''The Only Game in Town'' is a 1970 American romantic comedy-drama film, the last directed by

George Stevens George Cooper Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Obituary '' Variety'', March 12, 1975, page 79. Films he produced were nominated for the Academy Award for ...

. It stars Elizabeth Taylor and

Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...

. The screenplay by Frank D. Gilroy is based on his play of the same name which had a brief run on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

in 1968.

Plot

Fran Walker (Dame Elizabeth Taylor) is an aging

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

chorus girl A chorus line is a large group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. Sometimes, singing is also performed. Chorus line dancers in Broadway musicals and revues have been referred to by slang terms su ...

. She has given her wealthy San Francisco, California-based married lover Tom Lockwood (Charles Braswell), who she has not seen in six months, ultimatum after ultimatum in leaving his wife, Fran always ending back in his arms, despite him not having succumbed to her ultimatum. Fran continually tells herself that Tom will one day come through, regardless of if she truly believes it. She, who wants to remain financially independent in asking and taking nothing from Tom in terms of financial support or lavish material gifts, only stays in Las Vegas out of inertia. Joe Grady (Warren Beatty) is a Las Vegas lounge pianist. Unlike Fran, Joe hates Las Vegas, and is trying to amass five thousand dollars, which he requires to set up a professional life as a pianist in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. While he outwardly states that he dabbles in gambling, he truly is an addict, he is going on the occasional gambling binge which has led to him not being able to save the money he needs to leave Las Vegas. Fran and Joe meet when she walks into Tony's, the bar where he works, for a late-night dinner. The two end up going home together that evening in their mutual attraction and in Fran's loneliness, and, able to get over their inherent differences in temperament, have what each believes will be a one-night stand. However, they end up having a no-strings relationship in each helping the other achieve his or her current life goals. This situation has the potential to fall apart either if one or the other is unable to fulfill the other's needs - Joe, who is supposed to stop Fran from falling back into Tom's arms if he doesn't come through, and Fran, who will keep and hide Joe's money so that he doesn't gamble it away until he reaches the five thousand dollar mark - or if one or the other ends up falling in love with the other.

Cast

* Elizabeth Taylor as Fran Walker *

as Joe Grady * Charles Braswell as Thomas Lockwood * Hank Henry as Tony *

Olga Valéry Olga may refer to: People and fictional characters * Olga (name), a given name, including a list of people and fictional characters named Olga or Olha * Michael Algar (born 1962), English singer also known as "Olga" Places Russia * Olga, Russ ...

as Hooker * Suzan E. Claude as Nurse (uncredited)

Production notes

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

paid $550,000 for the film rights before the play opened on Broadway, with Gilroy to get $150,000 to write the script.Nat Segaloff, ''Final Cuts: The Last Films of 50 Great Directors'', Bear Manor Media 2013 p 273-275 The play, starring

Tammy Grimes Tammy Lee Grimes (January 30, 1934 – October 30, 2016) was an American film and stage actress. Grimes won two Tony Awards in her career, the first for originating the role of Molly Tobin in the musical '' The Unsinkable Molly Brown'' and the ...

and

Barry Nelson Barry Nelson (born Robert Haakon Nielsen; April 16, 1917 – April 7, 2007) was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond. Early life Nelson was born in San Francisco, the son of Norwegian imm ...

, was not a success, running only sixteen performances. The play was profiled in the

William Goldman William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays '' ...

book '' The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway''. The film was budgeted at $11 million because of Taylor's insistence it be shot in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, so she could be near her then-husband

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable pe ...

, who was working on the film '' Staircase'' (1969) with Rex Harrison at the time. Stevens had previously directed Taylor twice with great success, in '' A Place in the Sun'' (1951) and ''

Giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...

'' (1956). Frank Sinatra originally signed to play Joe, but when Taylor became ill and filming was postponed, he had to drop out of the project to fulfill another commitment with Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and was replaced by Beatty. Screenwriter Gilroy's experience making the film inspired him to write and direct the film ''Once in Paris'' (1978), which focused on his chauffeur during the ''Only Game'' shoot. Gilroy was so fascinated by the man he cast the driver as himself. Director

Curtis Hanson Curtis Lee Hanson (March 24, 1945 – September 20, 2016) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His directing work included the psychological thriller '' The Hand That Rocks the Cradle'' (1992), the neo-noir crime film ''L. ...

did a reworking of this film with his film '' Lucky You'' (2007), which dealt with a professional gambler out to break the bank in Las Vegas. The reworking was in the adding of a female singer and the gambler's father entering the World Series of Poker where the story is set. The film starred

Eric Bana Eric Banadinović, (born 9 August 1968), known professionally as Eric Bana (), is an Australian actor and comedian. He began his career in the sketch comedy series '' Full Frontal'' before gaining notice in the comedy drama '' The Castle'' (19 ...

Drew Barrymore Drew Blythe Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, director, producer, talk show host and author. A member of the Barrymore family of actors, she is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a ...

and

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...

Reception

Box office

Opening in 1970 to mixed reviews, the film was a

box office bomb A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

. It became the last film for George Stevens, leading him to retire from directing altogether. According to Fox records the film required $19,300,000 in rentals to break even and by 11 December 1970 had made $4,525,000. In September 1970 the studio had lost $7,557,000 on the film.

Critical

In his March 5, 1970, review in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'',

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

stated, "Assigning tevens, Beatty, and Taylorto the film version of Frank D. Gilroy's small, sentimental, Broadway flop is rather like trying to outfit a leaky

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

rowboat for a celebrity cruise through the Greek islands. The result is a phenomenological disaster . . . Nothing in ''The Only Game in Town'' seems quite on the up and up. Everything, including both the humor and the pathos, is bogus." In an undated review, ''

Time Out London ''Time Out'' is a global magazine published by Time Out Group. ''Time Out'' started as a London-only publication in 1968 and has expanded its editorial recommendations to 328 cities in 58 countries worldwide. In 2012, the London edition becam ...

'' called it "a hoarily old-fashioned romantic comedy ...

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...

occasional moments of life injected by Taylor and Beatty." ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine LLC, in 2008. Corpora ...

'' said, in an undated review, "Although some of the dialog sparkles, in general,

he film He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

is overly talkly and thinly plotted, a programmer dressed up in ermine."

Staff writer In journalism, a staff writer byline indicates that the author of the article is an employee of the periodical, as opposed to being an independent freelance writer. In Britain, staff writers may work in the office instead of traveling to cover a b ...

(undated).
"''The Only Game In Town'': Review"
''

''. Retrieved March 23, 2011.

References

External links

* * * * *
archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Only Game In Town, The 1970 films 1970 comedy-drama films 1970 romantic drama films 1970s romantic comedy-drama films 20th Century Fox films American films based on plays American romantic comedy-drama films Films directed by George Stevens Films scored by Maurice Jarre Films set in the Las Vegas Valley Films shot in Paris Gambling films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films