House of Games **** (1987, Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, J T Walsh) – Classic Movie Review 4004

American Pulitzer-prize winning playwright David Mamet makes a clever directorial début with his teasing 1987 thriller House of Games.

It stars his then wife Lindsay Crouse as control-freak psychiatrist Margaret Ford, who makes the mistake of deciding to help one of her patients, Billy Hahn (Steven Goldstein), get out of a life-threatening gambling debt. She is then sucked into helping a confidence racket at a bar where razor-sharp conman Mike (Joe Mantegna) runs poker games.

The performances of Crouse and Mantegna are commanding and extremely effective. But the main praise is for Mamet’s dazzlingly stylised dialogue and the camerawork of cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchía.

With its stings and scams, and grifters and con men, Mamet’s labyrinthine The Sting-style thriller yarn makes for sleek, smart, satisfying entertainment.

House of Games also has in the cast Mike Nussbaum, Lilia Skala, J T Walsh, Willo Hausman, Ricky Jay as George / Vegas Man, William H Macy and Meshach Taylor. It is Ricky Jay’s feature film debut and he re-appeared for Mamet in Things Change (1988), Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), State and Main (2000), Heist (2001) and Redbelt (2008).

Writer, director and producer Mamet was married to Crouse from 1977 to 1991, and then to Rebecca Pidgeon. He is known for The Untouchables (1987), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Hannibal (2001) and Heist (2001).

Ricky Jay, famed sleight of hand expert master magician and actor in Boogie Nights (1997), House of Games, Heist, Magnolia (1999) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), died on 24 November 2018, aged 70. He is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a playing card 190 feet at 90 miles an hour.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4004

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