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Play Jack Richardson. All Americans have always been gamblers, certain that nerve and
luck would see them through. Once upon a time Mr. Ewell may have
been a good bit younger, with fresh decks of cards and he may be
getting portly and beneath his fish-tank-green suit he still has
hope. And Mr. Ewell has, at the moment, one last mascot, an innocent
elderly lady who can, without thinking about it, make nineteen straight
passes in a dice game. With her at his side he is going to burn up
the town, make everyone rich, provide his daughter with the dental
care she's needed these long years and thereafter bask in the admiration
of all eyes. A slight hitch develops, philosophically and over honestly
dealt cards. Las Vegas is a carefully constructed paradise with creature
comforts of every obvious sort available to one and all. The desert
blooms with mechanical pleasures. But every comfort, the man who
runs the game warns, is designed as one more percentage point stacked
against the individual. As the pleasant little mascot begins to grasp
this nettling point, she starts to fret; and the moment she starts
to fret her luck runs out, taking Mr. Ewell's confidence with it.
Confidence is destroyed whenever an innocent learns what the odds
really are. In the end our hero is broke and full of self-doubt,
but then the gambling fever strikes his son. The dream has become
a nightmare, and the nightmare goes on. |