CASTA DIVA (from "Norma") (Music by Vincenzo Bellini) (Libretto by Felice Romani) (uncredited) [Performed by Elizabeth Harwood with London Philharmonic Orchestra]

SONG OF INDIA (Music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) (uncredited) [used with the permission of LEO FEIST INC.]

ON THE BOARDWALK OF ATLANTIC CITY (1946) (Music by Josef Myrow) (uncredited) (Lyrics by Mack Gordon) (uncredited) [Sung by Ann Burns, Marie Burns and Jean Burns] (credited to cast list)

LA MARSEILLAISE (uncredited) (Music by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle)

FLAT FOOT FLOOGIE (uncredited) (Music by Slim Gaillard and Slam Stewart and Lyrics by Bud Green)

Blu-ray Image Quality – Gaumont brings us this brilliant Blu-ray release in a fantastic and beautiful 1080p image presentation and an equally brilliant 1.66:1 aspect ratio that really shows off this film as it should be seen in very natural colours, especially as it is a sort of “film noir” interpretation from the brilliant director Louis Malle and gives a very filmic look. The presentation manages to hold up here surprisingly well on this Blu-ray disc, and skin tones look very natural. The picture image is very clean and polished, and especially for the age of the film. Overall, Gaumont has done an absolutely fantastic job delivering this older catalogue title and especially fans of this film will be more than pleased with the result.

Blu-ray Audio Quality – Gaumont, gives us a choice of French: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Stereo Audio and English: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Stereo Audio experience. ‘ATLANTIC CITY’ is accompanied by the brilliant film composer Michel Legrand’s dynamic and at the same time, very melodic film score. The sound once again is very crisp and clear, plus there are no sudden drop outs in the dynamic activity of the film and predictably, the audio presentation is very good, with some subtle orchestral nuances to add to the atmosphere of this brilliant film. Clicks, pops, crackle, and background hiss you had with these old films, especially with the inferior DVD release, have been totally removed and the dialogue is stable and exceptionally easy to follow. So well done Gaumont for presenting us a really professional job with this brilliant Blu-ray disc.

Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:

Special Feature: Burt Lancaster: Ni Dieu, Ni Maïtre [2016] [1080p] [1.66:1 / 1.78:1] [21:01] This special feature is entitled in English as Burt Lancaster: Neither God, Neither Master. Before being a filmmaker, Jean-Claude Missiaen was a specialist in French detective novels, but now Jean-Claude Missiaen is a Film Director, and talks in great praise of the actor Burt Lancaster, especially as his character in the film ‘ATLANTIC CITY.’ Jean-Claude Missiaen talks a lot about the film ‘ATLANTIC CITY,’ and at the same time we gets lots of clips from the film, which relates to what Jean-Claude Missiaen is talking about. This special feature is brought to you by GAUMONT Video. It is all in French and without any English subtitles.

Special Feature: ‘ATLANTIC CITY’ Restauré [2016] [1080p] [1.66:1] [1:59] This special feature shows us the film ‘ATLANTIC CITY’ that has been now restored to 2016 standards via GAUMONT Video. So what we get to view are certain scenes from the film ‘ATLANTIC CITY’ to show the cleaned up version, compared to the original film. We also get a one still image from the film where a tear is soon, that was again cleaned up. There is no sound.

Finally, ‘ATLANTIC CITY’ [1980] lets us experience director Louis Malle’s personal ode to Atlantic City, a city in transition and little people with littler dreams served not only as a showcase for Burt Lancaster as a sad and lonely numbers runner in the rundown township, but also provided Susan Sarandon with her first Oscar nomination and of course not to mention the incredibly memorable opening sequence and I doubt anyone who sees it will be able to slice another lemon the same way again. Director Louis Malle offers up lowlife characters, but never seems to be judging them, allowing viewers to connect with them on our own individual terms. This definitely has a European cinema feel to it, despite its American setting, and carefully avoids a multitude of could have-been clichés within its storyline, drugs, casinos, mob bosses, running from hired killers. Even the “action” sequences feel somehow dreamlike and otherworldly, with the chase of scruffy dealer Robert Joy in the rotating car park is definitely a distinct highlight in the film. Kate Reid’s performance, as Burt Lancaster’s brassy and sassy downstairs neighbour and sometimes paramour, is another outstanding moments in this brilliant film. Very Highly Recommended!

Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom

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cornacchio roger

RAS

Reviewed in France on June 19, 2023

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RAS

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John

Small time crook played by burt lancaster gets lucky

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 1, 2022

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A young drug dealer played by Robert joy gets murdered. Burts character takes over the illegal drug dealing activities. He was always reminiscing about the good old days when he was a small time criminal. Now by a stroke of luck he is making lots of money and feels important again. A brilliant performance by burt lancaster. I really recommend this film.

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