F-0164

Title:

House of Games

Category:

S

Produced:

1987

Country:

USA

Released:

Film: Oct 1987 (USA)
DVD: Dec 2000; Apr 2007 (14-DVD); Aug 2007
VHS: May 2001

Director:

David Mamet

Writer:

Jonathan Katz (story); David Mamet (story, screenplay)

Actors:

Lindsay Crouse (Margaret Ford); Joe Mantegna (Mike); Mike Nussbaum (Joey); Lilia Skala (Dr. Littauer); J.T. Walsh (The businessman); Willo Hausman (Girl with book); Karen Kohlhaas (Prison ward patient); Steven Goldstein (Billy Hahn); Jack Wallace (Bartender, House of Games); Ricky Jay (George / Vegas Man); G. Roy Levin (Poker player); Bob Lumbra (Poker player); Andy Potok (Poker player); Allen Soule (Poker player); Ben Blakeman (Bartender, Charlie's Tavern)

Description:

A famous psychologist, Margaret Ford, decides to try to help one of her patients get out of a gambling debt. She visits the bar where Mike, to whom the debt is owed, runs poker games. He convinces her to help him in a game: her assignment is to look for "tells", or give-away body language. What seems easy to her becomes much more complex. (John J. Magee)

David Mamet's 1987 directorial debut was this mesmerizing study of control and seduction between two kinds of detached observers: a gambler who is also a con artist, and a psychotherapist who is also an emerging pop-psych guru in the book market. The latter (played by Lindsay Crouse) meets the former (Joe Mantegna) when one of her clients is driven to despair from his debts to the card shark. Mantegna's character agrees to drop the IOUs in exchange for Crouse's attention at the seedy House of Games in Seattle, a mecca for con men to talk shop and hustle unsuspecting customers. The shrink gets so caught up in the arcane rules and world view of her guide over subsequent days that she observes--with no false rapture--various stings in progress inside and outside the club. Mamet's story finally becomes a fascinating study of two people protecting and extending their respective cosmologies the way rival predators fight for the same piece of turf. The psychological challenge is compelling; so is the stylized dialogue, with its pattern of pauses and hiccups and humming meter. Mostly shooting at night, Mamet also gave Seattle a different look from previous filmmakers, turning its familiar puddles into concentrations of liquid neon and poisonous noir. (Tom Keogh, Amazon.com)

Language:

English

TT:

102 min / 101 min (DVD, VHS)

Bach's Music:

Fugue from Toccata No. 2 in C minor, BWV 911
Warren Bernhardt (Piano)

Format:

Film: Color (DeLuxe)
DVD: (Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC, Region 1) | (PAL, Region 2) | (Color, Widescreen, NTSC, Region 1) | (14-DVD Box Set, NSTC, Region 1)
VHS: (Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC) | (PAL)
Video Download

Company:

Film: Filmhaus
DVD: MGM (Video & DVD); Criterion
VHS: Good Times Video
Video Download: MGM

Comments:

14-DVD Set includes: Ultimate Killer DVD Collection (Silence of the Lambs, Misery, Fargo (Special Edition), Manhunter, Hannibal (Special Edition), Kalifornia, Eye of the Needle, House of Games, Gangster No. 1, The January Man, Malice, Perfect Strangers, Special Effects and Dead Man Walking)

Watch selections:

Buy movie at:

DVD: Amazon.com | Amazon.com [Region 2] | Amazon.com | Amazon.com [14-DVD]
VHS: Amazon.com | Amazon.com [PAL]
Video Download: Amazon.com | Amazon.com

Source/Links: IMDB
Contributor: Aryeh Oron (November 2007)