Clive Owen plays cards close to his chest in compelling ‘Croupier’ revisited after 25 years

June 6, 2025 by

Clive Owen and critic Stephen Farber discuss “Croupier” Wednesday night at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.

Writers are a bit like gamblers. They look for lucky breaks, they hope agents or editors will give their work a chance, they meet deadlines with a nervous mix of triumph and trepidation. Win, lose or break even, they keep taking the bet.

This comparison comes to life in “Croupier,” a British neo-noir directed by Mike Hodges and starring Clive Owen, which released in the US in 2000 and put Owen on the path to Hollywood stardom. The film screened Wednesday night at the Laemmle Royal, as part of the Anniversary Classics Series, with Owen in attendance.

Clive Owen plays it cool in the casino.

Owen plays Jack Manfred, a man in need of a job and a writer in search of material. He finds it amid the grit, stale glamour and greed at the Golden Lion casino in London – a job his cheerful grifter father Jack Sr. (Nicholas Ball) has secured for him. His dad likely has had more downs than ups in his business ventures, but breezily pretends to be a big success.

Night after night, cooly detached Jack sees people at their worst as he encounters shady players, sweaty addicts and sexy ladies. While we see him deal cards, we hear the voiceover of his novel in progress based on his observations at the casino – his inner monologue is reminiscent of the flashback VO recounted by screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) in “Sunset Boulevard” (Billy Wilder, 1950).

Gina McKee as Marion sits by her man, Jack (Clive Owen).

When not working, Jack is writing or sleeping, and friction grows with his supportive, supremely loyal, live-in girlfriend Marion (Gina McKee), a department-store security guard. She’s put off by the cynical tone of his book and by the main character who enjoys seeing people lose.

Though Jack says he cannot tolerate cheaters and claims he never gambles, he is a scribe on the sly, after all, and it’s not long before he performs some slick shuffling of his moral code – his risk-taking begins with entanglements that put his job on the line. He’s drawn to co-worker Bella (Kate Hardie) and flirts with a mysterious casino patron hailing from South Africa named Jani (Alex Kingston). “If you don’t call me, I’ll understand, but I hope that you do,” she informs him matter of factly, as she hands him her phone number.

Yani (Alex Kingston) does her femme fatale finest to lure Jack into a scheme.

Not surprisingly, this cig-puffing femme fatale leads Jack further down the road of debauchery, tempting him with a simple role in an inside-job robbery. Steely-eyed, laconic Jack exudes an enigmatic intensity and shows little to no emotion – except on the rare occasion when he completely loses control.

Fast paced with brisk editing and harsh, bleak lighting (nary a noir shadow here), “Croupier” is smart, engrossing, entertaining and laced with moments of dry humor.

Paul Mayersberg’s suspenseful script touches on sexual politics, class divisions, family dynamics, creating art, the duality of human nature and the randomness of existence. If the ending is slightly pat, it doesn’t spoil the story. Owen gives a fine performance as the unflinching anti-hero and his fellow cast members meet him every step of the way, each shining in their roles.

At Wednesday’s screening, critic Stephen Farber and veteran producer/marketing luminary Mike Kaplan introduced the film. Known for his ingenuity and dogged tenacity, Kaplan rescued “Croupier” from almost-certain obscurity. Released with virtually no promotion, the movie (which reportedly had a budget of £3 million) didn’t do well in England.


Director Mike Hodges (1932-2022) remarked at the time, “It wasn’t released. It escaped.” Hodges also directed “Get Carter” (1971), “Pulp” (1972), “Flash Gordon” (1980) and reunited with both Owen and Kaplan for 2003’s “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” He hoped “Croupier” would fare better in America if Kaplan got involved.

“It played for a week in London and it was gone,” said Kaplan. “It was a tragedy because it’s a great movie, but it wasn’t recognized as such … It had an amazing texture of violence with a lot of integrity. It’s technically perfect and it introduced Clive Owen to an international audience in a performance that’s unlike any other.”

Humphrey Bogart, shown here in 1940, was one of many actors’ names critics mentioned in their reviews of “Croupier.” Last year, in a TV miniseries, Owen played Sam Spade, one of Bogart’s most iconic roles.

So, Kaplan championed the film – coming up with a brilliant ad campaign highlighting major actors Owen had been compared to in critics’ reviews. The esteemed list included Humphrey Bogart, Richard Widmark, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, James Mason, Nicolas Cage, Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood. “It played at the Fairfax Theatre (now closed) for two weeks and ran at the Aero, which was a second-run theater at the time, for several months,” said Kaplan.

Farber summed up: “It turned out to be a tremendous success and everybody in Hollywood took notice.”

After the film, Owen talked with Farber. Already an established actor in England, Owen recalled that the script intrigued him, especially the dialogue, which was not naturalistic. “The combination of Mike Hodges who’s very specific, very noir, very grounded and Paul Mayersberg who’s very intellectual and abstract in some ways [results in] the scenes having a kind of heightened quality,” said Owen.

Farber asked him to talk about his co-stars. “It was a great cast Mike Hodges put together,” said Owen. “The actors embraced the non-naturalistic style of dialogue and when you’re all committed to it, then the thing can sing.”

Owen added that he loves noir and has returned to the genre over the course of his career, most recently playing Dashiell Hammett’s famous private detective in the “Monsieur Spade” TV miniseries, which ran last year on AMC.

Actress Gina McKee epitomizes the good-girl archetype.

During the audience Q&A, noted Los Angeles writer and publisher of artsmeme.com, Debra Levine asked Owen to share his thoughts about the three female characters and the actresses who played them. She pointed out, in classic noir, there’s a bombshell who brings the character down and, in this film, the women have different trajectories, especially Gina McKee’s character.

Owen responded: “I actually think all the women in their own way are very strong in this movie. They’re all very independent. When I look at it, I think it’s refreshing. I think they are really great parts for women. They’re interesting and they’re powerful women. I think, especially considering it was made 25 years ago, they’re really well written parts and were fun to play. They were all really good actresses as well.”

For him, he acknowledged, the film was a major gear change, radically shifting everything. Said Owen: “It’s something that stayed with me ever since.”

 

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Happy St. Pat’s! ‘Odd Man Out’ by Carol Reed is a great Irish drama and a great thriller

March 15, 2016 by

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

“Odd Man Out” (U.K.; 1947, Carol Reed).

Carol Reed’s 1947 British thriller “Odd Man Out” is one of the great suspense dramas and one of the great film noirs. It’s an Irish odyssey that wrings every drop of tension from its subject. It’s also a story of love and death that plunges you into deepest night, and cracks your heart as you watch it.

James Mason always considered Johnny his best performance,

James Mason always considered Johnny his best performance.

The film revolves around Irish revolutionary Johnny McQueen, played by James Mason in a near-perfect performance.

As the film follows its dying protagonist – shot during an I. R. A. bank robbery and desperately trying to make his way to safety while being hunted by both the police and his friends – it creates an indelible portrait of a city at night, populated by a gallery of unforgettable characters.

That city is Belfast, though it’s never named as such. It’s a metropolis torn into bloody fragments, yet also seething with humanity, humor, embattled faith, bloody conflict and mad poetry. The city is stunningly photographed in rich blacks and ivory whites by cinematographer Robert Krasker in nearly the same palette he and Reed later used for 1949’s “The Third Man.”

Mason’s Johnny is not a naturally violent outlaw, but an idealist who is simply trying to hold onto life. The wounded IRA man runs a gauntlet of terror, escaping from the bank where he was shot, wandering from place to place, from homes to bars to city scrapheaps, constantly a fugitive, sometimes helped, often recognized, safe only for fleeting moments.

Kathleen Ryan plays Johnny’s love interest.

Kathleen Ryan plays Johnny’s love interest.

Johnny’s main contacts are his lover Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), also loved by the stern police inspector (Denis O’Dea) on Johnny’s trail; the elderly, frail, art fancier Father Tom (W. G. Fay); and an opportunistic little man named Shell (F. J. McCormick), who lives in an attic with two fellow eccentrics – Robert Newton as the alcoholic painter Lukey, and Elwyn Brooke-Jones as the failed medical student Tober.

Johnny’s suffering keeps bringing out the best and the worst in the people he encounters. The first act of “Odd Man Out” is a near-Hitchcockian masterpiece of suspense. The final act hits a mixture of irony, poignancy and terror that few films reach.

Mason always considered Johnny his best performance, and it may well be – though other Mason performances are in the same class: Humbert Humbert in “Lolita,” Norman Maine in “A Star is Born,” Ed Avery in “Bigger Than Life,” Trigorin in “The Sea Gull” and Sir Randolph in “The Shooting Party.” McCormick’s Shell is a magnificent portrayal as well – beautifully restrained and sly, full of fallibility, weakness and a near-demonic will. You’ll never forget Shell even if you didn’t know or won’t remember this superb actor’s name.

The script, a gem, was adapted from his bestselling novel by F. L. Green, who was born in England and died (in 1949) in Belfast, and playwright R. C. Sherriff (“Journey’s End”). It was produced and directed by Reed, then at the peak of his powers as a filmmaker.

If you’ve never seen “Odd Man Out,” try to catch it this time: a great Irish drama and film noir, a great Carol Reed film and James Mason performance, and a great story of suffering and redemption, while running and hiding in Belfast, city of night.

Filed Under: Noir Stuff Tagged With: , ,

Film Noir File: Carol Reed’s ‘Odd Man Out’ is a great Irish drama and a great thriller

March 13, 2015 by

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Film Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard). All films without a new review have been covered previously and can be searched in the FNB archives (at right).

Pick of the Week

“Odd Man Out” (U.K.; 1947, Carol Reed). Tuesday, March 17, 8 p.m. (5 p.m.).

Carol Reed’s 1947 British thriller “Odd Man Out” is one of the great suspense dramas and one of the great film noirs. It’s an Irish odyssey that wrings every drop of tension from its subject. It’s also a story of love and death that plunges you into deepest night, and cracks your heart as you watch it.

James Mason always considered Johnny his best performance,

James Mason always considered Johnny his best performance.

The film revolves around Irish revolutionary Johnny McQueen, played by James Mason in a near-perfect performance.

As the film follows its dying protagonist – shot during an I. R. A. bank robbery and desperately trying to make his way to safety while being hunted by both the police and his friends – it creates an indelible portrait of a city at night, populated by a gallery of unforgettable characters.

That city is Belfast, though it’s never named as such. It’s a metropolis torn into bloody fragments, yet also seething with humanity, humor, embattled faith, bloody conflict and mad poetry. The city is stunningly photographed in rich blacks and ivory whites by cinematographer Robert Krasker in nearly the same palette he and Reed later used for 1949’s “The Third Man.”

Mason’s Johnny is not a naturally violent outlaw, but an idealist who is simply trying to hold onto life.  The wounded IRA man runs a gauntlet of terror, escaping from the bank where he was shot, wandering from place to place, from homes to bars to city scrapheaps, constantly a fugitive, sometimes helped, often recognized, safe only for fleeting moments.

Kathleen Ryan plays Johnny’s love interest.

Kathleen Ryan plays Johnny’s love interest.

Johnny’s main contacts are his lover Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), also loved by the stern police inspector (Denis O’Dea) on Johnny’s trail; the elderly, frail, art fancier Father Tom (W. G. Fay); and an opportunistic little man named Shell (F. J. McCormick), who lives in an attic with two fellow eccentrics – Robert Newton as the alcoholic painter Lukey, and Elwyn Brooke-Jones as the failed medical student Tober.

Johnny’s suffering keeps bringing out the best and the worst in the people he encounters. The first act of “Odd Man Out” is a near-Hitchcockian masterpiece of suspense. The final act hits a mixture of irony, poignancy and terror that few films reach.

Mason always considered Johnny his best performance, and it may well be – though other Mason performances are in the same class: Humbert Humbert in “Lolita,” Norman Maine in “A Star is Born,” Ed Avery in “Bigger Than Life,” Trigorin in “The Sea Gull” and Sir Randolph in “The Shooting Party.” McCormick’s Shell is a magnificent portrayal as well – beautifully restrained and sly, full of fallibility, weakness and a near-demonic will. You’ll never forget Shell even if you didn’t know or won’t remember this superb actor’s name.

The script, a gem, was adapted from his bestselling novel by F. L. Green, who was born in England and died (in 1949) in Belfast, and playwright R. C. Sherriff (“Journey’s End”). It was produced and directed by Reed, then at the peak of his powers as a filmmaker.

If you’ve never seen “Odd Man Out,” try to catch it this time: a great Irish drama and film noir, a great Carol Reed film and James Mason performance, and a great story of suffering and redemption, while running and hiding in Belfast, city of night.

Saturday, March 14

Killer's Kiss poster7 a.m. (4 a.m.): “Killer’s Kiss” (Stanley Kubrick, 1955).

8:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m.): “The Big Clock” (John Farrow, 1948).

12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “Dead End” (William Wyler, 1937).

2 a.m. (11 p.m.). “The Town that Dreaded Sundown” (Charles B. Pierce, 1976). Based on fact, this indie low-budget movie about a Texas serial killer influenced a host of less factual slasher movies later on. With Ben Johnson and Dawn Wells.

3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.): “In Cold Blood” (Richard Brooks, 1967).

Monday, March 16

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “Fury” (Fritz Lang, 1936).

11:45 a.m. (8:45 a.m.): “Saboteur” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942).

1:45 p.m. (10:45 a.m.) “The Wages of Fear” (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953). One of the greatest of all suspense films, this legendary French shocker is Clouzot’s nerve-rending account of four expatriate drivers trying to escape a horrible little South American backwater by driving two truckloads of nitroglycerin to a burning oil field over dangerous mountain roads.

A masterpiece of dark cynicism and blazing suspense, it’s even tenser and scarier than Clouzot’s more famous thriller “Diabolique.” The film boasts an incredible script (by Clouzot and Jerome Geronimi, from Georges Arnaud’s novel), amazing camerawork and razor-sharp editing. There’s also a fantastic cast: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter Van Eyck, Folco Lulli, Daniel Gelin and the director’s long-suffering wife, Vera Clouzot.

“You sit there, waiting for the theater to explode!” claimed the 1954 American theater ads, and they weren’t far wrong. William Friedkin’s 1977 remake “Sorcerer,” with Roy Scheider, though a fine, underrated film, pales by comparison. (French, with subtitles.)

Also available from Criterion in DVD and Blu-ray with a documentary as well as interviews with Montand and others.

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The Noir File: Six gems by the all-time master of suspense

November 17, 2012 by

By Michael Wilmington and Film Noir Blonde

The Noir File is FNB’s weekly guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir on cable TV. All the movies below are from the current schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

PICK OF THE WEEK

Six by Alfred Hitchcock (1941-59) Friday, Nov. 23, 6:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. (3:30 a.m.- 3 p.m.)

Hitchcock was the movies’ all-time master of suspense – the supreme chronicler of wrong men on the run and notorious ladies in distress, of psychos and vertigo, of scenic spy chases and excruciating murder scenes, of shadows and strangers and suspicion, and most of all, of expert suspense movies, pulse-pounding pictures that got you on the hook fast, and kept you there until the last minute.

He was also the master of film noir, as this six film mini-marathon of movies proves. Dating from the heyday of both Hitchcock and classic noir (1941 to 1959), they’re films that you may have seen before, but that are always welcome for a fresh viewing. Hitchcock was one of the most punctilious, painstaking and brilliantly inventive of all major movie artists and that’s why you can see these pictures over and over. While you’re in the mood, you’ll probably also want to catch the opening of the new movie “Hitchcock,” Sacha Gervasi’s bio-thriller about the making of “Psycho,” with Anthony Hopkins as the master of suspense himself.

Friday, Nov. 23, 6:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m.): “The Dick Cavett Show” (1972). Cavett interviews Hitch, for the release of “Frenzy.”

8 a.m. (5 a.m.): “Under Capricorn” (1949). In this somewhat stiff Australian-set period romance, Ingrid Bergman plays a reclusive alcoholic torn between bad-tempered husband Joseph Cotten and charming visitor Michael Wilding – with Margaret Leighton a scene-stealer as the obsessive housekeeper. One of the director’s rare commercial flops, “Under Capricorn” is still notable for its complex, long-take moving camera scenes (like the ones in “Rope”).

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “Strangers on a Train” (1951).

Vera Miles and Henry Fonda star in “The Wrong Man,” which is based on a true incident.

11:45 a.m. (8:45 a.m.) “The Wrong Man” (1956). Hitchcock takes a real-life episode –the arrest and conviction of New York musician Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda) for a robbery he didn’t commit – and squeezes out as much suspense as he does from his fictional thrillers. Co-scripted by playwright Maxwell Anderson; with Vera Miles and Harold J. Stone.

1:45 a.m. (10:45 a.m.): “North by Northwest” (1959). One of Hitchcock’s two great spy-chase thrillers (the other is “The 39 Steps”), “North by Northwest” follows a suave but beleaguered Manhattan advertising executive (Cary Grant), who’s mistaken for a spy who doesn’t exist, charged with a murder he didn’t commit, pursued by bad guys (James Mason, Martin Landau) whose machinations bewilder him. Oh and he’s involved with a blonde beauty (Eva Marie Saint) who may want him dead. And then there’s that pesky crop-dusting plane “dustin’ where there ain’t no crops.” One of the best, most typical and most beautifully made Hitchcocks. Ingeniously scripted by Ernest Lehman.

4:15 p.m. (1:15 p.m.): “Suspicion” (1941).

6 p.m. (3 p.m.): “Dial M for Murder” (1954).

Sunday, Nov. 18

2 p.m. (11 a.m.): “Casablanca” (1942, Michael Curtiz).

Tuesday, Nov. 20

4 p.m. (1 p.m.): “Bonjour Tristesse” (1957, Otto Preminger). Smooth as silk and cool as champagne, Preminger’s adaptation of the young French writer Françoise Sagan’s cynical novel, focuses on a brainy young belle (Jean Seberg), whose intense relationship with her playboy father (David Niven) is disrupted by his perceptive fiancée (Deborah Kerr) – a clash that leads to darker currents and conflicts. Seberg’s chilly performance here inspired her role several years later in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless.”

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