Atlantic City (1980) on Netflix
Sally, a Saskatchewan waitress in Atlantic City, wants to become a blackjack dealer. Her estranged husband Dave brings a stolen bag of cocaine, and Lou, an aging gangster, agrees to sell it.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.3/1020,012 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dreams. Becoming an Atlantic City croupier will help Sally realize her dream of going to Monte Carlo, a symbol of the glamorous life that has been evading her since escaping from Saskatchewan a decade ago. Lou dreams that he was a great mobster in the old days. Grace came to Atlantic City for a Betty Grable look-alike contest and stayed to become the wife of a mobster. A brief visit to Atlantic City by Sally's estranged husband will change the course of the lives of Sally and Lou.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Atlantic City (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Louis Malle's backers handed him the money on condition that the film be shot before the end of 1979. Struggling to find a script in time, he took a story from playwright John Guare, suggested by his then girlfriend Susan Sarandon, who was Guare's friend.
- Atlantic City was nominated in all five of the biggest Academy Award categories, Picture, Director, Actor for Burt Lancaster, Actress for Susan Sarandon and Original Screenplay, and lost every one of them.
- At the 37th Venice International Film Festival the top prize was split: Malle's film took the Golden Lion in a tie with John Cassavetes' Gloria.
- Malle hired Michel Legrand to compose a score and Legrand delivered one, but the director then threw it out and used only music that exists in the characters' world, such as the aria "Casta Diva" from Bellini's Norma playing on Sarandon's tape player.
- Filming in the winter of 1979 caught Atlantic City at a vanishing moment: only the Resorts and Caesars casino hotels had opened, Bally's Park Place opened on 30 December as shooting ended, and most of the decaying old resorts and piers were demolished within a couple of years.
- The opening credits show the grand Traymore Hotel being blown up, as if the old boardwalk was making way for casinos. In fact the Traymore came down in 1972, four years before New Jersey's gambling referendum even passed.
- In 2003 the Library of Congress added Atlantic City to the National Film Registry, one of very few entries made mainly by other countries; it qualified because Paramount helped finance and make it through its division Famous Players Ltd.
