Re-posting Mike's look at this crisp, efficient Columbia B-noir with A-list leads (Dane Clark and Cathy O'Donnell). Director Ralph Murphy was a veteran B-movie director, with years and years of prior experience at Paramount. Clark and O'Donnell were boxed in by real-life changes in the industry in a manner analogous to their respective characters in NEVER TRUST A GAMBLER, which is still available on YouTube:





Summary: Gambler Dane Clark hides out with his ex-wife

"Never Trust a Gambler" (1951) is a noir. While not judged a classic by critics, it is certainly very worthwhile. TCM has shown it, and a copy is now available on YouTube taped from TCM.

The visual style is noir now and then but not pervasively. The climactic sequence on a shipping crane is excellent. That kind of exterior on-location setting, often industrial or commercial, as in the ending to White Heat is a fairly frequent occurrence in noir films.

The story-telling here is methodical and logical, building up the entrapment of the main characters. Cathy O'Donnell is boxed in by her ex-husband Dane Clark. He's on the run and convinces her to shelter him. They are both boxed in via the manslaughter of Rhys Williams and the persistent inquiry of detective Tom Drake. Drake's sympathy for O'Donnell might just be entrapping him,, or so his partner Jeff Corey observes. Can O'Donnell trust her gambler ex-hubby? The title suggests that she shouldn't, but he seems to have all the answers.