The Only Game in Town (1970)

Man, this is one slow, talky movie.  A one-act play blown up into 2 hour movie- the story is very thin. Liz is a lonely 30-something showgirl - Warren Beatty a compulsive gambler & lounge singer. Both are unhappy and want to leave Las Vegas - but love conquers all.

The wordy script is made worse by the miscast leads. Taylor is too old/short to be a Las Vegas showgirl and sports a weird hairdo. Beatty is a bad fit for a world-weary piano player**. Neither is a good enough actor and there’s little charm or romantic chemistry. Unsurprisingly, it was a box-office bomb. To those under 30 it was an “old person’s movie.” The over 30 considered it “old hat” - or couldn’t buy glamorous Liz Taylor as a poor showgirl.

Direction? Not much is required. Its all talk, with 80% of it set in Liz’s apartment or Beatty’s piano bar. We get a few good external shots of Las Vegas, but most of the $11 million budget must have gone for salaries.

Worst Scene:  We get an incredibly fake “fishing on Lake Meade” sequence with Beatty on a Sound Stage holding a fishing pole against the rear projection of a lake.  Afterwards, we spend five minutes in a grocery store. Did Stevens think it was still 1938?

Summary: Stay away from The Only Game is Town - its for suckers. A boring two-character movie. Studio-bound, overlong, and underacted. One of Warren's worst.  Rating * 

**Sinatra (who had to drop out) makes more sense