Louis Malle, like his French New Wave counterparts Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, owed a great deal of his inspiration and talent to American film scenarios and filmmakers. All three of them paid tribute to the film noir tradition and the gangster genre but none was more successful at making the leap to English-language films than Malle. From his first features in the late 1950s until his absence from filmmaking in the mid-1970s, Malle was a visionary, combining Kubrick’s audacity and Fellini’s eroticism. In 1978, Malle switched gears (and languages) and made his first English film Pretty Baby, featuring Brooke Shields as a child prostitute. After that controversial release, he did six more films in English. Apart from the ill-conceived Crackers, My Dinner With Andre, Alamo Bay, Damage, and Vanya On 42nd Street were all lavishly praised by film critics. But none more so than his brilliant Eurocentric take on the gangster film, Atlantic City.
Apart from the incredible scope of his masterpiece Au Revoir, Les Enfants, Atlantic City is Malle’s best film. It features three remarkable performances by legend Burt Lancaster, a then unknown Susan Sarandon, and the under-appreciated Kate Reid. Lancaster had an annoying habit of appearing on screen as Burt Lancaster. Rarely did he step out of his own star shadow. The few times he has become the character, such as in Sweet Smell Of Success, Elmer Gantry and here in Atlantic City, he towers over other actors. Lancaster plays Lou, an umpteen-time loser whose mob glory days are decades behind him and now in his late-sixties, his hustling and numbers racket is in jeopardy and he no longer feels compelled to look after an aging beauty (Kate Reid) for whom he drives and makes love to at her convenience.
The revitalisation of Atlantic City as a gambling Mecca is unsettling for Lou and suddenly he finds himself in deep with nouveau mobsters (think grimier versions of Tony Soprano’s crew). Malle takes on familiar gangster themes, such as territory control, theft, and the old staple of popping your cherry by killing a man, and Lou gets to relive what must have been his youthful mob dreams late in life. Malle, who could have taken a cold approach to this familiar story, instead turns the genre on its head by taking the Godfather approach of celebrating people who are essentially criminals and exposing them for all of their faults. During the entire film, you cheer for Lou, not in the same way some cheer on Michael Corleone, but in a much more compassionate way. Malle’s finely-nuanced dialogue, combined with Lancaster’s world weary sensibility and Sarandon’s street smart sensuality, make for a film that sucks you in early until the final scenes when you are praying that these two will live happily ever after.
Atlantic City shows a low-level gangster, not unlike Al Pacino’s Donnie Brasco, except that Lou is not a has-been but a never-was. This is a thinking person’s flick and is neither blood-splattered nor special effects-loaded. It instead relies on tremendous acting strength in what was a small budget Canadian-French co-production. For 1981, however, it was the little movie that could, as it was nominated for all five major Academy awards. Atlantic City is a must for all film lovers.
