Atlantic City (1980 film)

Atlantic City
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Louis Malle
Produced by	Denis Héroux John Kemeny
Written by	John Guare
Starring	Burt Lancaster Susan Sarandon
Music by	Michel Legrand
Cinematography	Richard Ciupka
Editing by	Suzanne Baron
Studio	Selta Films
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	September 3, 1980 (1980-09-03) (France) December 19, 1980 (1980-12-19) (Canada)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	Canada France
Language	English French
Budget	$7.2 million
Box office	$12,729,675

Atlantic City is a 1980 French-Canadian romantic crime film directed by Louis Malle. Filmed in late 1979, it was released in France and Germany in 1980 and in the United States in 1981. The script was written by John Guare. It stars Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Robert Joy, Hollis McLaren, Michel Piccoli, and Al Waxman.

Atlantic City is among the twenty-six films to be nominated for all "Top Five" Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay, and one of only six amidst this group to not take home a single award. It lost the Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay to Chariots of Fire, Best Director to Reds, and Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, who were nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress, lost to Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn in On Golden Pond.

Plot

The film tells the story of a young Canadian woman, Sally Matthews (Susan Sarandon), whose dream for a better life in the gambling business is interrupted by the return of her drug-dealing husband, whom she had left behind, and older Lou Pascal (Burt Lancaster), a longtime resident of Atlantic City. The film's story revolves around how their lives interact and change, both for the better.

Cast

• Burt Lancaster as Lou Pascal
• Susan Sarandon as Sally Matthews
• Kate Reid as Grace Pinza
• Robert Joy as Dave Matthews
• Hollis McLaren as Chrissie
• Michel Piccoli as Joseph
• Al Waxman as Alfie
• Robert Goulet as himself

The film features Wallace Shawn as a waiter in a restaurant; Malle's next film was My Dinner with Andre, where Shawn is waited on as a customer.

Production

Atlantic City was filmed on location in and around Atlantic City and South Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York. Although filmed in the United States, the film was a co-production between companies based in France and Canada. Aside from Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, and local extras, most of the cast originated from Canada or France. The film allowed Canadian actors such as Kate Reid and Al Waxman to successfully transition into American film and television roles.

The production companies alloted Louis Malle the money to make a film with the stipulation that it be made before the year 1979 ended. Malle had a difficult time finding the right script to direct and with time running out his then girlfriend Susan Sarandon suggested using a story written by her friend John Guare, a playwright most notable for his plays House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation. Guare suggested that the story take place in Atlantic City, which was still for the most part suffering from the urban deterioration that prompted the legalization of gambling as a solution to save the city. The three met over dinner in early 1979 to work out quirks in the script and began shooting within a few months.

Principal photography commenced on October 31, 1979 and moved swiftly along finishing by December 30, 1979 just in time for the end of the year (a few exterior and location shots were filmed until January 5, 1980). Malle filmed at an opportune time in that he was able to capture old Atlantic City: gambling was still in its early stages there, with only two casino hotels open (Resorts and Caesars; Bally's Park Place would open on December 30, toward the end of the principal photography). Most of the city's old resorts and entertainment piers were still standing, albeit in a severe state of disrepair. Within a couple of years of the filming, most of the these old hotels would fall victim to the wrecking ball as they were replaced with new casinos. To frame the picture, Malle foreshadows the great transition of the famous resort town in the opening credits by featuring footage of the implosion of the once-grand and historic Traymore Hotel on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

Louis Malle hired composer Michel Legrand to write a score for the film, which he did. In the end, however, Malle decided against using a score for the film, and opted for all the music in the film to be ambient: the only music used is that which exists in the world of the characters (i.e. radios, musical instruments, etc.).

Filming locations

The opening shot of the old Traymore Hotel being demolished is shown to convey the notion that the city's old hotels were being demolished to make way for the new casinos. However, the Traymore was in fact demolished in 1972, years before the gambling referendum passed in New Jersey. The referendum passed in 1976 and the first hotel to open up was Resorts, formerly the Chafonte-Haddon Hall, in 1978.

When Dave and Chrissie are seen hitchhiking into Atlantic City from Philadelphia, they pass a large model elephant on their way into town. The elephant, named Lucy, was a tourist attraction built in 1881 to lure potential land buyers to South Atlantic City (now called Margate), a small town south of Atlantic City. Left to deteriorate over the years, and on the brink of demolition in 1971, the residents of Margate raised the money to have it restored. Today, Lucy still stands in Margate and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The club where Dave and Lou meet was the famed Club Harlem which opened in 1935 on Kentucky Avenue, and was the premier nightclub for black tourists visiting Atlantic City. The club would open and close frequently from 1968 on, and eventually closed for good by the end of the eighties. It was torn down in 1992. Scenes were also shot in the Knife and Fork Restaurant, another famous Atlantic City landmark.

Awards

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1980 in a tie with John Cassavetes' Gloria.

Atlantic City was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Burt Lancaster), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Susan Sarandon), Best Director, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. In 2003, Atlantic City was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "Yes, it used to be beautiful -- what with the rackets, whoring, guns." - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Gangster Film

External links

• Atlantic City at the Internet Movie Database
• Atlantic City at Rotten Tomatoes
• Atlantic City at Box Office Mojo